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Category: What’s That?

A Wildly Painted Bird

admin September 22, 2014September 20, 2014

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Painted like a bird with feathers. One of the first aircraft designs to use winglets. Sometimes called the Firebird. One of the world’s

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An Air Racer Turned Deadly

admin August 11, 2014August 11, 2014

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An air racer that became a fighter plane. Scored 12 kills after it was withdrawn from service. Flew in active military service in

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A Competition Winner

admin November 18, 2013November 17, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This aircraft won numerous competitions. An innovative design by one of the great engineers. A two-seat aircraft powered by a British engine. The

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A Radical Testbed

admin August 5, 2013August 7, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This is another experimental aircraft. Built by designers in an unexpected country. Just what are those big paddles above the wing? Influences from

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Secret Weapons of the…

admin July 8, 2013July 10, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An experimental, secret weapon design. Three engines — two on the nose, one in the tail. The war ended before it was ready

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The Little Tub

admin June 10, 2013June 11, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Displayed at Harrod’s at the end of the Great War. An early “ultralight”, in a class of its own. No fixed tail —

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An Early Tilt Rotor?

admin May 27, 2013May 27, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A 1930s era design, from a patent filing done in the USA. Was it a US design or from Europe; what lines are

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The First Fork Tail?

admin May 13, 2013May 13, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A twin-tailed plane designed for the military. Early enough that it uses wing warping! A Wright design — with Manning, however. 2,000 total

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Quite a Bus

admin May 6, 2013May 8, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: For the darkness of night, a shadow falls across the Moon. There might be a good clue in the tail design. This came

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To the Extremes — and Beyond

admin April 22, 2013April 24, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Just whose roundel insignia is that — French, British, something else? Are those Americans in uniform walking around the plane? Developed for very

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A Ground Attack Triplane

admin April 15, 2013April 15, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Designed specifically for ground attack, yet a triplane! The personnel look quite lax — yet is it from the interwar period? A single

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A Flying Cartoon

admin April 8, 2013April 9, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A fat, pudgy, shortened, cartoonish design from Germany. Certainly unique, in all respects — only one was built! It flew, though not well;

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Seven Records to Obscurity

admin April 1, 2013April 2, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A truly record-setting airplane with seven records in its class. Unique in design, unique in construction, and unique overall. Often missed though it

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A Michigan Catastrophe

admin March 25, 2013March 25, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Oh the tragedy, the ill will of the skies and the wires! The True North strong and free! From far and wide…. A

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A Rare Three-Engine Beast

admin March 18, 2013March 18, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Originally designed with radials, flown with 4 cyl. inline engines. Performed well, but only six were built despite marketing efforts. Could this have

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A Retracting Float Seaplane

admin March 11, 2013March 11, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: After take-off, the pilots retracts the float against the fuselage. The wing floats retract outward and form wingtip fairings. Designed to hunt submarines;

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From Instructor to Fighter

admin March 4, 2013March 4, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The tail design might help you, but probably not…. Exceedingly rare and later scrapped after rejection by the military. Sleek, but still a

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Ungainly to a Tee

admin February 25, 2013February 25, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Perhaps the least likely mass produced bomber in history. An unexpected country of origin, quite unlike other such designs. Designed for night bombing

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An Innovative Duster

admin February 18, 2013February 17, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An agricultural aircraft with many unique features. Designed by a man of Italian descent, but very far from Italy. Could drop bundles of

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An Improved Model

admin February 4, 2013February 4, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: We don’t know where to start with this — but it did fly. Designed before the Wright Brothers first came to Europe. A

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No Visible Support

admin January 28, 2013January 28, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Features a radical reduction in the number of struts for racing. Created for competition and aerobatics, especially for looping. Seemingly underpowered, but light

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A Red Firecracker

admin January 21, 2013January 22, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A two-seat hot rod with a 125 hp engine. Delayed by war and only a handful built. Developed further into agricultural applications. A

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A Strange Bird

admin January 14, 2013January 15, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: The tail shape (and tail flash) tell a lot. Whose markings are those on the side of the fuselage? Twin-engined but so aerodynamically

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Not Quite Defiant

admin January 7, 2013January 7, 2013

This Week’s Hints to help you along: No relationship to the Boulton Paul Defiant. Incredible firepower through the nose! A V-12 engine gave it extraordinary power and speed. Designed by

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A Corrugated Duralumin Mess

admin December 31, 2012December 30, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An all-metal concept using riveted duralumin sheets. Look Ma!  No bottom wing! The tail is a giveaway of the manufacturer’s marque. Testing in

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A Rare Bullet Bird

admin December 24, 2012December 25, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Unique truly applies — there was only one. A late experiment in bird-like designs — nearly to World War I. Aerodynamically ahead of

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An All-Metal Wonder

admin December 16, 2012December 16, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: An all-metal aircraft in a time of fabric and wire. The designer invented the world’s first flying wing — in 1910! An little

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A Long Nose Probe?

admin December 9, 2012December 9, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This is definitely an American design. Your answer must include information about the nose. Flying over the USA in tests — but what’s

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A Line of Mystery

admin December 3, 2012December 3, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: That isn’t from France, Britain or Germany. Are those single engine bombers or something else. The tail flash is still a tricolor, but

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A Wolf in Sheep’s Clothing

admin November 26, 2012November 26, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Without an engine, clearly a glider. Designed for training rather than pleasure. Extremely sensitive on the rudders. A French tail flash gives an

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An Innovative Float Plane

admin November 19, 2012November 20, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Those corrugated aluminum wings remind us of a Ford Trimotor. A mid-wing design when most others were high wing or biplanes. A radial

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A Serious Record-Setter

admin November 12, 2012November 12, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Built by an unlikely company in an unexpected place. Highly streamlined — for speed records or for something else. Massive in size with

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At the Grand Palais

admin November 5, 2012November 5, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This curious design was displayed at the Grand Palais in November 1912. 100 years ago today this was one of the most innovative

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Is that a Boeing?

admin October 29, 2012October 28, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: That may be a Boeing marque on the tail, but…. The cockpit is distinctly a Dornier-type design. Two 1,400 hp engines gave a

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An Innovative Plane

admin October 22, 2012October 22, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Twin-engine but with pusher props on the nacelles. Are those crew stations on the engine nacelles? Clearly an American machine, but was it

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A Radical Flying Wing

admin October 15, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: A two-seater, featuring a side-by-side cockpit design. The designer’s one and only aircraft creation. Is that an early flying wing, parallel to the

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A Firecracker with a V-12

admin October 8, 2012October 8, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Sporting a supercharged V-12 engine imported from Central Europe. One of the few planes to bear a swastika with two air forces. Its

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The Ace’s Steed

admin October 1, 2012September 30, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: This aircraft is one of the few that defended its own factory at the outset of the war. In the hands of one

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A Horse of Another Color?

admin September 24, 2012September 23, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Well, it looks very familiar at least but this one never flew for the USAF. Is that a two person cockpit or just

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Little Hot Rod

admin September 17, 2012September 15, 2012

This Week’s Hints to help you along: Absolutely unique in both form and function. Destroyed by fire in the first weeks of the war. Two 20mm cannons in the wings.

Continue reading Little Hot Rod

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