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Aviation History
1984
1984 - 0150.PDF
in a balloon, through which the aeronaut could release bursts of hot air to propel his vessel. In 1860 Michael Henry patented a form of jet propulsion for ships and "balloons and aerial vessels", and thence forth several others proposed its use. Another 25 years later the prophetically named Thomas Griffiths suggested using a "jet or jets of combined steam and air and gases", and in 1890 Griffiths teamed up with Thomas Beddoes to patent yet another scheme, whereby "gases or explosives are ignited within a tube, where they expand, and in escaping against the outer atmosphere cause the propulsion of the aeronautic machine to which the appa ratus is attached". Alfred Vincent Newman made another proposal in the following year. Perhaps the most farsighted of all was the 1867 patent of James Butler and Edmund Edwards, who simply scaled up the paper dart to produce the earliest known proposal for a delta-winged aero plane, propelled by "propellers or wings ... or a jet of steam or other fluid". Octave Chanute said of this proposal in 1894 ". . . there is probably no aviating merit in this form". Asymmetric aeroplanes have their roots in the first Wright Flyer, for the pilot was positioned alongside the engine and, to compensate for the uneven weight distri bution, the wings were of 6in greater span on the starboard side. The first truly asymmetric aeroplane, however, was the German Gotha G.VI bomber designed by the Swiss Hans Burkhard and built and flown in 1918. It was the Germans who resurrected the idea in the Blohm und Voss Bvl41 of the Second World War. The most extraor dinary asymmetric aircraft of all, the slewed wing, was also the brainchild of German designers, appearing as the unbuilt Blohm und Voss P.202 jet project of the late Second World War period. In 1961 Britain's national press turned its attention on a Handley Page project for a slewed-wing airliner to fly at Mach 2, but this design never even received a company type number. Now, with the testing of the Nasa/Ames AD-1, built by Burt Rutan, the idea has gained official approval and attention. Variable geometry, too, has a long and distinguished history going back to 1890, when Frenchman Clement Ader incorpo rated it in his Eole monoplane to allow e.g. adjustment as fuel was consumed. Ameri can pioneer Octave Chanute hinged the wing roots of his quadruplane glider in 1896, to counteract disturbing gusts of wind, and he also proposed the idea as a means of lateral control. Britain took a little longer to adopt the idea, but it finally manifested itself in the tailless Westland-Hill Pterodactyl IV of 1933, which had a sweep range of 4|° in flight, allowing its e.g. to be moved through 7in. Variable sweep was ushered into'the jet age on the USA's Bell X-5 of 1951, which had a 40° range of sweep (from 20° to 60°). Attempts to put the idea into production on the Grumman XF-10F Jaguar of 1953 were abandoned when the aircraft proved something of a problem child, and Barnes Wallis' ambitious Swal- 216 low project never progressed beyond flying scale models. But variable geometry has at last achieved respectability and is a feature of combat aircraft in Russia, Europe, and the USA today. The current penchant for canard aircraft continues a flirtation with this layout that has persisted without a break since the Wright gliders of the 1900s. In fact, when one begins to list such types it becomes plain that there have been so many that the idea is really hackneyed. A few examples are A. V. Roe's first aero plane, Farnborough's S.E.I, Horatio Barber's Valkyrie, the Voisin canard, Focke Wulf Ente, MiG Utka, Curtiss Ascender, and Saab Viggen—the list is enormous. The same applies to flying wings, of which there have been many, though they have never really found popular accept ance. Not so common, however, is the use of inverse taper, seen at its most pronounced in the USA's Republic XF-91 Thunder- ceptor of 1949. In fact, this feature is in evidence on the British-built Deperdussin Seagull of 1913. Swept-forward wings were a feature of the first piloted aeroplane to make a powered take-off, the monoplane of Frenchman Felix du Temple, which stag gered briefly into the air after a run down an inclined ramp in about 1874. The most famous example of all is the Junkers Ju- 287 jet bomber of 1944, which had swept- forward wings to allow for the biggest possible bomb bay, with the store suspended on the aircraft's e.g. In the late war years the Americans flew two exam ples of the Cornelius XFG-1 fuel transport glider, designed to carry 677gal of fuel while being towed by a C-47. A little later a , Bell X-l rocket-propelled research aircraft was windtunnel tested with experimental swept-forward wings, but there was no development. In Europe FSWs reappeared on the MBB HFB 320 Hansa Jet, first flown in 1964. Forward sweep in this case avoided taking the main spar through the passenger cabin. America's Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency initiated studies for an FSW combat aircraft in the Seventies, and General Dynamics, Grumman, and Rockwell International began studies in 1976. The winner, Grumman's X-29, is now approaching its first flight. Variable-incidence wings have been tried and tried again. A. V. Roe incor porated them in his 1909 triplane, and they were another feature of the afore mentioned Westland-Hill Pterodactyl IV, though only a small movement was provided for. Subsequently they were explored in the Supermarine 322 "Dumbo" of 1943, the wing of which pivoted 13° on the front spar, driven by an electric motor. It was successful enough to become a feature of that company's Seagull amphibian. Martin's XB-51 trijet bomber and the previously mentioned inverse taper XF-91 also had variable- incidence, and Chance-Vought's Crusader exploited the idea successfully in the Fifties. From the foregoing it is clear that ideas are tried and retried until their application becomes especially appropriate to the circumstances of a particular era in aircraft design. We may yet see the wide spread adoption of flying wings, tandem wings, inverse taper and, who knows, even the ornithopter, though the latter seems to offer nothing but disadvantages at present. Tilghman Richard's annular wing may well gain social acceptance in decades to come. After all, we do seem to be moving in circles. • FLIGHT International, 21 January 1984 Probably one of the most curious aircraft of all, Republic's mixed-powerplant XF-91 Thunderceptor of 1949 had variable incidence, inverse taper wings
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