All those weird and wonderful postwar homebuilt U.S. one-offs...

[walter]

Kraft Super-Fli (N5PK)
This high performance and fully aerobatic light plane was designed and built by Mr. Philip Kraft, with assistance by Mr. Paul White and it first flew in December 1974 under the power of a 200hp Lycoming AIO-360-A1D engine. The K-1 Super-Fli was a scaled-up version of a model airplane that Mr. Kraft had built earlier (he was a former world champion model aircraft builder). Although the K-1 was made available for amateur construction, no addition aircraft were completed. It is possible that a later owner (Mr. Ian Paden) installed a more powerful IO-540 engine. The N5PK registration for the aircraft was canceled in March 1990.

 

[burunduk]

Completely forgotten was this Bolton 1-B.

Stargazer2006, could you tell some info about this aircraft?
I'm very surpirsed by it's number N33B, course according to
http://www.airport-data.com/aircraft/N33B.html

the number was applied in 1946 to Piper PA-12.

 

[Stargazer]

Stargazer2006, could you tell some info about this aircraft?
I'm very surpirsed by it's number N33B

So was I when I came across the two photos in my dad's aviation files, with a big question mark at the top...
The aircraft was eventually identified by one of my contacts (who it was escapes me at the moment) but someone sent me a PM a few months ago that gave me the exact identity of the aircraft. It seems likely that the aircraft was quickly deregistered (maybe it crashed?) so that it doesn't appear in most records. But don't forget, the airport-data website and the similar ones are not exhaustive. On several occasions I found they only got the last couple of allocations for one given registration when I could trace another one before them.

 

[Stargazer]

Former test pilot János Kocsis now lives in Hungary, but he's still got some nice little stories from his years at Mojave.

After mentioning a very strange aircraft prototype in a Facebook discussion, he got me really curious... Now he's finally managed to find a thumbnail-sized picture of a the 1983 "Flying Hangar Door". According to János, it was home-designed and home-made by a very quiet and talented NASA engineer from Dryden Flight Research Center and weighed as much as a Vespa moped. The all-wing airframe was made of corrugated paper and the wheels were from child's bicycles (plastic rims). It was powered by a lawnmower engine.

Despite its seemingly bulky shape, János remembers the "Flying Hangar Door" as being an "excellent flyer". It is possible that the aircraft never received a proper designation or even a registration.

I have enlarged the thumbnail picture a bit but as you can see, it's really not that good. Any other info and/or pic about this strange contraption and its designer/builder would be greatly appreciated!!!

 

[robunos]

Reminds me of the Sawyer Skyjacker...

cheers,
Robin.

 

[Stargazer]

Reminds me of the Sawyer Skyjacker...

It does, actually! But this would be like a toy version of it, given its size and construction...

 

[Cy-27]

Young Eddyo F-2

Designed by FAA employee Edward Young of Erie, Colorada, USA, the Young Eddyo F-2 was a distinctive two-seat side-by-side light aircraft and took three years of spare-time activity to complete at a cost of $2,500. The sole aircraft, registered N55566V, first flew on November 4, 1963. The aircraft registration was finally cancelled on 12 December 1983. The Eddyo F-2 was a sesquiplane and had Vee-braced upper wings, which carryied the ailerons, and cantilever lower stubwings which contained the fuel tanks It had full span trailing-edge flaps. Construction was conventional, with wooden wings and a steel-tube fuselage and tail unit, all fabric-covered. The design featured tail-wheel landing gear which utilised cantilever spring steel main legs. The engine was a Lycoming O-290-D2 four-cylinder 135 hp horizontally-opposed air-cooled which drove a two-blade fixed-pitch propeller.

