Talk:Royal Aircraft Factory F.E.9

Sesquiplane?

There may be the odd case of a modern aeroplane with a wing layout like this being called a "sesquiplane" - but I have never seen a pre-thirties aeroplane called a sesquiplane unless the lower wing was of narrower chord. Even then, the distinguishing feature was usually considered to be the single spar structure of the lower wing of a "true" sesquiplane. The S.E.5b, for instance, is often described as "not a true sesquiplane" because the lower wing, while a good deal narrower, had a similar two spar structure to the top one. Other contemporary types with long "overhangs" on the upper wing, such as the R.E.8 (I could list a great many more, as I'm sure you could yourself) were certainly never referred to as sesquiplanes at the time. By all means prove me wrong - I love to learn new stuff at my age!! But an actual "print" example, please! On principle I don't think we should use a term like this is any but the sense it was used at the time. --Soundofmusicals (talk) 08:57, 10 January 2019 (UTC)

• Cambridge Aerospace dictionary by Bill Gunston, (2009), p.606 - sesquiplane - "Biplane whose lower wing has less than half area of upper".

If we dig through the list of aircraft categorized as sesquiplanes, I am sure there are some with the same chord top and bottom, such as the early Caudrons. It isn't very efficient aerodynamically, but it has been done. - NiD.29 (talk) 06:13, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Definitely not worth a full-scale wiki war over! - I have a feeling the definition has differed over time, actually - but the word had a very specific meaning a hundred years ago - and I really don't like its use in a looser sense, especially for an aircraft that was not referred to as a sesquiplane when it came out (more an English language thing than an aerodynamic one, to be perfectly honest). I can find no record of the French ever classing those Caudrons (or, for instance, the various models of contemporary Farmans with long overhangs) as "sesquiplanes" - and since the "day of the biplane" has long passed... Never mind, I suppose I am being a bit pedantic here - at least for a category heading I suppose we can let this one go... --Soundofmusicals (talk) 23:26, 11 January 2019 (UTC)

Just a thought - but if we only used historic terms in their historic sense then we wouldn't call the Camel or the S.E or the Nieuport - not to mention the Fokker D.VII "Fighters" - because the term for single seat fighters in those days was "Scout". Not quite the same thing - but get things in proportion!. --WWIReferences (talk) 04:44, 12 January 2019 (UTC)

I suspect the confusion stems from the fact that the vast majority of sesquiplanes have narrow chord lower wings and so the popular definition got narrowed - we had a similar discussion regarding pushers in which an editor was convinced pusher related to the location of the engine(s) rather than their orientation because he misinterpreted his prof's notes (fortuitously uploaded by someone onto a Russian books site) and what fun it was to track those down and get the second omitted part of his truncated definition. - NiD.29 (talk) 17:00, 12 January 2019 (UTC)