This Week’s Hints to help you along:
- An early aircraft that featured a variable incidence wing.
- Just one was received for testing — but to which nation’s air force?
- As always, the tail design can be helpful in identifying the aircraft.
- The year was 1918 and testing took place starting in February.
So do you know what this aircraft is?
OK, I cheated and put the clues into an internet search.
It is a Lanzius LII, built in NY. There were Army Air Service contracts for two. It never went into production. This is a picture of the second of the two delivered.
The tail looks very much like Curtis or Rumpler, so that threw me. I spent wasted time looking for Curtis designs in 1918.
Correct. Cheated? Maybe all is fair in the Internet and war. We still have one past What’s That? that nobody has guessed.
— http://fly.historicwings.com/2012/07/a-mysterious-plane-indeed/
Good luck with that one…. Even with the Internet.
Here’s a good video of the Armstrong-Whitworth AW-52 flying wing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7H1tyMRtcho
When I was a boy living in Compton, California (between Long Beach and LA) during the latter part of WW2, I saw a Northrup flying wing flying North at a very high altitude. I later found out that Northrop would take their secret planes off to the west over the ocean, then circle south to gain altitude, then fly over LA and land at Edwards (AFB).
Of interest, I started my flying lessons at Jack Northrop Field/Hawthorne Municipal Airport in 1957. It is a 4956 foot East/West runway which was adjacent to the Northrop Factory with the town to the West and a golf course to the East.. When they had a plane finished and ready to fly, a chain link fence on the west end was opened and all traffic stopped on the four lane road.The plane would then take off with minimal clearance over the golf coarse.