Scratch-built 1/72 Gallaudet A-1 Bullet

by Gabriel Stern

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Bullets for sure travel fast, but usually don’t land successfully.
There were many racers to which that particular name was given, and this is one of them, a bullet with a three-blade propeller in the rear. Some say it was fast because it didn’t want to get caught by its own prop.
The Gallaudet A-1 Bullet was a design especially made for the 1912 Gordon Bennett race but unfortunately crashed in a practice flight and was later a victim of lengthy discussions and diverse criteria on how to modify it.  It didn’t make it to the race.

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In any case it was a fairly simple, although intelligent design, complicated only by its control system that was apparently the cause of its sudden demise before it could show its worth.
A rotary engine was located in the front of the fuselage and a transmission carried the power to the pusher prop. This configuration was also present in the Tatin Aero Torpille of 1911 (which I modeled a time ago:
http://www.internetmodeler.com/2007/june/aviation/tatin.php ) and the Borel Torpille.
Of 1913.
Fast for its time, clean looking in a way given the time period, when you could barely discern a plane from the maze of wires, flying surfaces, controls and engines.  It had all-flying pivoting tail surfaces, and they were very small compared to the area of the wing.

If you are thinking of going scratch, this is the kind of endeavor you should pursue. The basic structure as seen in the accompanying photos was built in 2 hours. 78 more were previously spent in research, and 42 in finishing, not bad for a thing that can fit into your pocket. Just kidding.
The necessary data came mainly from one of Bill Hannan’s lovely publications ("GBs and Gee Bees") and from contributions at the Wings of Peace forum -in the form of rolling eyes, suffocated laughter and suggestions to dedicate my time to collecting pre-historic Finnish scissors. Well, they also helped me with information :-)
Again, this was 1912, so a heck of a design for the time. It could pass today for a coffee maker or a cheese grater on a shelf at a fancy-schmancy design store.

Gabriel

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Photos and text © by Gabriel Stern