Oddball, Experimental, or One-off

red750 · March 15

The Fokker XA-7 was a prototype attack aircraft ordered in December 1929, and first flown in January 1931 by Fokker and then General Aviation Corporation after it bought Fokker-America in 1930, and entered in a competition held by the United States Army. However, the Curtiss A-8 won the competition, and A-7 development was not continued.

The XA-7 was a two-seat low-wing all-metal monoplane design. It featured a thick cantilever wing, tunnel radiator and two closely spaced open cockpits.

Despite some innovative features, the XA-7 did not proceed past flight test status. After testing, the sole prototype was scrapped.

red750 · March 28

The Honda MH02 was an experimental business jet built by Honda, in cooperation with Mississippi State University, to research engine placement and composite construction. The prototype was completed in 1992, making its first flight on 5 March 1993.

The MH02 was never intended for production, but was nonetheless the first all-composite light business jet to fly; by 1996 over 170 test flight hours were accumulated on the airframe. Aside from the already unusual above-the-wing engine mounts, the design features a T-tail and a forward-swept wing. The aircraft was deregistered and exported to Japan in 1998. Only the one unit was produced.

General characteristics

Crew: one or two pilots
Capacity: six passengers
Length: 11.25 m (36 ft 11 in)
Wingspan: 11.24 m (36 ft 11 in)
Height: 4.18 m (13 ft 9 in)
Max takeoff weight: 3,600 kg (7,937 lb)
Powerplant: 2 × Pratt & Whitney Canada JT15D1 turbofan engines, 5.3 kN (1,200 lbf) thrust each
Performance

Maximum speed: 654 km/h (406 mph, 353 kn)

facthunter · March 28

Needs anti dive forks. Forward swept wings. WHY FFS ?

spenaroo · March 28

39 minutes ago, facthunter said:

Needs anti dive forks. Forward swept wings. WHY FFS ?

Because its so damn cool.

but my guess from wikipedia:

Main spar location[edit]

The aft location of the main wing spar would lead to a more efficient interior arrangement with more usable space.

Inward spanwise flow[edit]

Spanwise airflow over a forward-swept wing is the reverse of flow over a conventional swept wing.

Air flowing over any swept wing tends to move spanwise towards the aftmost end of the wing. On a rearward-swept wing this is outwards towards the tip, while on a forward-swept wing it is inwards towards the root. As a result, the dangerous tip stall condition of a rearward-swept design becomes a safer and more controllable root stall on a forward-swept design. This allows full aileron control despite loss of lift, and also means that drag-inducing leading edge slots or other devices are not required. At transonic speeds, shockwaves build up first at the root rather than the tip, again helping ensure effective aileron control.

With the air flowing inwards, wingtip vortices and the accompanying drag are reduced. Instead, the fuselage acts as a very large wing fence and, since wings are generally larger at the root, this raises the maximum lift coefficient allowing a smaller wing. As a result, maneuverability is improved, especially at high angles of attack.

facthunter · March 28

Considering spanwise flow as able to be treated as a separate value is BULLSHIT credited to ONE german designer long ago and discredited frequently. Who else does it and HOW do you MAKE if FLOW spanwise? . Reduced sweep back will reduce the M Crit figure. the Fokker fellowship and French Mercure are good examples of low mach No Cruise capability and reduced range. Dutch roll may be close to non existent though. Nev

spenaroo · March 28

which all goes back to my original reason....

its so damn cool. never underestimate the rule of cool

Edited March 28 by spenaroo

facthunter · March 28

My Nickname was "Joe Cool" according to some. Nev.

facthunter · March 28

I've never tried to find out why. I don't think THAT would be that cool.. Nev

Carbon Canary · March 29

Yet another flying car - now certified and now sold to China.

kgwilson · March 29

Currently on show at the Bangkok Motor Show.

facthunter · March 29

As always though you end up with a plane that doesn't fly well and a car that you hate driving and an empty wallet as well. and a feeling of What was I thinking. ???. Compromise kills function and style. . Nev

Edited March 29 by facthunter

danny_galaga · March 29

The main advantage of a flying car, that I can see is you don't have to pay for a hangar. But you still have to take off from an airfield, even more so because with all that extra weight, drag and complication it's not exactly in the STOL class.

