Alain Buret "Tail of Swallow" Canard Research Aircraft Project of 1953

[hesham]

From Ailes 5/9/1953,

Mr Alain Buret (Which Mr. Jean C. Carbonel didn't know his first name in the book; French Secret Projects; Post War Fighters)
designed a canard research aircraft of 1953,the concept was called Tail of Swallow,and maybe the work was done for the
ONERA ?.

 

[dan_inbox]

The article does not say that he "designed" anything. It says that he made a lecture to an engineers' association.
His point being that while the "swallow tail" (defined as high-sweep trailing edge) has no advantage for a tail-stab plane, this could theoretically be solved by moving the stab to a front (canard) position.
That was a presentation about aerodynamics theory, not about any concrete project.

 

[RanulfC]

Well it makes sense where this came from now

Angel Interceptor, Airfix A02026 (2011)

Randy

 

[martinbayer]

Not quite - the Angel Interceptor of Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons fame as designed by the late British SFX high priest Derek Meddings is actually one of those fairly rare three-surface aircraft concepts, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-surface_aircraft, rather than a pure canard like the Buret layout. As an aside, it is mildly intriguing to compare the forward swept canard/wing Spectrum Passenger Jet design created by Mike Trim for the same 1967/1968 Supermarionation series, as shown for example in https://www.spectrum-headquarters.com/spj.html, with the Rockwell D-645-1 concept from 1979 for a low-cost subsonic missile carrier illustrated at https://www.secretprojects.co.uk/th...mber-studies.362/page-2#lg=thread-362&slide=2 - looks like one of those Rockwell engineers might have had a soft spot for British marionette Sci-Fi shows... As yet another somewhat aerospace related aside, I truly enjoyed how the recent and timely "Apollo" Endeavour episode paid homage to the creative talents of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson as the originators of science fiction shows such as Captain Scarlet, Thunderbirds, UFO, and Space: 1999, as well as movies like Doppelgänger/Journey to the Far Side of the Sun that features Patrick Wymark as European Space Exploration Council (EUROSEC) Director Jason Webb, a barely veiled character reference to the previous NASA administrator James Webb, which partly (together with the actual Moon landings) inspired me to get into this peculiar line of business in the first place.

 

[Hood]

Derek Meddings certainly devised some interesting creations, some of them were odd and could never work (anyone who has watched the Zero-X launch sequence will scream "why make it so damn complicated!!") but many of them must have been inspired by the concept work of that era coming out of the aviation industry. It is surprising what you can do with a few Draken, F-104, B-58 and 727 model kits.
As a nerd note, the Angel interceptor had no control surfaces but used a series of compressed air slots to maneouver, shades of the BAe Magma...

 

[martinbayer]

I agree - the Zero-X seems to have been designed for maximum dramatic effect only. The same is largely true for example for the UFO Skydiver, but man, did that thing look cool... On the other hand, some Century 21 Productions concepts appear almost eerily prescient, like UFO's Space Dumper, which foreshadowed the DC-X two decades earlier, see https://www.pikdo.online/media/BsWjkENnVWi.