BRIEFING FILE: Geodetics - The construction technique best-known for its use on the Wellington
Most famously used in the Vickers Wellington bomber, geodetic airframe construction was a remarkable method. The term ‘geodetics’ originates withthe global earthmeasuring concept ‘geodesy’, adopted due to the related spiral ‘wrapping’ lines evident in boththreedimensional systems. Its earliest aeronautical employment seems to have been a 1911 Schütte-Lanz rigid airship, followed by 1924’s sole Latécoère 6 four-engine French biplane bomber.
After the closure of the British airship programme, Barnes Wallis said, “I transferred to aeroplanes. At that time their structure consisted of a rectangular skeletal framework, the outer skin being doped fabric supported on a complicated and otherwise useless wooden framework shaped to produce a streamlined form, but withthe disadvantage of adding considerably to the weight of the basic structure.
“With the knowledge of geodesics gained from the gasbags of R100 in my mind, it occurred to me that I could not only abolish the wooden falsework, but could at the same time enlarge the internal skeletal structure to full streamline dimensions, by forming its members as geodesi…
