THE FRENCH TRIALS OF SUBSIDIZED VEHICLES.
Page 15
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The Vehicles Entered. Preliminary Inspections. Tests on the First Day.
1 T cannot be said that the number of competitors who have entered for the French military trials of heavy vehicles and tractors is quite up to expectations, and it is. doubtless in some measure due to the impossibility which some manufacturers have experienced of complying with the whole of the regulations necessary to permit of their taking pant.• The weighing operations, together with Checking over specifications, took place on November 28th and 29th at the Sartory Camp, about a mile and a half from Versailles, more than half the distance being a fairly stiff gradient to the vehicle park. The head of the commission is .General Vilmet, InspectorGeneral of Automobile Transport and Material, whilst the Ministry of Agriculture is represented by M. Rilgenham. The whole of the inspection, as well as the control of the tests, is in the hands of officers, and throughout each journey at least two are on beard as observers.
The list of vehicles which have been duly passed as eligible for the trials is as follows :
Class 1.—Lorries, 71 tons.
1, Berliet; 2, Berliet; 3, Dewald; 4, Dewald; 5, Renault; 6, Renault.
Class 2.—Tractors to haul loads of 15 tons.
21, Renault; 22, Renault.
Class 3.—Tractors to haul loads CI 20 tons.
7, Blum-Latil; 8, Blum-Latil; 9, Renault ; 10, Renault. Class 5.—Heavy, Agricultural Tractors.
11, Blum-Latil; 12, Blum-Latil; 13, Reoault; 14, Renault; 15, SchneiderPavesi; 16, Schneider-Pavesi; 17, Peugeot; 18, Peugeot.
Beyond the weighing operations, total empty and loaded, and front and rear
axle loads., he and t lengthy checking over of all tools and spares, as well as taking the dimensions of endless details for verification, certain minor manceuvres took place at the Sartory Camp, such as loading and unloading small caterpillars on to and off lorries, which, naturally, did net create much impressioh, or cause any present to forget that the thermometer was at several degrees below zero.
On Wednesday, November 34th, the first trials outside the camp began at 7.30 a.rn., the two Bethel, lorries being the first to set forth, followed at inter-. vals of two minutes by the other lorries and tractors, in consecutive order as numbered up to 10 in the list. the, two Renault tractors, Nos. 21 and 22, coming cut from the park at 7.40. The remainder followed on at regular intervals up -to 8.15 a.m.
On this, the first day, all the engines were running on petrol, and the same fuel was also used exclusively on Deem-. her 1st. Various courses have been mapped out and so arranged that for the greater part of the distance travelled the vehicles do not have to return by the same road. The first day's itinerary (A) and the second (E) also comprise a distance of 81 kilometres,
(A) Versailles, Sceaux, Juvisy, Cmurcouronnes (farthest point out), Long Jumeau, Versailles, and return to Sartory Camp.
(E) Versailles St. Cyr, Le Pontel, a
Gambis (of Versailles, fame, furthest
point out), Le Perroy, Trappes, Versailles, and return to Sartory Camp.
These routes are fairly hilly, near Juvisy, for example, the gradient is about 12 per cent., but when the gradient exceeds 8 per cent., a correspondlag allowance is made in the time. Between Juvisy and La Croix-de-Berny the hauling of one vehicle by another takes place. Whilst the road vehicles undergo their tests on the routes above specified, and on another (131'which will be covered for the first time on December 6th, the agricultural machines are being employed on tests in the vicinity of the Sartory Camp, one of the grounds chosen being fiat and the other hilly. The light tractors will be required to negotiate a total distance of 500 kilometres and the heavy ones 400..
On the first day's trials, at half-distance. each vehicle was coupled up to and hauled its partner of the same class, this distance comprising the route between Juvisy and La Croix-de-Bercy.
During the same time, at the grounds at Sartory, the agricultural tractors were put through their preliminary tests.
It is interesting to note that the engines must be fitted with self-starters and governors ; they must also be able to work on petrol,. benzoic or a mixture of this and alcohol.