Details

Accommodation: 2 seats
Powerplant: Lycoming O-290-D2 four-cylinder (135 hp)
Wing span (upper): 23 ft 1 in (7.04 m)
Constant chord: 3 ft 10 in (1.17 m)
Length: 19 ft 5 in (5.92 in)
Height: 6 ft 0 in (1.83 m)
Empty weight: 997 lb (452 kg)
Maximum take-off weight: 1,525 lb (692 kg)
Maximum level speed at sea level at MTOW: 145 mph (233 km/h)
Cruising speed: 130 mph (209 km/h)
Landing speed: 70 mph (ll3 km/h)
Service ceiling: 8,000 ft (550 m)
Range with maximum fuel: 425 miles (685 km)

Sources:
Janes All The Worlds Aircraft 1965-66 [Janes] edited by J.W.R. Taylor
FAA database

 

[Stargazer]

Thanks for this, Cy-27! I wish there could be more contributions to this topic...

 

[hesham]

Hi,

Mr. Al Backstrom was American,and he designed a series of tailless gliders,started with
EPB-1A Flying Plank,followed by the EPB-1C Flying Plank,later developed into EPB-1 HR
Super Plank.

He also built a motor glider light aircraft called WPB-1 Powered Plank in early 1970s.

https://www.j2mcl-planeurs.net/dbj2mcl/planeurs-machines/planeurs-liste_0int.php

 

[Motocar]

Fascinating post ...! So many interesting concepts, projects and work to create those beautiful machines, that previously only lived in the active minds of its creators.
Greetings from Maracay, Venezuela

 

[hesham]

Hi,

what was this weird airplane ?,page 117;

https://books.google.ie/books?id=Bd0DAAAAMBAJ&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false

 

[walter]

Hi Hesham
This is the Model C Speedbird (N38C or NX38C) by Merle Larson of Oakland, Ca. The tiny wing (wingspan 12ft) was designed to work within the slipstream of the propeller and featured very large flaps for lift.
AFAIK the aircraft really flew, but on that first flight on 7 December 1953 the engine stopped and the aircraft stalled which seems no surprise with such a small wing. Luckily Mr. Larson thankfully escaped serious injury and later designed the (Larson-Holmes) D-1 Duster.
The Speedbird aircraft was modified from a Taylorcraft BC-12.

 

[Motocar]

Biggest set of interesting projects and their short stories ...!

 

[hesham]

Thank you my dear Walter.

 

[snark]

Gazda Helicospeeder

The Gazda Model 100 Helicospeeder was an all-aluminum single-seat helicopter developed by Antoine Gazda of Wakefield, Rhode Island in 1947. It was powered by a Continental A-75 engine. One example was completed and test-flown, achieving a speed of 100 mph.

Apparently, the helicospeeder is now preserved at the Hiller Aviation Museum, San Carlos, CA

 

[hesham]

Thank you Snark,

and here is all Info about Gazda and his Projects;

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,19852.msg192430.html#msg192430

 

[VictorXL188]

Here is the Option Air Acapella 100L [N360 CB]. It crashed on July 28, 1982.

Going back to the first type that Skyblazer posted back on this thread, in the dim and distant past, members may be aware that a second example was built of the Acapella, and this airframe is now on display at the EAA Museum at Oshkosh, and the full details can be seen on the 1000 photos site; http://1000aircraftphotos.com/Contributions/VanTilborg/10103.htm

 

[riggerrob]

Svardala Bullet was a 2-seater flying boat similar to Volmer Jensen's Sportsman.
Designer/builder John Svardala immigrated to Canada after World War 2. He settled in Wellandport, Ontario and flew for fun. In 1946, Svardala imported an X-1 airplane. I have no additional design details, but it flew at Hawkesbury, Ontario during the 1979s.
Before September 1964, Svardala built the prototype Svardala Bullet, 2-seater, side-by-side, flying-boat. The (plywood) hull, landing gear, (fabric-covered) wings, (fabric-covered) empennage and tip floats were similar to contemporary Volmer Sportsman and Anderson Kingfisher. The greatest difference was in in the aft cabin, which vaguely resembled a Republic Seabee. The most striking different was the short pylon supporting the engine (Continental or Lycoming) and propeller. Because the crankshaft was only a short distance above the (flat) aft fuselage, Svardala installed a 2-bladed, wooden propeller with broad, curved blades.
The Svardala Bullet was sold during the early 1970s and moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec. The new owner complained about poor climb performance. He installed a blown Plexiglas windshield, taller engine pylon and larger diameter propeller. I never saw the Bullet fly from Sherbrooke Airport. I have one photo of the yellow Svardala Bullet prototype.

