User:TheLongTone/Mulliner Knyplane

The Knyplane was an early British experimental tractor monoplane designd by E.Cecil Kny for H. J. Mulliner & Co. only one was built, and no record exists of it having flown. It was exhibited at the TheLongTone/1911 Olypmpia Aero Show|1911 Olypmpia Aero Show

Development
The Knyplane was the second aircraft built by H. J. Mulliner & Co, who were a firm of coachbuilders who later became known for their bodies for Rolls-Royce, and was designed by E. Cecil Kny, the manager of their works in Clapham. The novel feature of this aircraft were its wings, which had a mechanism for varying the angle of incidence and camber while the aircraft was in flight. The wings were pivoted about the mainspar, the angle being changed by roller-chains running over a pair of sprockets mounted on the fuselage. Since the forward anchorage of the chains were further away from the pivot point, increasing the angle of incidence also increased the camber of the wings, this effect being augmented by a linkage connected to the undercarriage. The wing spar was braced by wires running over mid-span kingposts. The aircraft as shown at Olympia appears to have no other wires taking the wings flight loads. . The aircraft was beautifully finished, with a boatlike D-section wooden-skinned fuselage and an aluminium cowling for the E.N.V. water cooled engine, which drove a Normale propeller finished off with a polished aluminium spinner. It had a very elongated trianglar tailplane with a trailing edge elevator and fixed fin, with a cruciform rudder and elevator unit pivoting on a universal joint. The undercarriage was of welded steel, with two wheels mounted on sprung trailing arms and a single central skid extending forwards.

Exhibited at the 1911 Olympia show. Kny went on to design the DFW Mars in Germany. When William Beardmore & Co acquired the rights to build D.F.W. aircraft he returned to Britain <