General History


Personal History

Walter Brock was an American that learned to fly in England in 1912.  He quickly moved on to becoming a flight instructor and became the first pilot to deliberately take off in winds of gale strength.  Flying aircraft owned by Graham White, Brock became a famous pre-war racing pilot by winning races all over the European continent until the beginning of World War I.  The most famous and prestigious race he won was on July 11, 1914 from London to Paris.  The aircraft he flew was a Morane-Saulnier H-type monoplane powered by an 80 hp Gnome rotary engine. This was a French design built by the Graham-White Company in 1914. 

With parts of his racer, he left England for America by ship the day after England entered World War I.  The British government recently issued an order stating that, “Due to the war, all aircraft should be impounded and their owners duly compensated”.  It is understandable that Brock might not want to leave his famous aircraft in England to be possibly destroyed for the 'British Cause'.

In 1916, using the parts he brought back with him, Brock built this aircraft using a smaller 50 hp Gnome engine.  How much of the racer he brought back is speculation.  This aircraft has almost the same lines as the 1914 racing aircraft, but is about 3' shorter.  Was the fuselage cut down to ship home because of a size issue?  By renaming it the Brock monoplane, he may very well have been covering for his friends back in England that helped him get the aircraft out of the country.  Why the engine was not shipped is anybody’s guess.  Would it have been too obvious?  Or, did he feel that he could save on shipping and get one in the U.S., which we did!  How much of the original aircraft is in this airplane is anybody’s guess.  One has to speculate that, if he brought back parts with the intention of building up another (or the same) airplane, he would have brought back the components that would be difficult to remake.  We may one day learn more when the aircraft is restored back to flying condition.

Kermit Comment

This aircraft has no ailerons to make the aircraft roll.  It uses the wing-warping technique, like a bird that actually twists one wing up while the other wing goes down! 

As with all rotary engines, the propeller is bolted to the engine and they spin as one unit.  Fuel is feed in through the fixed crankshaft where it enters the crankcase and is atomized by the hot moving parts.  On any engine, inlet valves open to allow the fuel mixture to enter the cylinders.  After the inlet valve closes, the fuel is ignited by the sparking plugs where the resulting explosion creates the engines power.  Unique to the 50 hp Gnome is the fact that its' inlet valves are located in the top of the pistons, not in the cylinders as most engines.  Because of this, carbon accumulates on valves and the engine must be torn down and the valves cleaned every 10 hours of running time!