Handley Page Tailless high-speed bomber

[hesham]

Hi,

behind and before the HP victor jet bomber,in 1946 there was a unarmed tailless
high-speed bomber.


http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1959/1959%20-%200768.html

 

[hole in the ground]

I can see a tail

 

[Retrofit]

The tail surface was just to trim longitudinaly the aircraft, especially when landing flaps were extented.
The bomber was supposed to be equiped with elevons.
The HP-88 experimental demonstrator flew in that configuration, but without the winglets.

Cheers,

 

[lastdingo]

It's funny how long it took till winglets were in general use - when winglet-like fins were tested that early.


The model reminds me somehow of BWB designs, I'm not sure why.

 

[Matej]

Funny but somehow I cant sustain the term "unarmed bomber". Unarmed demonstrator or something like that is fine but unarmed bomber?? What will fall to the enemy, the crew themselves? Probably they want to say that it has not any defensive armament?

 

[archipeppe]

Funny but somehow I cant sustain the term "unarmed bomber". Unarmed demonstrator or something like that is fine but unarmed bomber?? What will fall to the enemy, the crew themselves? Probably they want to say that it has not any defensive armament?

I suppose the second you wrote.
Since 30's there was a strong debate if a bomber should be "fast and unarmed (w/o turrets or guns)" or not.
Following such phylosophy De Havilland realized the outstanding Mosquito (a real "wooden wonder") a bomber fast like a fighter and lacking of any sort of defensive armament.

Just after the WWII, with the new jet engines, it turn to be convenient to have a very fast bomber without the dead weight of defensive turrets and so on.
In that sense all the "V" bombers were unarmed, especially if compared with B 52 and Tu 95.....

 

[hesham]

Hi,

here is a drawing for tailless airplane,they claims it was from Handley Page,maybe
a hypothetical design,but any confirm ?.

http://www.avia-it.com/act/biblioteca/periodici/PDF%20Riviste/Ala/L'Ala%201949%2001.pdf

 

[Schneiderman]

I think that it says it is a flying wing with auxiliary Handley-Page flap/wing, not that it is a Handley-Page design

 

[hesham]

I think that it says it is a flying wing with auxiliary Handley-Page flap/wing, not that it is a Handley-Page design

Thanks.

 

[Pioneer]

Hi,

behind and before the HP victor jet bomber,in 1946 there was a unarmed tailless
high-speed bomber.


http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1959/1959%20-%200768.html

A sexy and seemingly efficient design in my little mind!

Thank's for bringing it to my attention hesham

Regards
Pioneer

 

[hesham]

A sexy and seemingly efficient design in my little mind!

Thank's for bringing it to my attention hesham

Regards
Pioneer

;D

 

[Retrofit]

Perhaps an information from Putnam book on Handley-Page:
A bomber/transport version derived from the HP-75 "Manx" registered H-0222

 

[hesham]

here is a drawing for tailless airplane,they claims it was from Handley Page,maybe
a hypothetical design,but any confirm ?.

http://www.avia-it.com/act/biblioteca/periodici/PDF%20Riviste/Ala/L'Ala%201949%2001.pdf

Thank you my dear Retrofit,

that means it was probably a Handley Page design,and also looks like this beast;

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,21381.msg219341.html#msg219341

 

[Schneiderman]

Yes, that does indeed seem to be the case. A quick translation of the article, which is about problems with flying wing aircraft, indicates that it is the use of forward 'canard' surfaces are of interest.
L'ala usually copied material from UK and US magazines for these articles so if anyone has Aeroplane from 1948 or 1949 we may be able to locate the source article.