Oddball, Experimental, or One-off

[facthunter]

Used on a moon surface vehicle.. (Smooth Vibrations?)

[IBob]

Wasn't that a Beachboys song???

[Marty_d]

5 hours ago, Moneybox said:

I love the undercarriage deign. 

I like that they were so optimistic about it that they installed retractable gear.

[red750]

The Arnold AR-5 is an experimental single seat, low-wing sport monoplane with fixed conventional undercarriage, designed and built by Mike Arnold.

 

Originally conceived by Mike Arnold as a personal sport airplane with excellent performance and good handling qualities. The design outperformed initial performance estimates for its relatively low power output, exceeding 200mph with only 65hp. Constructed of fiberglass-epoxy matrix composite material utilizing the "moldless method" popularized by Burt Rutan. Careful attention to aerodynamic detail resulted in noteworthy laminar flow drag reduction, as documented by aerodynamicists Alex Strojnik and Bruce Carmichael.

 

In 1992, the AR-5 flown by Mike Arnold set the FAI C1a Class World Speed Record of 343,08 km/h over a 3.0km course Mike wrote several articles about his design methodology for various magazines. The sole existing example resides at the Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos, CA.

 

[red750]

The Ganzavia GAK-22 Dino was an unusual light utility aircraft built in Hungary in the early 1990s. In configuration, it was a biplane with cantilever wings and a very pronounced negative stagger, making it almost a tandem wing design. The pilot and a single passenger sat side by side under an expansive bubble canopy, and it had a fixed tricycle undercarriage. The fuselage was of welded steel tube construction, and the wings of duralumin, with the whole aircraft skinned in fabric, other than the forward fuselage which had aluminium skin. A single prototype flew in 1993, but the project was abandoned by the mid-1990s, with the aircraft itself placed in the Transport Museum of Budapest (Közlekedési Múzeum).

 

[red750]

The Vickers Type 432 was a British high-altitude fighter aircraft developed by the Vickers group during the Second World War. Intended to enable the Royal Air Force to engage the enemy's high-altitude bomber aircraft, it was to be armed with six cannon.

 

The origins of the Type 432 lay with a requirements set out in 1939 for twin-engined fighters with 20 or possibly 40 mm cannon. Vickers had set out a proposal for a Griffon-engined aircraft, equipped with a 40 mm cannon in a flexible mounting. This was subsequently encouraged by the Air Ministry. Further development was carried out for a design that could also meet F.6/39 for a fixed gun fighter with 20mm cannon. Specification F.22/39 was drawn up to cover the 40 mm project as the Vickers 414 to meet Operational Requirement (OR) 76. This was subsequently revised with aircraft redesigns to become specifications F.16/40 and then F.7/41 for OR. 108.

 

In appearance it resembled a larger version of the de Havilland Mosquito and was known to some as the "Tin Mosquito". The pilot had a pressurised cockpit in the nose, with a bubble dome, similar to an enlarged astrodome. The pressurised cockpit took up the nose section so the cannon would have been fitted in a fairing below the fuselage, to the rear of the aircraft.

 

The aircraft's elliptical wing was built using a unique stressed-skin structure, designed by Barnes Wallis for lightness. The top and bottom were manufactured separately, and then clamped together at the leading and trailing edges, this being named "peapod" or "lobster-claw" structure. This allowed a large internal space unobstructed by ribs, hence capable of housing large fuel tanks (similar to Wallis's geodetic designs).

 

The first prototype Type 432 DZ217 was flown on 24 December 1942. Initial trials revealed serious handling difficulties on the ground, the aircraft snaking while taxiing, necessitating aft movement of the mainwheels to correct the bad tracking. In flight tests, the Type 432 was unable to be landed in a standard "three-point" stance resulting in the replacement of the Irving-type ailerons with new Westland types along with an alteration of tail settings. The estimated maximum speed of 435 mph (700 km/h) at 28,000 ft (8,535 m) was never attained as the Merlin 61 engines did not run satisfactorily above 23,000 ft (7,010 m).

 

When the competing Westland Welkin was ordered into production, the second prototype of the Vickers fighter, the Type 446, was cancelled, before completion, on 1 May 1943. The first prototype was retained by Vickers for test purposes until the end of 1944, when the aircraft was scrapped after completing only 28 flights.

 

[red750]

The Reid and Sigrist R.S.3 Desford is a British twin-engined, propellor-driven, three-seat advanced trainer aircraft developed in the Second World War for postwar use. Although the R.S.3 was evaluated as a trainer, the type never entered production and was eventually rebuilt as the R.S.4 Bobsleigh as an experimental aircraft with the pilot in a prone position, seen as advantageous in minimising g-force effects in fighter aircraft.

 

Reid and Sigrist in Desford, Leicestershire, England, were an important instrument manufacturer in the interwar era, specialising in aircraft applications leading to the forming of an aviation division in 1937 at the New Malden, Surrey factory site. The first product was a twin-engined advanced trainer, the R.S.1 Snargasher (1939) which was eventually relegated to company hack used primarily at the factory and Desford aerodrome.

 

The follow-up design, the R.S.3 Desford (taking its name from the company site) was similar in size and concept to its predecessor although it was only configured for a pilot and trainee and featured a low-set wing. The R.S.3 was powered by two 130 hp de Havilland Gipsy Major Series I engines, rather than the higher powered de Havilland Gipsy Six engines of the earlier R.S.1.

 

The prototype, registered as G-AGOS first flew on 9 July 1945, shortly before VJ Day. Evaluated as a private venture project by test pilots including famed postwar flyer, Janusz Żurakowski at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE) at RAF Boscombe Down, the R.S.3 was generally found to be well suited as a multi-engine primary and intermediate trainer. However, RAF interest was lukewarm due to the glut of surplus wartime training aircraft available. The prototype appeared at the Farnborough Airshow in 1946, and was allocated to the Institute of Aviation Medicine but by May 1949, it was deregistered as a civilian aircraft, flying subsequently with RAF serial number VZ728.

 

Further development of the type continued as the company wanted to establish itself as an aviation engineering and production concern although its postwar work primarily centred on instrument and camera production, especially in creating a copy of the German Leica.

 

When Royal Air Force high-speed research explored high g-forces encountered in manoeuvres, a number of prone-pilot experimental aircraft including the Gloster Meteor F8 "Prone Pilot" were produced. To investigate low-speed applications, the R.S.4 Bobsleigh was a radical conversion of the R.S.3 reconfigured into a single pilot operation with a prone pilot station in the new rounded nose. This section was equipped with a transparent cone which covered a large section of the nose and two separate transparent ports to give minimal sideways and rearwards views. The R.S.4 was first flown in this form on 13 June 1951. Although useful data was obtained, the R.S.4's prone pilot did have difficulty with the initial control setup. Today's hang glider pilots have found the prone position an ideal means of controlling flight as well as providing a streamlined profile.

 

Experimental testing was conducted by the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) at Farnborough and continued until January 1956 when the R.S.4 returned to the UK civil registry, again as G-AGOS. It was used at one time as an air photo aircraft by Film Aviation Services and remained in flyable condition until 1973. After a period at the Snibston Discovery Park, the R.S.4 was moved to Spanhoe, Northamptonshire for restoration by Windmill Aviation. The restored Desford flew again on 22 April 2018, but the aircraft's owners, Leicestershire County Council, did not publicly display the Desford. The Desford was delivered to the Newark Air Museum on 19 August 2022.

 

R.S.3 Desford

 

 

R.S.4 Bobsleigh