Adolf Busemann's Swept-Wing Research

[hesham]

Hi,

the designer Adolf Busemann was a Germany,later migrated to USA,and he painted
a drawing to a four engined swept-wing aircraft in 1935,I don't know if it's all thing
in this period or he had anther projects,no 3-view available.

https://books.google.com/books?id=hafMBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA576&dq=busemann+swept+wing+Biomimetics&hl=ar&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=busemann%20swept%20wing%20Biomimetics&f=false

 

[flateric]

Darn...Why the hell did you decide that HE DID DRAW THIS IN 1935???
Hesham, before you post something, try to use a little logic. TRY.

 

[hesham]

Darn...Why the hell did you decide that HE DID DRAW THIS IN 1935???
Hesham, before you post something, try to use a little logic. TRY.

My dear Flateric,that mention in the source,anyway if that is not true we can delete it.

 

[Arjen]

I think the drawing shown was made in 1955, not 1935.
Six drawings are shown in sequence, starting from left to right, top to bottom.
Edited link: https://books.google.com/books?id=hafMBQAAQBAJ&pg=PA576&dq=busemann+swept+wing+Biomimetics&hl=ar&sa=X&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q=busemann%20swept%20wing%20Biomimetics&f=false
The oldest design, top left, is from a Lippisch 1941 patent drawing, followed by a 1944 Lippisch delta-wing fighter, the 1944 Ju 287, and (bottom left) a 1944 Blohm & Voss oblique wing concept.
The newest design, bottom right, is the Northrop X-21A from 1960.

Bottom center there's the 1955 swept-wing aircraft. It wouldn't make much sense to have a 1935 design at that position in the sequence, 1935 most likely is a typo. R.T. Jones probably refers to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Thomas_Jones_(engineer)

I suggest a change in this thread's title.

 

[sienar]

I've read in a few sources that Busemann had some drawings of a notional swept wing aircraft at the 1935 Volta conference.

However Busemann later stated that he had made the mistake of having drawings only of moderately swept designs, which he believed down played the concept.

And I believe at least one source made mention of him reproducing these drawings at some point post-war.

 

[hesham]

And also here,he began at 1935;

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Busemann

 

[Apteryx]

Hi,

the designer Adolf Busemann was a Germany,later migrated to USA,and he painted
a drawing to a four engined swept-wing aircraft in 1935,I don't know if it's all thing
in this period or he had anther projects,no 3-view available.

It's pretty clear by inspection that the drawing Hesham posted is one of Boeing's proposals circa 1950, either on the way to the B-52 or a side development. The caption in the textbook from which this drawing is lifted is lamentably muddled.

--Ian

 

[Arjen]

Robert T. Jones wrote a memorial for Adolf Busemann: http://www.nap.edu/read/1384/chapter/13#63
Pages 3 and 4 have the story of Busemann telling several American scientists about the paper he read at the 1935 Volta Congress:

At the end of the war, a group of American scientists travelled to Germany to learn what progress had been made in aerodynamics during the preceding years. The group included von Karrman, H.S. Tsien, H.L. Dryden, and George Schairer of the Boeing Company. Schairer relates that the validity of my [R.T. Jones] proposal was a principal topic of discussion during the twenty-six-hour flight to Europe.
On arrival, the group found that much research had been done on the sweep effect. When the group finally met with Busemann, von Karrmann asked, "What is this about wing sweep?" According to Schairer, Busemann's face lit up and he said, "Oh, you remember, I read a paper on it at the Volta Congress in 1935." Busemann went on to remind them that at a dinner following the meeting, Luigi Crocco, the prominent Italian aerodynamicist, had sketched an airplane having swept wings "and a swept propeller," labelling it "the airplane of the future."
Schairer recalls that five of the 1935 dinner guests were present at the 1945 interview, and all remembered the incident, although they had completeley forgotten about the wing sweep concept during the ten-year interval. How could this have happened? Clearly, Busemann's thinking was ahead of its time. Perhaps also, as a true scientist, he had emphasized too much the limitations of his theory.

I can imagine Busemann drawing a concept of a swept wing, propeller-driven aircraft in 1935, but I don't think the aircraft shown in Bio-mimetics is such a 1935 concept. As Apteryx wrote, the drawing looks like a 1950s Boeing proposal.