 

[walter]

Hi riggertob
This is the only picture I ever saw of the Bullet. Any chance of you posting the yellow prototype?
Funny that apparently several registrations (most non-official) were tied to the Bullet. Can anyone confirm which was the correct registration (choose from: CF-PUY, CF-SYF, CF-PUH, CF-PHU, the latter possibly being the X-1 mentioned).

 

[riggerrob]

My photo is from the same angle as yours, but shows the higher engine pylon.

 

[VictorXL188]

Hopefully my search criteria was correct and this is a new addition to the list of one-off US types. The Ryson ST-100 Cloudster was an attempt, in the 1970s, to slow down the import of European-manufactured powered sailplanes into the US at a time where soaring was beginning to gain popularity. The ST-100 was as the result of the collaboration of T Claude Ryan and his son (hence the Ryson) and differed from its European counterparts in the use of an all metal construction, unlike the European designs of powered sailplanes from Fournier etc, which used mainly a combination of wood, metal and fabric covered structures. Attached picture comes from the San Diego Museum archive, whilst the GA drawing is from Air International June 1977 edition.

 

[VictorXL188]

Not sure if this goes under this subject matter, so apologies and Forum organisers please feel free to move it. Anyway, was looking through the January 1977 issue of Air International and came across a project which was being planned by Bill Lear. It was known as the Allegro and was a 10-seat business aircraft, the specifications can be seen in the attached clipping.

 

[hesham]

From JAWA 1963,Mr. Lawhorn and his Project LA-3.

 

[hesham]

From JAWA 1973,the VertaK S-220.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Good Day All -

NASA ID: A-26189
1 February 1960

Vanguard 2C vertical take-off and landing aircraft, wind tunnel test. Front view from below, model 14-½ feet high, disk off. NASA Ames engineer Ralph Maki in photo. Variable height struts and ground plane, low pressure ratio, fan in wing. (NASA photo)

A much larger, high-res version can be viewed or downloaded here:
https://images-assets.nasa.gov/image/A-26189/A-26189~orig.jpg

Enjoy the Day! Mark

 

[hesham]

Hi,

here is a two Projects for Strickland Aircraft Corporation,for 4/5 seat and 12/14 seat,the strange in the aircraft is it had a twin engined buried in the wing and drive tractor airscrews ?.

From JAWA 1947.

 

[Dynoman]

Strickland Aircraft Corporation is listed as a manufacturing concern in Topeka, Kansas in 1943. It may have moved to North Caroline during or after the war. It is listed among companies who sought federal financial assistance between 1942 and 1943 (i.e. $98,770). In 1943 Strickland was working on a project called the Strickland Invader. IDK what type of aircraft (if it was an aircraft) the Strickland Invader was. It is listed among copyrighted Works of Art for 1943.

 

[hesham]

Strickland Aircraft Corporation is listed as a manufacturing concern in Topeka, Kansas in 1943. It may have moved to North Caroline during or after the war.

Thank you my dear Dynoman,and do you have a drawing to its design ?.

 

[Dynoman]

Hesham,

No I don't have a picture of the aircraft. According to the copyright, there may exist a piece of conceptual art out there, which the company may have used in an advertisement or brochure. I'll keep looking though.