So then, extra cost of a flying car versus paying hangar fees.

Obviously a different question if a rotor craft flying car.

Edited March 29 by danny_galaga

facthunter · March 29

If you want to go somewhere and back at a wide choice of times, and meet a schedule, Fly with an irline Our planes are for fun but you still don't want it to be an unsafe dog. Any flying thing left exposed to traffic, the Weather and Vandals becomes unsafe very fast. . It would be cheaper to buy a good PLANE and a fairly good car. You'd need a long and sealed runway to lift off from with most of those combo's and landing something which has 4 widely spaced wheels is difficult. and impractical. Nev

Marty_d · March 29

That wing folding mechanism looks complicated and heavy too.

Cars and planes are different machines for different purposes.

As Danny mentioned a rotorcraft is a different proposition but will never drive on the road in any case.

facthunter · March 29

The wash from Helicopters can be very complex and the cabin wants to go the opposite way to the rotor. They were called Crazy Palm Trees in PNG

danny_galaga · March 29

1 hour ago, facthunter said:

If you want to go somewhere and back at a wide choice of times, and meet a schedule, Fly with an irline Our planes are for fun but you still don't want it to be an unsafe dog. Any flying thing left exposed to traffic, the Weather and Vandals becomes unsafe very fast. . It would be cheaper to buy a good PLANE and a fairly good car. You'd need a long and sealed runway to lift off from with most of those combo's and landing something which has 4 widely spaced wheels is difficult. and impractical. Nev

For a lot of us, a good plane and then with the money left over, a crappy car 😀

facthunter · March 29

When I was training I spent every cent ? I had on flying. My miserable wages got me about 1 and1/2 Hours in a chipmunk each week.

kgwilson · March 29

That would cost $5-600.00 today in a 50 year old C172. The median gross salary last year was $65,000 which translates into a monthly net income of $4,344.00 so more than half of your net income would go on flying training every week.

In the 70s a fairly modern 172 cost I think $22.00 an hour. I can't remember what my take home pay was but I think it was less than $100.00 a week

facthunter · March 29

The Chippie was probably only 13 years old. There were 3 or 4 of them. It was the beginning of the 60's and because of my youth and tertiary education (Teaching) I got a subsidy as a possible air force trainee/ callup. I paid about 4Pounds five shilling / HR subsidised from about 5 pound ten say 20% off. . At the same time I could hire a pretty Clapped out Auster from Illawarra FS for 2 pound ten/ Hr solo at Bankstown. This was abut HALF the Hourly cost.. That PLANE is still Flying. as of about 8 years ago. The DHC-1 was dual rate. At about 100 Hours TT I got awarded a flight test by DCA examiner, a Commonwealth Gov't Flying scholarship to CPL Plus Instructor Rating providing a similar discount. where I HAD to make an Undertaking I would apply for a job in the Industry as they reckoned they were short of pilots at the time. In the time It took to finish there were hardly any Jobs available. That's HOW these things go. I just managed a job by a whisker and there were None after that for about 5 years in the airlines..

red750 · March 31

The Emsco B-8 was a two-seat, single-engine, low-wing, twin boom experimental aircraft designed by Charles F. Rocheville in 1930 while he was vice president of Emsco Aircraft Corporation, Long Beach, California.

Despite its name 'Flying Wing' the aircraft carried a twin-boom empennage with a single vertical fin. The two crew sat in open tandem cockpits in a central nacelle with circular cross-section, initially with a 165 hp (123 kW) Continental A-70 in tractor configuration. The nacelle ended in a jet-engine like 'exhaust' nozzle at its rear, which actually was an intake to a boundary-layer bleed system driven by the engine which blew air through spanwise slots in the rear part of the 'Flying Wing' in an attempt to increase the wing's performance. Another unusual characteristic of the design was its “reversed tricycle landing gear” with two main wheels under the front wing and a single aft wheel under the rear-end of the nacelle.

red750 · April 4

The Short SC.1 was the first British fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft. It was developed by Short Brothers. It was powered by an arrangement of five Rolls-Royce RB.108 turbojets, four of which were used for vertical flight and one for conventional horizontal flight. The SC.1 had the distinction of being the first British fixed-wing VTOL aircraft and the first one to transition between vertical and horizontal flight modes; it was also the first VTOL-capable aircraft with a fly-by-wire control system.

