Amerden Farm
Note: This map only gives a rough location within the UK.
AMERDEN FARM: Early experimental site
Although not strictly speaking a 'flying site' I think it is very important to include such places in this 'Guide'.
I am much indebted to Richard Poad, the Chairman of the Maidenhead Heritage Centre, for this information. I shall quote from his notes that he very kindly sent me regarding George Louis Outran Davidson (1858 - 1939). It clearly shows an amazingly cognizant view he had of the future potential of aviation.
"In an 1898 lecture 'The Flying Machines of the Future' Davidson argued that such a machine must combine mechanical power required for lift , with gliding techniques when airborne. He predicted the aeroplane's role in war, describing 'a terrible engine of destruction in the hands of the unscrupulous, dropping dynamite from the clouds upon our enemies'."
"He foresaw the role of civil aviation, arguing that aircraft had to be very big, taking off from large depots sited with convenient distances of London and other centres, where ocean-going air cars would start their journey. He predicted that travelling time between London and New York would become a matter of hours instead of days, and that Chicago to New York would take three hours."
So why is this man not hailed today, in the UK, as a national hero?
His ideas around aeroplane design were less successful. "He experimented with gliders, then.....concentrating on 'gyrocopters'. The first (1897) was a high wing monoplane with 22 six feet propellers set on vertical axes in the wings, carrying 20 passengers in a double deck fuselage."
A second version was revived in 1906 when Davidson was in Colorado, in the U.S.A. It appears the, "Centre section was completed with its rotary lifters, but suffered mishaps in testing in May 1908. No further progress."
"Davidson returned to Britain and began to build a full scale gyrocopter at Amerden Farm, Taplow. This had three pairs of bi-plane wings, (my note, presumaby mounted in sequence along the fuselage?), with huge multi-bladed rotors between the wings. Project abandoned in 1911 due lack of finance."
Clearly, if the decription is correct, the wings above and below would have reduced the rotor effect to nigh on zero lift. Just creating massive turbulence, and not much else.
Richard Poad points out that a model of the Taplow Gyrocopter was exhibited at Olympia, (My note: LONDON), in 1911 and still exists. "It is the property of RAeS, stored at Science Museum, Wroughton."
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