The rare and wacky U.S. aeroplanes of yesteryear...

hesham said:
Hi,

I can't ID this airplane well,even the name of its designer,Glary,it is not
mentioned in Aerofiles ?.

Click to expand...
Over on www.homebuiltairplanes.com we have engaged in lengthy discussions about low aspect-ratio flying wings including Arup, Para-Plane and an Italian plane that looked almost square ... er ... diamond-shaped from above.
Barnaby Wainfain has explained that when aspect ratios dip below 1.8, wing tip vortices collide on the centerline and cancel out each other, achieving much better lift-to-drag ratios than conventional aerodynamics predict. .
 
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riggerrob said:
That was an attempt at building a "Penguin" trainer for aspiring seaplane pilots.
Since the trainer could never climb out of ground effect, it could never fall far enough to kill its pilot.
Numerous "penguin" trainers were built during World War 1, though ,most were just worn out airplanes with cropped wings. They were used to teach student pilots the basics of stick-and-rudder on the ground.
Click to expand...
I'll wager it could have a try if it could go fast enough.

SRJ.
 
SeaslugMk2 said:
riggerrob said:
That was an attempt at building a "Penguin" trainer for aspiring seaplane pilots.
Since the trainer could never climb out of ground effect, it could never fall far enough to kill its pilot.
Numerous "penguin" trainers were built during World War 1, though ,most were just worn out airplanes with cropped wings. They were used to teach student pilots the basics of stick-and-rudder on the ground.
Click to expand...
I'll wager it could have a try if it could go fast enough.

SRJ.
Click to expand...

Penguins were often powered by worn out airplane engines that were on their last gasp. ... so could never climb high enough to kill a student pilot.
 
From Flying magazine 1941/12,

here is a radical twin engined light monoplane;

A.C. Johnson, Long Beach CA.

1941 = 2pClwM; two 80hp Johnson-designed motors in tandem in a split nacelle, facing one another. Almost a low-winged Seabee look to it, little was documented about this radical tractor-pusher design, and the theory of two opposite-turning propellers face-to-face a foot apart leaves one wondering.

 

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Hi,

Mr. Andrew Sedlmeier designed an aircraft,mounted a motor on movable front
piece synchronized with the tail assembly,so weird ?!.
 

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Let's not forget the Gustav Whitehead airplane that very likely flew--and flew far further--before the Wright Brothers did.

1200x0.jpg


Replicas have shown it would work and it can fly. There's plenty of evidence it did fly at the time too.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
Let's not forget the Gustav Whitehead airplane that very likely flew--and flew far further--before the Wright Brothers did.

1200x0.jpg


Replicas have shown it would work and it can fly. There's plenty of evidence it did fly at the time too.
Click to expand...
Much like the claim that the Langley Aerodrome flew first, the replicas (an example being the Curtiss rebuild of the Langley Aerodrome which bore little resemblance to the original airframe) revised/corrected problems that led to the original design's failure in the first place. The "evidence" that Whitehead flew before the Wright Brothers really doesn't stand up.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 
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Mark Nankivil said:
T. A. Gardner said:
Let's not forget the Gustav Whitehead airplane that very likely flew--and flew far further--before the Wright Brothers did.

1200x0.jpg


Replicas have shown it would work and it can fly. There's plenty of evidence it did fly at the time too.
Click to expand...
Much like the claim that the Langley Aerodrome flew first, the replicas (an example being Curtiss rebuild of the Langley Aerodrome which bore little resemblance to the original airframe) revised/corrected problems that led to the original design's failure in the first place. The "evidence" that Whitehead flew before the Wright Brothers really doesn't stand up.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
Click to expand...
Well, all the more reason it belongs in this thread...
 
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hesham said:

Yes,but this aircraft was frpm 1935 ?!.
Click to expand...

Yes, that's what is said in the link - the 1932 Yates Oregon O (N15508) was developed into the 1935 Greenwood-Yates Bi-Craft (NC15546) with twin engines.

