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Category: What’s That?

An Early Lifting Body

admin July 10, 2019

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed just two years after the end of the Great War. A lifting body design that added more than 1/4 to the available

Continue reading An Early Lifting Body

Hot Rod of the Winter Sky

admin June 5, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A brilliant combat design, fast and with fine maneuverability. Wings and fuselage were made of plywood; didn’t fare well in the weather. Powered

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A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter

admin March 23, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed by two college dropouts in their 20s. However, neither designer knew how to fly a helicopter! Body styling reminiscent of a Ford

Continue reading A Revolutionary One-Man Helicopter

Close Air Support REJECTED

admin March 13, 2018March 19, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Lost out in the bid to be the leading CAS aircraft. A brilliant design, even with its Hersey Bar wing. Amazing visibility, slow

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Super Streamlining for Speed

admin March 6, 2018

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A record-setter showcasing advancing streamlining. A fuel tank atop the fuselage, blocks the pilot’s view. Nearly 200 mph, yet still a very slow

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A Nenadovich Biplane Type

admin November 29, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A Nenadovich design, fairly unique in aeronautical engineering. Designed by one nation, finished and flown by another. A wartime experimental design that showed

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Not a Captured French Plane

admin October 23, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A rotary engine fighter from the Great War. 80 hp when more powerful engines were preferred. Looks like French wings on a German

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American Ingenuity

admin September 7, 2017September 7, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Two cylinders and 150 hp. No combustion required in the cylinders! Can rotate the prop either direction — reversing thrust! Based on, well,

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An Aerobatic Amazement

admin August 24, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A 1950s, fully aerobatic job that still amazes. Belgian, but most popular in the UK. Not a home built, but a full production

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Weird, But Not French

admin May 7, 2017May 7, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Not everything in the skies that looks weird is French. A German’s first foreign production plane after WWII. A late-1950s effort that helped

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The VW of the Skies

admin April 20, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: From 55 years ago, before the home-builder revolution. Perfectly at home on wheels, skies or floats. Less than 350 lbs empty weight, a

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A New Sensor Platform

admin March 27, 2017March 26, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed as a sensor platform for counterinsurgency. A twin-boom design reminiscent of the Skymaster and Mohawk. To carry wing-loads of rockets and other

Continue reading A New Sensor Platform

An Absolute Failure

admin February 27, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed to replace a venerable, well-used type. Outlasted by the plane it was designed to replace. Named after a demon because of the

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An Unexpected Canard

admin January 23, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A single prototype of a highly innovative design. It crash-landed, killing the test pilot when it hit a tree. A fighter to be

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Don’t Flare on Landing

admin January 15, 2017January 15, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An old design from a classic designer. So underpowered and yet it flew. The rudder cables are below the fuselage. Tricycle gear yet

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Narrow and Sleek

admin January 3, 2017January 15, 2017

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Twin-engine and those look like American cowlings. The rudders give a good hint, but not Earhart. A wartime design but relatively unknown. This

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Elliptical Wing Wonder

admin September 26, 2016September 25, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The wing really is elliptical and it flies! Little wingtip vortices improves performance 30%. Structurally more sound than conventional designs. Made for civilian

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The First Pencil?

admin September 22, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The first plane designed for mass production. Used any of at least five engines. It was all the rage in Mexico! Pressed into

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Pushing the Boundaries

admin September 12, 2016September 11, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed at war using captured Nazi jet engines. Paved the way to 30 years of design development. Delayed as the factory didn’t know

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Quadraplanes Forever

admin August 22, 2016August 22, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Four wings, the top and bottom ones nearly identical. A heavy night interceptor with a headlamp! A crew of four with two engines,

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A Weird Triplane

admin August 15, 2016August 8, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Yes, those are American insignia on the wings. Clearly inspired by the famed Fokker Dr.I Triplane. Fast and well-designed, setting speed records. Set

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Nearly 100 Years Ago

admin August 8, 2016August 3, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A two-seat trainer that was quite reliable. Once displayed huge swastikas on the wings. Le Rhone powered, licensed rotary engine manufacturing. Flew commercial,

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An Anti-Submarine Seaplane

admin August 1, 2016July 29, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Patrol, reconnaissance and anti-submarine roles. Deployed late in the Great War in small numbers. Successfully attacked and nearly sank a submarine! Pioneered new

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Pocket Jet!

admin July 25, 2016July 27, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A sub-mach mystery aircraft with a short history. The ultimate “V-tailed Doctor Killer” perhaps? Seats two — a pilot and the “guy in

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Not a Salamander

admin July 18, 2016July 18, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Form follows function and thus, it appears like a Salamander. The wings appear the same as on the Bell X-1 “Glamorous Glennis”. Never

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The Javan Rhinoceros

admin June 27, 2016June 26, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Played a key role in an early WWII battle bombing shipping. Despite its age, still the bomber with the highest performance. Once the

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A Hydrofoil-Seaplane?

admin June 22, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Featured a boat propeller at the back to get up to speed. A flight propeller at front — only one prop could operate

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A Quad-Rotor Tilt-Rotor

admin June 6, 2016June 6, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A brilliant tilt-rotor design, yet from over 50 years ago. Yes, those are tandem wings, a rather unusual configuration. The stubbiest nose wheel

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Bat Out of Hell

admin May 30, 2016May 31, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed from one of the first flying wing plans that was for leisure flying. Later developed into a fighter aircraft with two cannons

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A Valiant Fighter

admin April 11, 2016April 11, 2016

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A dozen in service, only 3 to 5 at a time rose to face hundreds of the enemy. Battles raged for just a

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Backwards Thinking

admin October 5, 2015October 3, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The designer taught himself everything by trial and error in the mid-1900s. Innovative in every way and featuring tandem wings. This was the

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Spindles for Wings?

admin July 27, 2015July 26, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Its wings are circular spindles that spin to create lift. A 1930s era experimental plane that didn’t work so well. A motorcycle engine

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Twin-Boomed Terror

admin May 7, 2015May 7, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A twin-tail, pusher plane meant for military service. Yes, those insignia are crosses, but whose?  And when? Beautiful candy-stripe coloration on the twin-booms!

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As Easy as Driving a Car!

admin April 13, 2015April 1, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Streamlined and bearing the classic curves of the late 1930s. The exhaust pipe is a flyover in front of the windshield. Control systems

Continue reading As Easy as Driving a Car!

Not a NASA Project

admin April 6, 2015April 1, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Another wartime design, this one meant to press supersonic speeds. Flight tested as a glider successfully before the end of World War II.

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Not Quite a Flying Car

admin April 1, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Created in tough times by one of the world’s leading design firms. Flight tested extensively but never meant for production. A product of

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Not Much More Than a Glider

admin March 17, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Set three world records between 1927 and 1930 — none for speed. Featured a 3-cylinder radial engine with  just 18 hp. Seen in

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Roswell Revisited?

admin March 8, 2015March 7, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: In a secret hangar, this flying saucer languished due to budget limitations. It was not quite in Roswell, but nonetheless Roswellian in nature

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The Flying Masterpiece

admin February 16, 2015February 18, 2015

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The product of a well-mustached, wide-eyed French aviator. Just 200 kg, 9 meters long and 10 meters in wingspan. A 70 hp Gnome

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The First Flying Saucer?

admin September 29, 2014September 20, 2014

This Week’s Hints to help you along: What may be the world’s first flying saucer. Couldn’t compare to the popular Blériot planes. An innovative design from a designer who would

Continue reading The First Flying Saucer?

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