 

[DebraKim1956]

Svardala Bullet was a 2-seater flying boat similar to Volmer Jensen's Sportsman.
Designer/builder John Svardala immigrated to Canada after World War 2. He settled in Wellandport, Ontario and flew for fun. In 1946, Svardala imported an X-1 airplane. I have no additional design details, but it flew at Hawkesbury, Ontario during the 1979s.
Before September 1964, Svardala built the prototype Svardala Bullet, 2-seater, side-by-side, flying-boat. The (plywood) hull, landing gear, (fabric-covered) wings, (fabric-covered) empennage and tip floats were similar to contemporary Volmer Sportsman and Anderson Kingfisher. The greatest difference was in in the aft cabin, which vaguely resembled a Republic Seabee. The most striking different was the short pylon supporting the engine (Continental or Lycoming) and propeller. Because the crankshaft was only a short distance above the (flat) aft fuselage, Svardala installed a 2-bladed, wooden propeller with broad, curved blades.
The Svardala Bullet was sold during the early 1970s and moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec. The new owner complained about poor climb performance. He installed a blown Plexiglas windshield, taller engine pylon and larger diameter propeller. I never saw the Bullet fly from Sherbrooke Airport. I have one photo of the yellow Svardala Bullet prototype.

 

[DebraKim1956]

Svardala Bullet was a 2-seater flying boat similar to Volmer Jensen's Sportsman.
Designer/builder John Svardala immigrated to Canada after World War 2. He settled in Wellandport, Ontario and flew for fun. In 1946, Svardala imported an X-1 airplane. I have no additional design details, but it flew at Hawkesbury, Ontario during the 1979s.
Before September 1964, Svardala built the prototype Svardala Bullet, 2-seater, side-by-side, flying-boat. The (plywood) hull, landing gear, (fabric-covered) wings, (fabric-covered) empennage and tip floats were similar to contemporary Volmer Sportsman and Anderson Kingfisher. The greatest difference was in in the aft cabin, which vaguely resembled a Republic Seabee. The most striking different was the short pylon supporting the engine (Continental or Lycoming) and propeller. Because the crankshaft was only a short distance above the (flat) aft fuselage, Svardala installed a 2-bladed, wooden propeller with broad, curved blades.
The Svardala Bullet was sold during the early 1970s and moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec. The new owner complained about poor climb performance. He installed a blown Plexiglas windshield, taller engine pylon and larger diameter propeller. I never saw the Bullet fly from Sherbrooke Airport. I have one photo of the yellow Svardala Bullet prototype.

This was my uncle and I lived with him around the time he was building this plane. I have more photos of it and could possibly answer some of your questions.

 

[DebraKim1956]

Svardala Bullet was a 2-seater flying boat similar to Volmer Jensen's Sportsman.
Designer/builder John Svardala immigrated to Canada after World War 2. He settled in Wellandport, Ontario and flew for fun. In 1946, Svardala imported an X-1 airplane. I have no additional design details, but it flew at Hawkesbury, Ontario during the 1979s.
Before September 1964, Svardala built the prototype Svardala Bullet, 2-seater, side-by-side, flying-boat. The (plywood) hull, landing gear, (fabric-covered) wings, (fabric-covered) empennage and tip floats were similar to contemporary Volmer Sportsman and Anderson Kingfisher. The greatest difference was in in the aft cabin, which vaguely resembled a Republic Seabee. The most striking different was the short pylon supporting the engine (Continental or Lycoming) and propeller. Because the crankshaft was only a short distance above the (flat) aft fuselage, Svardala installed a 2-bladed, wooden propeller with broad, curved blades.
The Svardala Bullet was sold during the early 1970s and moved to Sherbrooke, Quebec. The new owner complained about poor climb performance. He installed a blown Plexiglas windshield, taller engine pylon and larger diameter propeller. I never saw the Bullet fly from Sherbrooke Airport. I have one photo of the yellow Svardala Bullet prototype.

This was my uncle and I lived with him around the time he was building this plane. I have more photos of it and could possibly answer some of your questions.

Some of what is posted above is quite inaccurate as my uncle left the then Czechoslovakia in 1950 when he was only 6 and arrived in Canada when he was 7. So he couldn't have imported a plane in 1946 when he was only 2 and not in Canada. However my uncle and father were really involved with planes from an early age.

 

[hesham]

From L + K 14/1979,

here is a flying wing ultra-light aircraft,designed by Mr. Striplin.