I note too that your clipping lists North Pacific Aircraft Corp. as being based in Seattle. Perhaps that article is what confused Aerofiles? At any rate, Pacific Aircraft was based in Portland not Seattle.
 
img_2111.jpg


The Silvanskii IS

This is what happens when you let someone with no aircraft design experience but good connections within the dictatorship design airplanes...

hushkit.net

The 11 worst Soviet aircraft

The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years a…
hushkit.net hushkit.net
Silvanskii is a name synonymous with Russian fighters..oh, wait – no it’s not. And there is a very good reason that it’s not. In the midst of Stalin’s muddled and oppressive USSR, one A.V. Silvanskii secured state funding to create a new fighter in 1937. The concept seemed sound- it was a low-winged monoplane with a 1,000 horsepower radial engine, armed with two heavy machine guns. As development began it soon became apparent that Silvanskii was a reckless bodger. By 1938 the prototype aircraft was virtually complete. Initial tests of the undercarriage revealed that the wheel wells were too small- the undercarriage did not fit into the wing in the retracted position. How this elementary mistake had been made is hard to understand, but the solution was simple- the undercarriage legs were shortened. Now the undercarriage could be retracted it was realised that the wheel bays were too shallow so the undercarriage would stick out into the airstream producing drag. Deciding not to rectify this issue, the team then fitted the propeller. Though the aircraft now had a shorter undercarriage than originally designed, no-one saw fit to think through the consequences of this modification; the propeller was now too large and would smash against the ground on take-off. Ever the master of methodical engineering, Silvanskii took a saw to the offending propeller and lopped four inches off each blade. The manager of the GAZ state aircraft factory watched this slapstick affair with dismay and growing alarm. He quite sensibly refused Silvanskii permission to fly from the factory airfield. The persistent Silvanskii looked for an alternative airfield for his fighter and charmed the State Flight Research Institute (LII) in Moscow into providing a runway and a test pilot for the maiden flight. One cold morning in early 1939, the LII test pilot strapped himself into the aircraft, known simply as the IS or ‘Istrebitel’ (fighter) and prepared to fly. The machine had other ideas, but thanks to a combination of full throttle and extremely dense cold air the machine was coaxed into taking off for one hair-raising circuit flown dangerously close to the stall. On landing the pilot damned the aircraft as unflyable. The Silvanskii bureau was bankrupted and the hapless designer was banned from working in aeronautical design.
 
T. A. Gardner said:
img_2111.jpg


The Silvanskii IS

This is what happens when you let someone with no aircraft design experience but good connections within the dictatorship design airplanes...

hushkit.net

The 11 worst Soviet aircraft

The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years a…
hushkit.net hushkit.net
Silvanskii is a name synonymous with Russian fighters..oh, wait – no it’s not. And there is a very good reason that it’s not. In the midst of Stalin’s muddled and oppressive USSR, one A.V. Silvanskii secured state funding to create a new fighter in 1937. The concept seemed sound- it was a low-winged monoplane with a 1,000 horsepower radial engine, armed with two heavy machine guns. As development began it soon became apparent that Silvanskii was a reckless bodger. By 1938 the prototype aircraft was virtually complete. Initial tests of the undercarriage revealed that the wheel wells were too small- the undercarriage did not fit into the wing in the retracted position. How this elementary mistake had been made is hard to understand, but the solution was simple- the undercarriage legs were shortened. Now the undercarriage could be retracted it was realised that the wheel bays were too shallow so the undercarriage would stick out into the airstream producing drag. Deciding not to rectify this issue, the team then fitted the propeller. Though the aircraft now had a shorter undercarriage than originally designed, no-one saw fit to think through the consequences of this modification; the propeller was now too large and would smash against the ground on take-off. Ever the master of methodical engineering, Silvanskii took a saw to the offending propeller and lopped four inches off each blade. The manager of the GAZ state aircraft factory watched this slapstick affair with dismay and growing alarm. He quite sensibly refused Silvanskii permission to fly from the factory airfield. The persistent Silvanskii looked for an alternative airfield for his fighter and charmed the State Flight Research Institute (LII) in Moscow into providing a runway and a test pilot for the maiden flight. One cold morning in early 1939, the LII test pilot strapped himself into the aircraft, known simply as the IS or ‘Istrebitel’ (fighter) and prepared to fly. The machine had other ideas, but thanks to a combination of full throttle and extremely dense cold air the machine was coaxed into taking off for one hair-raising circuit flown dangerously close to the stall. On landing the pilot damned the aircraft as unflyable. The Silvanskii bureau was bankrupted and the hapless designer was banned from working in aeronautical design.
Click to expand...
This may be a sufficiently odd aircraft, but not of US origin.
 
