AVIATION PIONEERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXIV, Issue 19365, 1 July 1937, Page 12

AVIATION PIONEERS

SOME EARLY EXPLOITS ; EXPERIMENTS IN N.Z. It was a happy thought that led the Minister of Transport, the Hon. R. Semple, to call recently on Mr. A. W. ScKaef, whose exploits in aviation go back so many years that only some Wellington people remember the sttange doings among the sandhills of what is now the Rongotai aerodrome, 27 years ago. Mr. Schaef built his machine and, wiffi Mr. D. P. Fisher, did more in thaffi. between them they worked miracles with their first engine, a 14 obviously, after the first trials were mhde—and 'they endeavoured to pep it up3By fitting larger cylinders. The crankshaft smashed and there was long delay while material for a new shift was brought over from Sydney; a new Shaft was made, but for all the fine hand workmanship and ingenuity the plane would not fly. Remarkable Plane It was a monoplane, of the Bleriot type, and it was a very remarkable plane indeed, in that it embodied an idea of Mr. Schaef’s, to be forgotten and reintroduced as new in very recerit years—the flap, or air brake. It is not .possible to say definitely without- much research whether this was thC first application of the air-brake principle, but it is probable that this

was so. . Mr. Schaef and Mr. Fisher dissolved partnership after' a time, and the Lyall Bay pioneer rebuilt his wings and open fuselage and fitted to them a 30-h.p. Anzani radial engine, threecylindered, in “Y" Pattern. Long trials and tribulations were suffered at Lyall Bay in 1912 and 1913, and the plane did fly, but never at any great height, nor for anything like the full length of the beach. More Pioneering- Work More pioneering work was done with it, for floats were fitted —again very early in the day—and attempts were made at Shelly Bay, but there was trouble there on every trial, for the plane sat low on the water and each wavelet threatened disaster to the propeller, whose tips were badly knocked about. The Wanganui River offered smoother going, and the float plane was taken there and was the centre piece of a grand river carnival, but it refused to lift from the water. Its end came in a burst of flames in the hangar. To its building and rebuilding much money had gone and Mr. Schaef unwillingly gave aviation best. Meanwhile Mr. Fisher had built a plane of his own to the original 14 h.p. J.A.P. (so engineered as to be original only in name and reputation), and this machine flew at Pigeon Bush