Crouch-Bolas Light Transport Project

Hesham: nice find.

Pometablava: Crouch-Bolas doesn't sound great in English either. But their STOL Dragonfly design was impressive. http://www.aerofiles.com/crouchbolas.jpg

Harold Bolas was, of course, better known for his work for Parnall.

Has anyone access to an image of either of the Crouch-Bolas Dragon Type IV engine variants?
 
Thanks a lot for the info and pic, Apophenia. From it I googled and found more about Harold Bolas work. Very interesting.

regards,
Antonio
 
Gentlemen, may I also refer to an excellent 10page article in
Air Enthusiast No.103 of Jan/Feb 2003.
'The Bolas Touch-A British designer and his aspirations' by Ken Wixey
 
Thanks a lot Lark, I think I have a copy of AE103 at home. I'll take a look later at home.
 
Gentlemen, in Aerofiles http://aerofiles.com/_cl.html is written that Dragonfly is two-engine aircraft and has counter-rotating props. But in both photos is seen only one engine and one usual 2-blade prop. Could you explain this disconcordance?
 
The Crouch-Bolas Dragonfly was a testbed-aircraft for
ultra slow flying and opererations in the STOL mode.
The plane was several times re-engined and rebuilt.
The airframe was completed in 1933 and the two oppositely rotating Dragon IV-G's
were pre-flight tested.Later Menasco B4 engines were acquired because one of the
Dragon engines broke down after 40h running.
The Dragonfly became airborne during a test in April 1934 after a roll of only 15m.

The slipstream covered almost 70% of the wing surface and the biplane configuration was chosen
with 2 engines for optimal STOL effect.

So far the abrieved text from the article mentioned.

The photo from Aerofiles is a bit misleading beaucause of the angle it was taken.
 
burunduk said:
Gentlemen, in Aerofiles http://aerofiles.com/_cl.html is written that Dragonfly is two-engine aircraft and has counter-rotating props. But in both photos is seen only one engine and one usual 2-blade prop. Could you explain this disconcordance?
Click to expand...

The Dragonfly had twin, wing-mounted engines (the only form it was flown in). Props were contra-rotating only in the sense that the engines were 'handed' with the propellers turning in opposite directions.

Both Aerofile photos ( http://aerofiles.com/crouchbolas.jpg and http://aerofiles.com/crouch.jpg ) show the Dragonfly in the above configuration although only the starboard or port engine/prop are visible in either image.
 
lark, Apophenia, thank you.

Really there are two engines! :eek:
 
Re: Crouch-Bolas light transport projects

Hi,


it was Crouch-Bolas B-40 light transport project,here is the B-37 high
speed transport monoplane project,powered by single engine driven
two propellers.


http://crimso.msk.ru/Site/Crafts/Craft21822.htm
 

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Thanks gentlemans to recall this old thread.
The Dragonfly looks incredible and the Bolas B-37 is very interesting.

That surname!!! The title of article on Air Enthusiast sounds funny: "The Bolas Touch"
 
The test pilot on the Dragonfly withdrew from the project when Otto Koppen (famous MIT prof and Helioplane designer) pointed out to him that an engine failure at low altitude and speed (depriving one side of wing blowing) would be instantly disasterous. Kind of a cool plane, otherwise.
 
Can I ask,if there are also B-38 and B-39 or not ?.
 
I tinkered under Paint a photo taken from a book on two pages (and probably appeared in a group of this site) to try to give the full dimension of this lovely and adorable little twin-engine biplane.
 

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