1635yankee said:
T. A. Gardner said:
img_2111.jpg


The Silvanskii IS

This is what happens when you let someone with no aircraft design experience but good connections within the dictatorship design airplanes...

hushkit.net

The 11 worst Soviet aircraft

The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years a…
hushkit.net hushkit.net
Silvanskii is a name synonymous with Russian fighters..oh, wait – no it’s not. And there is a very good reason that it’s not. In the midst of Stalin’s muddled and oppressive USSR, one A.V. Silvanskii secured state funding to create a new fighter in 1937. The concept seemed sound- it was a low-winged monoplane with a 1,000 horsepower radial engine, armed with two heavy machine guns. As development began it soon became apparent that Silvanskii was a reckless bodger. By 1938 the prototype aircraft was virtually complete. Initial tests of the undercarriage revealed that the wheel wells were too small- the undercarriage did not fit into the wing in the retracted position. How this elementary mistake had been made is hard to understand, but the solution was simple- the undercarriage legs were shortened. Now the undercarriage could be retracted it was realised that the wheel bays were too shallow so the undercarriage would stick out into the airstream producing drag. Deciding not to rectify this issue, the team then fitted the propeller. Though the aircraft now had a shorter undercarriage than originally designed, no-one saw fit to think through the consequences of this modification; the propeller was now too large and would smash against the ground on take-off. Ever the master of methodical engineering, Silvanskii took a saw to the offending propeller and lopped four inches off each blade. The manager of the GAZ state aircraft factory watched this slapstick affair with dismay and growing alarm. He quite sensibly refused Silvanskii permission to fly from the factory airfield. The persistent Silvanskii looked for an alternative airfield for his fighter and charmed the State Flight Research Institute (LII) in Moscow into providing a runway and a test pilot for the maiden flight. One cold morning in early 1939, the LII test pilot strapped himself into the aircraft, known simply as the IS or ‘Istrebitel’ (fighter) and prepared to fly. The machine had other ideas, but thanks to a combination of full throttle and extremely dense cold air the machine was coaxed into taking off for one hair-raising circuit flown dangerously close to the stall. On landing the pilot damned the aircraft as unflyable. The Silvanskii bureau was bankrupted and the hapless designer was banned from working in aeronautical design.
Click to expand...
This may be a sufficiently odd aircraft, but not of US origin.
Click to expand...
My mistake. I must have been asleep when posting it...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
1635yankee said:
T. A. Gardner said:
img_2111.jpg


The Silvanskii IS

This is what happens when you let someone with no aircraft design experience but good connections within the dictatorship design airplanes...

