Lester's thread of the odd, one-off, and bizarre in aviation.

[legoboyvdlp]

Life, sorry.
Hmm, maybe.
I suppose it might work.

[jwocky]

You find really the weirdest of the weird flying things, Lester. This threat always reminds me about ...

[HJ1an]

Since tail-less aircraft, or flying wing types, play largely in experimental and strange designs, the Dunne series of tailless biplanes were an early breakthrough in self stability experiments.

The stability came largely from the extreme washout of the wing's Angle of Attack and the backsweeping which made the outer part of the wing a transitional stabilizer with elevator and with control mixing, doubled for roll control, pretty much the first use of this concept in a flyable tailless aircraft.

First swept wing aircraft (and tailless?). Very cool. Gotta say - the others I've seen or read about before but this one I've never heard of it. That, and the moonbat.

I thought I've pretty much seen everything historically (got an encyclopedia of these planes as a kid) but new unknown ones just kept creeping up.

[LesterBoffo]

Here's another odd one, and actually it was really advanced for it's time because it used Aluminum almost exclusively as it's structural material.



The Breguet III-U1 made by Louis Breguet in 1912. Used for a short period of time during 1914 in WWI as a observation scout by the Royal Naval Air Service and referred to as the Tin Whistle because of it's tubelike all aluminum fuselage.

[HJ1an]

That tail looks like it is about to snap off from the plane at the slightest breeze...