The SC.1 was designed and produced in response to a Ministry of Supply (MoS) requirement for a suitable aircraft for conducting flight studies into VTOL flight, as well as specifically into the transition between vertical and horizontal flight. Two prototypes were used for flight testing between 1957 and 1971. Research data from the SC.1 test programme contributed to the development of the Hawker Siddeley P.1127 and the subsequent Hawker Siddeley Harrier, the first operational VTOL aircraft.

In October 2012, the Short SC.1 received Northern Ireland's first Engineering Heritage Award as a recognition of its significant achievement in the engineering field.

red750 · April 5

The Scaled Composites Model 133-4.62 ATTT, or Advanced Technology Tactical Transport was a technology demonstration project built by Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites in 1986 under contract to DARPA.

In the mid-1980s, the American government agency DARPA, developed a concept for a tandem wing STOL transport, intended to act as a technology demonstrator and to meet a requirement for a long-range high-speed transport for US special forces, intended to fill the gap between helicopters and larger transport aircraft such as the C-130 Hercules. In 1986, DARPA placed a contract with Scaled Composites, a company set up by Burt Rutan and owned by Beechcraft to build prototypes for advanced aircraft, for a 62% scale proof-of-concept demonstrator for the concept, called the Advanced Technology Tactical Transport (shortened to ATTT or AT3).

The ATTT had high-aspect ratio tandem wings, which were joined by long nacelles which carried the aircraft's engines, tractor configuration turboprops, large fuel tanks and the as well as the main undercarriage units for the aircraft's retractable tricycle landing gear. As first built, it had a conventional, cruciform tail. A novel arrangement of eight fast acting fowler flaps was fitted, inboard and outboard of the engines on each of the wings. These would be extended rearwards in a low-drag configuration prior to commencing the take-off run then quickly lowered to increase lift at the point of take-off. The aircraft was of composite construction, mainly glassfibre and carbon fibre. It was powered by two Pratt & Whitney Canada PT6A-135 turboprops.

he ATTT demonstrator made its maiden flight on December 29, 1987 from Mojave Airport, base of Scaled Composites. It completed its initial test program of 51 test flights, with a total of 112 flying hours, on November 8, 1988. It was then rebuilt with a revised tail, with a twin-boom configuration replacing the original single cruciform tail unit, with the fuselage shortened and a rear-loading ramp fitted. The revised layout improved handling, lowering minimum single-engine safety speed (which was previously significantly higher than the stall speed). A further 13 test flights were flown to evaluate the revised layout.

The aircraft has been de-registered and is currently in storage at the Air Force Flight Test Center Museum at Edwards Air Force Base.

red750 · April 6

The Ilyushin Il-20 was a Soviet prototype for a heavily armored ground-attack aircraft to replace the Ilyushin Il-10. It featured a number of innovative concepts including a cockpit mounted on top of the engine, directly behind the propeller, and wing-mounted autocannon that could be adjusted on the ground to fire level or depressed 23° to allow the aircraft to strafe ground targets while remaining in level flight. However it was slower than the Il-10, and its M-47 engine was problematic in flight tests in 1948–49. It was not placed into production. The test pilots called the aircraft the Gorbach (Hunchback). Onnly the prototype was built.

Ilyushin's concept to meet the 1947 requirement for a superior aircraft to the Il-10 in performance and firepower was a heavily armored, single-engine, all-metal, low-wing monoplane powered by the newly developed M-47—also known as the MF-45Sh or M-45Sh—liquid-cooled engine, which developed 3,000 horsepower (2,200 kW) at takeoff. The design's most notable feature was the pilot's cockpit mounted directly above the engine, reminiscent of the Blackburn Blackburn and Blackburn Cubaroo. Furthermore, the cockpit was situated directly behind the four-bladed propeller to maximize pilot visibility. The windshield extended down to the propeller hub and provided the pilot with a 37° downward field of view; in a medium dive he could view targets directly underneath the aircraft.