Oddball, Experimental, or One-off

[Old Koreelah]

Interesting that they used stainless steel. It survives heat and corrosion better than aluminium and can be rolled thin enough for aircraft. That Crazy Martian builds his spacecraft from it.

 The Soviets used SS in their Mig 25 so it’s skin could survive the speeds required to catch up with America’s SR-71. (That’s fascinating because the Americans bought the raw material for it’s titanium from the USSR, and later the Soviets built a couple of subs from titanium.

[spenaroo]

not to mention the windscreen.

but I think they are the best looking planes. evoke a sense of class and adventure

[spenaroo]

of course the disney cartoon talespin may have had an impression on me.
its the earliest show I remember watching.

 

can still remember the theme and baloo's voice clearly

[Area-51]

not sure if this one was posted... its very advanced!

[BrendAn]

50 minutes ago, Area-51 said:

not sure if this one was posted... its very advanced!

good idea, saves weight using his head for a roll bar

[Area-51]

3 hours ago, BrendAn said:

good idea, saves weight using his head for a roll bar

No his head is safe; the helmet is the roll bar. Very solid.

[pmccarthy]

Quite impressive. The runway needs some work.

[Area-51]

1 hour ago, pmccarthy said:

Quite impressive. The runway needs some work.

Runway is fine; 8 goats were run along it to smooth it out just a few hours earlier.

[kasper]

Well Roll Bars cost weight ... that little Bee (Pchelka) is claiming 68kg empty weight.

 

and that's less risk on head butting stuff than your average hang glider when things go wrong.  I'd give it a go 

[red750]

Fairey Battle twin cockpit trainer.

 

 

 

 

 

[red750]

The Paramount Cabinaire, N17M, was one of less than ten built. This four seat Cabinaire was a contestant in the 1930 National Air Tour that flew about the country to show off the capabilities of new aircraft. Powered by a 165hp Wright engine.

 

 

 

 

 

[red750]

The Planet Satellite was a British light aircraft of the late 1940s. Designed to exploit new technology, the aircraft was abandoned after two crashes although the innovative fuselage was later incorporated into a helicopter prototype.

 

 

 

 

 

[red750]

The Hurel-Dubois HD.10 was a French research aircraft first flown in 1948 to investigate Maurice Hurel's ideas about high aspect ratio wings. It was a single-seat monoplane with a retractable tricycle undercarriage and twin tails, featuring a very high aspect-ratio wing of 32.5:1. 

Between 1948 and 1954, this aircraft accumulated some 218 hours and 27 minutes of flight time. Only one was built. The concept continues to be researched today to create the airliners of the future.

 

[red750]

The EWR VJ 101 was an experimental German jet fighter vertical takeoff/landing tiltjet aircraft. VJ stood for Versuchsjäger,. The VJ 101 was one of the first V/STOL designs to have the potential for eventual Mach 2 flight. During the 1950s, as various nations took an interest in developing VTOL-capable aircraft, the German Federal Government issued a request to the nation's recently revived aviation industries for them to study possible designs for such aircraft. In response, in 1960, German engine manufacturer MAN Turbo commenced work on a suitable engine in close cooperation with British engine manufacturer Rolls-Royce Limited. Only two built.

 

[sfGnome]

17 hours ago, red750 said:

The Planet Satellite was a British light aircraft of the late 1940s. Designed to exploit new technology, the aircraft was abandoned after two crashes although the innovative fuselage was later incorporated into a helicopter prototype.

 

That is such a cool looking aircraft! The lack of later craft following that format (that I know of) implies that there is something intrinsically wrong with it, but wouldn’t it get attention if it landed at your local field. 

[spenaroo]

The Celera 500L is in testing
pretty close looking

[onetrack]

The shape looks a little too much like the Bugatti 100P aircraft that was an aeronautical flop, and which ended in tragedy for the bloke who built the replica.

[spenaroo]

38 minutes ago, onetrack said:

The shape looks a little too much like the Bugatti 100P aircraft that was an aeronautical flop, and which ended in tragedy for the bloke who built the replica.

lets get facts right here.
that was a mechanical failure. was an overly complex powertrain design.
that they knew was flawed, didn't trust - but test flew anyway.
the controls worked until it was below the stall speed, and the pilot didn't drop the nose

 

“Clutch slippage occurred on the forward engine, causing a loss of power at a critical stage of the flight, making it impossible for the pilot to recover despite the best possible efforts he made.”