 

[hesham]

From Flightglobal 1949,

here is a Tailless single seat aircraft,designed by Mr. Robert Sebring,powered by one pusher
engine.

American airplanes: Sa - Si

 

[walter]

I think the aircraft was called Wee Wing.
Some details:
single-seat sport
one 12hp Richter (Nelson) two-stroke piston engine
wingspan 22ft; height 2.5ft
DETAILS: The very small Wee Wing flying wing aircraft was designed by Mr. Robert M. Sebring and it was also constructed him. The wood construction aircraft was completed in 1949 and in its structure several composite material parts and components were used. Only limited testing of the aircraft took place and further development was soon halted. The aircraft had so called wingtip tails and was fitted with one 12hp Richter two-stroke (drone) engine, the Richter company later being acquired by the Nelson Engine company. Only a single example of the flying wing was built.
Production: 1

 

[BillRo]

The Sawyer Skyjacker II [N7317] was a two-seat experimental research vehicle, a flying wing of all-metal construction built by Ralph Sawyer and first flown on July 3, 1975.

Sawyer’s objective for constructing this vehicle was to prove the stability, controllability and capability of such a radical, low-aspect-ratio aircraft, the size for this type of aircraft being unlimited due to the nature of its lifting body design. In fact, it was even marketed in its day as the only flying "true lifting body"—not as a sporting aircraft.

Sawyer's design calculations determined the aircraft would be able to carry 4.5 times the load as a typical aircraft with the same span. The airplane was named the Skyjacker because "it jacks itself into the sky."

The Skyjacker was cheap to build because there wereno compound curves, highly stressed areas or complex control systems. The design would not stall or spin and had no rudders. The aircraft was powered by a 200hp Lycoming IO-360-A1B6D pusher engine. Its span was 18 ft. and it was 17 ft. 6 in. long. It is not known what the #I design may have been.

Great info and pics can be found at:

• http://www.mojaveflyin.com/2013/03/sky-jacker-to-be-on-display.html
  
• http://kiwiwebhost.exon.net.nz/~ter...t/content/article/54/9628-sawyer-skyjacker-ii
  
• http://svsm.org/gallery/skyjacker

I found a couple of pix of this I took of this somewhere in Southern California in the 70's. It shows the buried engine and prop behind the cockpit.

 

[Grey Havoc]

Around 1980 Burt Rutan was engaged by Tom Jewett, whom he had known at Bede, and Jewett's associate, Gene Sheehan, to help design an airplane that would carry ease of construction and low cost to the extreme, even at the expense of performance. That airplane became the Quickie. Rutan's involvement ended after testing of the prototype; Jewett and Sheehan then marketed the tiny 18 hp airplane as a kit. The Quickie Aircraft Corp. installed itself in a hangar at the opposite end of the Mojave Airport from Rutan's.

Himself an aeronautical engineer, Jewett designed, and the Quickie Aircraft shop staff started building, an airplane called Big Bird in which Jewett intended to break the absolute distance record for unrefueled airplanes, set in 1962 at 12,519 miles by a B-52. The aircraft featured a unique landing gear dolly, which was designed to be jettisoned after the airplane took off on its record-attempting flight. At the completion of the flight, the airplane was to be landed on a wooden skid on the bottom of the aircraft. Burt Rutan thought ill of the design, and after he fell out with Jewett and Sheehan, the principals of Quickie Aircraft and RAF repeatedly sniped at each other in unseemly ways on the ramp at Mojave and in the aviation press.

After a hostile encounter on the airport camp with Jewett and Sheehan, Dick Rutan proposed to Burt that they do Jewett one better and build an airplane that could fly unrefueled all the way around the world.The Rutan brothers soon made a public announcement of their goal, reducing Big Bird to insignificance even before it had flown. Stung, Jewett quickly announced the same goal for Big Bird — which he rechristened Free Enterprise [N82X] — though his airplane was not really equal to the task. Jewett insisted that it was, but he never got the chance to prove it: the Free Enterprise crashed during testing, taking his life. Ironically, the goal initially set by Jewett was finally achieved by Dick Rutan and Jeanna Yeager in Burt Rutan's Voyager.