My guess: R.T. Jones pays homage to Busemann's 1935 presentation by marking a drawing "Swept wing Busemann (1935)", pinning 1935 as the year swept wings were first publicly discussed, picking the 50s Boeing proposal because it has propellers just to underscore the concept was there before jets were run- not because it was drawn in 1935 by Busemann.

This drawing was presented without any context, I would love to read the 'Bio-mimetics'-pages preceding the image but I'm having trouble finding them.

Sienar, Apteryx: thank you for posting, you made me think again.

 

[hesham]

Many thanks to you my dear Arjen.

 

[AeroFranz]

Arjen, thanks for posting. I remembered something about sketches of airplanes with swept propellers but did not remember the details.

 

[Basil]

AeroFranz,
the first aircraft project with swept propellers (for speed) seems to be the Dornier Do P 252/2 and 252/3. These contra-rotating propellers would have had a sweepback of 50 degrees and intended for speeds up to 900 km/h / 560mph (according to original Dornier calculations). The propellers were at construction stage at Heine Propeller works, Berlin, at the end of the war in 1945.
Curtiss Wright did propeller research with swept blades on a P-47 during the late 1940s.

 

[AeroFranz]

hmmm...you just made me realize that for some reason i thought that the drawing depicted longitudinally sweptback propeller blades (i.e., the tips and the roots were not on the same plane of rotation), not radially swept back (which is what is used in high speed applications and makes more sense). I also thought that the sketch was intended as a joke because back then the concept of sweep was so far out. But i have no idea where i read that, so i put no stock in that recollection. I wish we had a photo of that sketch!

 

[hesham]

Here is a drawing to his research;

http://www.fzt.haw-hamburg.de/pers/Scholz/dglr/hh/text_2011_03_03_Swept_Wing.pdf

 

[hesham]

Hi,

here is a jet biplane fighter designed by Mr. Adolf Busemann.

http://www.avia-it.com/act/biblioteca/periodici/PDF%20Riviste/Alata/Alata%201950%2004.pdf

 

[Jemiba]

Apart from the thread title, that speaks about "swept wing", I would like to have one of our Italian speaking
members to confirm, that this was actually a design by Busemann.
A bit of OCR and automatic translation makes me think, that maybe it was a design using principles or ideas
published by Adolph Busemann, but not necessarily a design drawn by him.
The article is on page 17 to 20 of the linked magazine, maybe the attached extract already could give more clarity.

 

[hesham]

Many thanks to you my dear Jemiba.

 

[AeroFranz]

The text mentions a supersonic biplane configuration attributed to Busemann. IIRC, in that configuration the shockwaves produce a favorable interference. The positive effect only happens at a Mach number dictated by the specific geometry, so it is not a very practical solution. I don't know that anyone actually tried something like this - maybe in a wind tunnel?

 

[Sundog]

The text mentions a supersonic biplane configuration attributed to Busemann. IIRC, in that configuration the shockwaves produce a favorable interference. The positive effect only happens at a Mach number dictated by the specific geometry, so it is not a very practical solution. I don't know that anyone actually tried something like this - maybe in a wind tunnel?

I keep thinking I saw a patent some years back by Lockheed Martin relating to a supersonic biplane configuration.

 

[Richard N]

The Japanese MISORA SST researched a biplane configuration to reduce shockwaves generated by supersonic flight: http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,5044.msg41676.html#msg41676

 

[richard]

Is it a 1935 (Germany) study or a post war (U.K & U.S) one ?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Busemann

 

[hesham]

That's right my dears,

and for Lockheed biplane fighter,the Busemann's fighter is more beautifully.

https://www.google.com/patents/US6098923

 

[hesham]

From, The Road to the 707 The Inside Story of Designing the 707

 

[Silencer1]

There were a number of swept-wing aircraft in 1920-30s:
Burgess-Dunne seaplane
Soldenhoff flying wing.
But their designers didn't think about possible advantages of such wings for supersonic flight.
So, aerodynamists and, namely, Busemann were not the first in swept wing invention.
Curiously, Bell X-1 has been equipped with staring wing