 

The fateful flight was filmed by a chase helicopter, adding to the trove of information available to investigators. The Bugatti 100P was powered by two engines connected to a pair of counter-rotating propellers at the nose of the aircraft. The power trains were complex, including drive shafts, gear boxes, and clutches for each engine and propeller, and the team had experimented with different designs. Both the NTSB and the team, dubbed Le Rêve Blue, conducted detailed and meticulous analysis of the data including control positions and instrument readings captured by video cameras in the cockpit.

Just after liftoff, Wilson raised the landing gear and the rpm surged on the engine powering the forward propeller. Investigators estimate that the airplane reached a maximum altitude of 80 to 100 feet. Based on cockpit video of the control inputs, the team believes Wilson was very much aware of the power loss, and the critically low airspeed and altitude. The team concluded, in the report written by van Dalen, that Wilson made a conscious decision to attempt to clear the airport fence despite rapidly decaying airspeed:

“We do not know for a fact why he made that decision, but the most likely explanation is as follows. Had he dropped the nose sufficiently to maintain airspeed above 70 (knots), his descent rate probably would have made it impossible for him to clear the fence. He would have been forced to belly land inside the fence, to cross uneven ground as he traversed the inside road, ploughed through the fence and then traversed the outside road. The uneven ground and the fence itself would have likely broken the fuselage and exposed him to the whirling drive shafts—a dreadful scenario that he referred to on several occasions. In short, it is likely that he consciously reduced airspeed below the stall limit because he judged it as the lesser of two evils. He must have decided that he might be able to belly land safely in the field beyond the fence.”

As airspeed decayed below stall speed, the airplane rolled “uncommanded,” first to the right and then left through inverted, the NTSB report states:

“As the airplane rolled through 90 (degrees) of left bank, the pilot placed both hands on the control stick and commanded a right roll with a positive pitch attitude. The airplane continued to roll left, the nose dropped, and a green field came into view out of the front of the windscreen.”

The wreckage came to rest inverted in a bean field less than 2,000 feet from the runway’s displaced threshold, about 1,000 feet from the nearest paved surface. A post-crash fire destroyed much of the aircraft, though data was recorded from all six cockpit cameras, with complete recordings from five of them.

It is not clear why Wilson did not add more power to the rear engine, which might have resulted in a positive rate of climb, but van Dalen noted that clutch slippage problems that the team had encountered during the development and test program might have undermined Wilson’s confidence that the power train, particularly the chain drive, would have held up under the increased load. It was also a decision made during just a few seconds that elapsed between liftoff and the crash.

“In case Scotty had decided to accept the risk of a chain drive failure and had applied full throttle on the rear engine, my performance estimation shows that a climb rate of 390 ft/min would have resulted,” van Dalen wrote.

source:
https://www.aopa.org/news-and-media/all-news/2017/november/30/power-loss-preceded-bugatti-crash

 

Edited September 25, 2023 by spenaroo

[facthunter]

Looks as though  it could have Cof G problems when loading as well as mechanical complexity. Nev

[Thruster88]

13,000 feet of runway.......

[red750]

A little like the Piaggio Avanti.

[pmccarthy]

We were encouraged to crowd fund that project through a post on this site. I tried to do so but the technology beat me. Now am glad I didn’t contribute to the disaster.

[Old Koreelah]

9 hours ago, pmccarthy said:

We were encouraged to crowd fund that project through a post on this site. I tried to do so but the technology beat me. Now am glad I didn’t contribute to the disaster.

I did and have to wear the result.

[Marty_d]

No.  Those who contributed bear no responsibility for the disaster.  You weren't involved in the engineering, the planning, the test schedule or the flying.  If you have no input whatsoever into the decisions that led to the crash, then you can't have responsibility.

[Old Koreelah]

3 hours ago, Marty_d said:

No.  Those who contributed bear no responsibility for the disaster.  You weren't involved in the engineering, the planning, the test schedule or the flying.  If you have no input whatsoever into the decisions that led to the crash, then you can't have responsibility.

Thanks Nev. I was proud to have my name engraved on it (along with mobs of other donors) but not so now.

The Bugatti 100P was a beautiful design, but one lesson taught by that tragedy is to value simplicity.