hushkit.net

The 11 worst Soviet aircraft

The Soviet Union lasted a mere sixty-nine years (the Spitfire has been flying longer), but in that time produced some of the largest, fastest, toughest and most agile aircraft. Even now, 25 years a…
hushkit.net hushkit.net
Silvanskii is a name synonymous with Russian fighters..oh, wait – no it’s not. And there is a very good reason that it’s not. In the midst of Stalin’s muddled and oppressive USSR, one A.V. Silvanskii secured state funding to create a new fighter in 1937. The concept seemed sound- it was a low-winged monoplane with a 1,000 horsepower radial engine, armed with two heavy machine guns. As development began it soon became apparent that Silvanskii was a reckless bodger. By 1938 the prototype aircraft was virtually complete. Initial tests of the undercarriage revealed that the wheel wells were too small- the undercarriage did not fit into the wing in the retracted position. How this elementary mistake had been made is hard to understand, but the solution was simple- the undercarriage legs were shortened. Now the undercarriage could be retracted it was realised that the wheel bays were too shallow so the undercarriage would stick out into the airstream producing drag. Deciding not to rectify this issue, the team then fitted the propeller. Though the aircraft now had a shorter undercarriage than originally designed, no-one saw fit to think through the consequences of this modification; the propeller was now too large and would smash against the ground on take-off. Ever the master of methodical engineering, Silvanskii took a saw to the offending propeller and lopped four inches off each blade. The manager of the GAZ state aircraft factory watched this slapstick affair with dismay and growing alarm. He quite sensibly refused Silvanskii permission to fly from the factory airfield. The persistent Silvanskii looked for an alternative airfield for his fighter and charmed the State Flight Research Institute (LII) in Moscow into providing a runway and a test pilot for the maiden flight. One cold morning in early 1939, the LII test pilot strapped himself into the aircraft, known simply as the IS or ‘Istrebitel’ (fighter) and prepared to fly. The machine had other ideas, but thanks to a combination of full throttle and extremely dense cold air the machine was coaxed into taking off for one hair-raising circuit flown dangerously close to the stall. On landing the pilot damned the aircraft as unflyable. The Silvanskii bureau was bankrupted and the hapless designer was banned from working in aeronautical design.
Click to expand...
This may be a sufficiently odd aircraft, but not of US origin.
Click to expand...
My mistake. I must have been asleep when posting it...
Click to expand...
Not a problem (at least as far as I'm concerned).Threads frequently drift
 
How about the Zerbe Air Sedan - a staggered four-wing concoction building on his previous five- and six-winged attempts at flying machines.. Zerbe multiplanes 3.jpg
 
The Nemeth Parasol...

Nemeth_Parasol_SM.jpg


This oddity actually flew! It was built in 1934 by students at the University of Miami led by one of their professors, a Steven Nemeth. It was claimed the aircraft could land just about anywhere. It demonstrated in flight a top speed of 135 mph and a landing speed of 25 mph.

Nemeth Parasol: Strange Aircraft that Flew

The Nemeth Parasol was a Strange Aircraft That Actually Flew! Among the many general aviation aircraft in history, there are some wonderful and strange aircraft: creations revealing our desperate desire to fly like our feathered friends. Some
disciplesofflight.com disciplesofflight.com
 
garysstuff said:
How about the Zerbe Air Sedan - a staggered four-wing concoction building on his previous five- and six-winged attempts at flying machines..
Click to expand...

The designer - Jerome 'James' Slough Zerbe (1849-1921) - is a bit of an enigma. In the LA Times, he is descibed as a "Los Angeles teacher".
-- https://www.latimes.com/california/...show-launched-l-a-s-rise-to-aerospace-capital

But, The Historical Society of Southern California has him as "Professor Zerbe, a Los Angeles attorney and would-be promoter."
The Historical Society, March, 1961 - Vol. XLIII
-- https://archive.org/stream/historicalsociet43hist/historicalsociet43hist_djvu.txt

The latter also describes his attempted flight in the 1910 :

There was the multiplane, fantastic creation of Professor Zerbe, a Los Angeles attorney and would-be promoter.

Zerbe instructed his mechanics to point the multiplane into the wind and took a seat amidships. Zerbe started the engine and the machine strained against the pull of the muddy soil. Finally, the affair began to move. Before it ever became airborne, however, sparks flew, smoke issued from deep inside the monster and a loud pop, like the explosion of a rifle, sounded across the stands. Slowly, one wheel lifted off the ground and the huge wings dug into the earth, depositing Professor Zerbe upon the ground. [...]

164. Zerbe was experimenting with aircraft at least one year prior to the Dominguez Meet. Cf.. J. S. Zerbe, “Among the Aeronauts in Southern California,” Los Angeles Herald, December 20, 1908. His unhappy attempt to fly is described in the Los Angeles Times, January 11, 12, 1910.
Click to expand...

