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Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane

aircraft model

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General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionMar 21, 2026
Entity authorityQ4687995 ↗
Source-derived summary

The Aerial Wheel Monoplane was an experimental British aircraft built during 1912 in order to compete in the Military Aeroplane Competition which was to be held at Larkhill on Salisbury Plain in August of that year. It was not assembled in time, and the aircraft was not allowed to enter the competition.

The Aerial Wheel

The Aerial Wheel was the brainchild of George Sturgess of Mablethorpe, Lincolnshire. It was a novel idea for the undercarriage of an aircraft, which Flight magazine had thought interesting enough to publish. Sturgess's explanation, accompanied by a photograph of a model appears in the issue dated 10 Dec 1910. His idea was in effect a wheel where only the rim revolves, using a pair of twelve-foot diameter hoops each of which would be free to rotate while being held in place by bearings mounted on a cradle of struts. The wing passed through the middle of the wheels. The intention was to produce a wheel that, having a large diameter, would easily roll over the rough grass surfaces that aircraft operated from at the time: ease of take off and landing from rough ground were prominent among the War Office requirements. Whatever the merits of the idea, it was far beyond the manufacturing and material technologies of the day.

The Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane

Sturgess's idea was incorporated into an aircraft built in Birmingham in collaboration with Ralph Platts, a keen member of the Birmingham Aero club who had successfully flown a canard glider of his own design during 1911.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane” as aircraft model. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1912, 1910, 1911—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Aerial, Wheel and Syndicate can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as aircraft model. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Mar 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q4687995. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1912, 1910 and 1911.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

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The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane primary sources, Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane archive and Aerial research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane”?
  2. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
  3. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
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Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “Aerial Wheel Syndicate Monoplane” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.