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In 1915, a French Morane Saulnier singleseater appeared at the front,
shooting down 5 German aircraft in only 18 days. This event was spreading
panic and fear among the Germans and instructions was given to avoid
French singleseaters if ever possible. Only after the capture of the pilot
and his aircraft on April 18, the Germans was able to
reveal the secret of his weapon. The pilot was no other than the famous
French daredevil Roland Garros, who rose to fame already in the years of
1911-1913.
In 1911, Garros pushed his Blériot to an altitude of 3910 m, setting a new world
record. At the beginning of 1912 he saved the well paid flight competition
of Anjou as he started to fly the required distance of 156 km despite of
stormy weather conditions. In December of 1911, he started in Tunis to
land on the island of Sicily after a flight of 230 km over nothing but
water. This was his final test flight before the most challenging event in
his life: The flight accross the Mediterranian Sea.
His plan: Starting from the Riviera and flying along the islands of
Corsica and Sardinia to land in North-Africa. Distance: 800km to fly in an
open monocoque! His Morane Saulnier's maximum speed was about 100km/h but
the Gnôme rotary engine was a fuel and oil eater. The 250 liter of fuel
in the tank lasted for a maximal flying time of 8 hours. Garros
optimistically calculated an expected flying time of 6 1/2 hours.
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The rescue equippment of his aircraft was laughable, compared to todays
standart. He took a life preserver with him and a fishing pole with a red
pennant on it. Despite of French Navy ships patrolling the aera, his
chances to be found after ditching was bad. In the summer of 1911,
Lieutenant Bague had already vanished on a flight from Nizza to Corsica. Weeks
later, fisherman pulled a bottlepost out of their net containing the
following message: "The cause of my death was a carburator
fire."
Starting from the coast near St. Raphael in the morning of September 23,
1913, Garros set course to Tunis. But soon his plan seemed to be doomed to
fail. Suddenly his machine began to shake and in his cowling appeared a
hole. The wind blew drops of motoroil in his face. The rotary Gnôme had
lost something, that was certain, but Garros couldn't determine what it
was. Wondering why the engine kept on running he continued his flight. That
was the moment where Garros' defiance prevailed over reason. Instead of
landing at Corsica he continued his flight. Sardinia he also passed and
nearly 8 hours after the start he landed safely in Biserta. Later he said
some kind of a mystery force was driving him accross the sea.
After Garros had landed, the reason for his engine problem was detected. A
valve spring was broken, its pieces smashing a hole into the cowling. Being already one hour late because of heavy
headwinds Garros encountered over the far South of Sicily, he had to make a last decision wether to continue
flying or not, . But
he kept on flying - and flew to eternal fame. After his landing only 5
liters of fuel was left in his tank.
Being in Germany to perform demonstration flights at the
time WW1 broke out, he was worried to be arrested by the Germans.
Abandoning his belongings, Garros took the first train to Switzerland from
where he travelled to Paris, offering his services as an aviator to the
French Air Service. Along with other pre-war daredevils he was assigned to
MS23, a unit flying early Morane monoplanes. Garros wasn't the first man who had the idea to use his entire
aircraft to aim at a target and shoot through the running propeller but he
was the first one to take profit out of this idea. In the winter of
1914/15 he and his mechanic ran
tests where they detected that only every tenth or so bullet in fact hit the
propeller while the rest of the bullets passed through. To protect the propeller they developed a deflector system.
Specially designed wegdes was fixed at the propeller blades to deflect
bullets hitting the blade. The wedges were angled to avoid the bullets flying back and hit
the pilot. Finally, in the Spring of 1915 the day had come where Garros took
to the air with his new weapon, searching for a suitable target. He found
this target in a lone Albatross Two-Seater. Approaching the enemy from
behind was a tactic that confused the German observer. As Garros fired at
the Albatross, the observer fought back with a carabine but was left
without a chance. The enemy aircraft burst into flames and crashed.
Garros, horrified by what had happened later reported: "I gazed
below me for a long time to convince myself that it was not a
nightmare".
Within 18 days Garros succeed in shooting down 5 German aircraft in
4 aerial fights.
But on April 18th luck had left Garros as he was forced to crash-land
behind German lines. It is not known for sure today wether the reason for
his forced landing was a severed fuel line, hit by a German bullet fired
from the ground, or if it was a technical problem with his engine.
Before he could burn his
aircraft, German
soldiers took him prisoner. His precious invention had fallen into the hands of the enemy.
The Morane was captured and send to Anthony Fokker who was asked by the German Air Service
to duplicate Garros' invention. Instead of duplicating, Fokker passed it on
to his engineer Lübbe who developed a system called the Interruptor Gear. Fokker
himself later claimed that the idea for the interruptor gear came with a flash
of inspiration. More likely, however, is the fact that the Garman Air
Service provided Fokker with the details of a synchronisation system
patented by LVG engineer Franz Schneider already in 1913. Lübbe basically used the system
developed and patented by Franz Schneider in 1913, where the crankshaft of the engine was
used to steer the shooting cadence of the machine gun. Because of the end of the
crankshaft being directly fixed to the propeller, the revolutions of both parts was
identical, providing a fixed valor for each position of the propeller blades.
Lübbe then modified and improved Schneiders system.
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