Adapted from an article published in the February 1989 issue of Flying.

On a side note regarding Dick Rutan:

Once, however, orders came from a U.S. general in Saigon that a badly injured pilot, lying on North Vietnamese soil, was to be left behind because the rescue effort would conflict with a larger operation. An outraged captain reached Saigon by telephone to demand that someone find out “exactly what I’m to tell the guy on the ground as to why we are pulling out and abandoning him.”

Back at base, the captain sat alone in the bar, cussing out various things, generals not least. A fellow pilot walked in, grinning, to say the downed pilot had been rescued. Apparently, “the general couldn’t figure out what words to use to tell him why we weren’t pulling him out.” The captain who had posed that difficult question was Dick Rutan, a man of varied accomplishments, including a record-setting, nonstop, unrefueled, round-the-world flight in 1986. The aircraft he flew with Jeana Yeager, Voyager, is now on display at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

At the time, Rutan was a member of an elite group of forward air controllers—which Fogleman later joined—who flew F-100 Super Sabres over the Ho Chi Minh Trail in North Vietnam and Laos, looking for evidence of men and materials moving south toward the fighting. Flying under the call sign “Misty,” the pilots would detect enemy targets, mark them with smoke-dispensing rockets, and guide strike aircraft—usually McDonnell Douglas F-4s and Republic F-105s—in for bombing runs.

The Mistys were a small group: Over the three-year period of the program, from June 1967 to May 1970, only 157 men served as pilots. After the war, many of them became notable achievers. When Fogleman was named the 15th Air Force Chief of Staff in 1994, he replaced Merrill “Tony” McPeak, who had also been a Misty. Two others, Lacy Veach and Roy Bridges, flew as astronauts on the space shuttle, and Bridges later headed NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida and Langley Research Center in Virginia. For his Voyager flight, Rutan received the National Aeronautic Association’s Collier Trophy. Misty alumni include four other generals, a spate of entrepreneurs, a pecan grower, a coffee plantation owner, a sculptor, an evangelical preacher, and 13 colonels.

What accounts for how much Misty airmen accomplished in later years? “Misty was a group of volunteers self-selected from fighter pilots,” says McPeak. “They were bound to be a bit special, so it should be no surprise that many of them turned out well when they eventually grew up.”

The Misty Mystique

Over Vietnam, F-100 pilots flew fast and low. Later, they hit the heights.

www.airspacemag.com

 

[hesham]

From Flying 1950-6,

here is a Thalman T-4,strange concept.

Flying Magazine

books.google.com.eg

 

[Archibald]

Linn Mini Mustang (N10L)
The Mini Mustang was designed and built by Mr. Charles C. Linn and despite the small dimensions, the aircraft featured a retractable undercarriage. The Mini Mustang was built to approximately 45-50% scale of the P-51. The L-1 was the first example built by Mr. Linn and it first flew on 14 January 1962. It won the 1962 EAA Most Popular Aircvraft awarsd, but was lost in an acident. To replace the L-1, Mr. Linn then constructed a second example, the L-2 (also named Linns Mustang) with the same N10L registration. This second aircraft differed slightly in having a 4-bladed (instead of 3-bladed) propeller, larger tail surfaces, a smaller engine air intake, longer canopy and it was also a bit shorter with 13.5ft (against 13.833ft). Both aircraft were powered by a 125hp Lycoming O-290-G engine. Plans were markleted for amateur construction, but I never could establish whether additional aircraft were built (maybe 2?)

Baby Mustang ! Should we call it a Pony ?

 

[hesham]

From Flying 1952-7,

here is a tailless glider,designed by Mr. D. F. Farrar,and called
Farrar XI,also from anther site,the Flying Wing V-1.

https://www.j2mcl-planeurs.net/dbj2mcl/planeurs-machines/planeurs-liste_0int.php