The Historical Society, March, 1961 - Vol. XLIII
-- https://archive.org/stream/historicalsociet43hist/historicalsociet43hist_djvu.txt

But the question remains: Who the heck was Jerome Slough Zerbe? And 'Professor' of what? He did author some book in the 'How-To-Do-It' series for boys as James Slough Zerbe. And yet 'Professor' and children's books don't quite go together ...
 

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garysstuff said:
How about the Zerbe Air Sedan - a staggered four-wing concoction building on his previous five- and six-winged attempts at flying machines..View attachment 703369
Click to expand...
Well, at least his design iterations were trending in the right direction with respect to the number of wing planes - he might eventually have arrived at a workable solution...
 
T. A. Gardner said:
The Nemeth Parasol...

Nemeth_Parasol_SM.jpg


This oddity actually flew! It was built in 1934 by students at the University of Miami led by one of their professors, a Steven Nemeth. It was claimed the aircraft could land just about anywhere. It demonstrated in flight a top speed of 135 mph and a landing speed of 25 mph.

Nemeth Parasol: Strange Aircraft that Flew

The Nemeth Parasol was a Strange Aircraft That Actually Flew! Among the many general aviation aircraft in history, there are some wonderful and strange aircraft: creations revealing our desperate desire to fly like our feathered friends. Some
disciplesofflight.com disciplesofflight.com
Click to expand...
I think that was some truly innovative engineering thought at that time.
 
The Yates/Greenwood "BiMotor" pictured above wasn't particularly wacky. A couple (I think...maybe just one) were built in Beaverton Oregon. One was destroyed in a hangar fire. As shown, it was powered by Menasco M-50 engines. Yes, Menasco, very briefly, built a 4-cylinder horizontally-opposed 50 hp engine. Very few ever flew and I have no idea how Yates managed to acquire two of them. No doubt they were pretty cheap, because everybody in Oregon's homebuilt airplane world of the 1950 was operating on a tiny budget.

I owned one of those engines briefly. It had been kicking around Oregon for fifty years and ended its life with a orchardist who used it, with a hand made prop, to blow hazelnuts off trees. I tracked it down, paid $200 for it and owned a piece of history. It is now in the collection of the western Antique aircraft and Automobile Museum in Hood River Oregon.
 
Apophenia said:
Yes, that's what is said in the link - the 1932 Yates Oregon O (N15508) was developed into the 1935 Greenwood-Yates Bi-Craft (NC15546) with twin engines.

I note too that your clipping lists North Pacific Aircraft Corp. as being based in Seattle. Perhaps that article is what confused Aerofiles? At any rate, Pacific Aircraft was based in Portland not Seattle.
Click to expand...
Many times over the years I've seen Portland, Washington and Seattle, Oregon. When it happens it's usually in books/magazines
published in Europe - UK and Continental and occasionally in Japanese sources.
:)
 
jcf said:
Many times over the years I've seen Portland, Washington and Seattle, Oregon. When it happens it's usually in books/magazines
published in Europe - UK and Continental and occasionally in Japanese sources.
:)
Click to expand...

Ouch! I'm guessing that the average Seattleite couldn't care less. But probably them's fightin' words down in 'Beervana' :D

On the Flettner Rotor ...

'A review of the Magnus effect in aeronautics' by Jost Seifert (EADS) in Progress in Aerospace Sciences, No. 55 (2012), pp 17-45.
-- https://www.homepages.ed.ac.uk/shs/Climatechange/Flettner ship/Seifert Flettner apps.pdf
 
Thankfully, Plymouth wasn't the only company insane enough to try a Flettner wing...

8.jpg


Union Aircraft company of Long Island NY built the Rotorplane... They used 2 auxiliary Indian motorcycle engines to power the cylinders...
 
Flettner wing...

What goes around...
IIRC, they're now being used as 'augments' on cargo ships, advantage being less complexity than 'sails', and convenient telescoping for adverse weather, bridges etc etc...
 

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