Hunting H.126 'Jet Flap' research aircraft

robunos

You're Mad, You Are.....
Senior Member
Joined
1 May 2007
Messages
2,448
Reaction score
1,423
As a companion topic to the 'Jetwing' thread, here's one on the UK
equivalent programme, the Hunting H.126.
There's already some information posted here at

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,11938.0/highlight,hunting%20h%20126.html


The Hunting H.126 was an English experimental aircraft designed and built by Hunting Aircraft in order to test the concept of blown flaps, or as they were known in Britain, "jet flaps". Only one aircraft was built, being flown in a series of one-hundred test flights at the Royal Aircraft Establishment's Aerodynamics Flight at RAE Bedford. It was then sent to the United States for wind tunnel testing by NASA, and eventually made its way to the museum at RAF Cosford.

Design and development
The aircraft was designed purely for test purposes, and thus lacked features such as retractable landing gear. The shoulder-level wing featured a set of struts for support. The rear control surfaces consisted of a fairly small triangular T-tail. The fuselage was fairly simple, similar to the Hunting Jet Provost in layout, but with a smaller cockpit for a single pilot. The air intake for the single Bristol-Siddeley Orpheus engine was located in the extreme nose. The jet flap system consisted of a series of sixteen nozzles arranged along the trailing edge of the wing, which were fed about half of the engine's hot exhaust gases. A smaller amount, about 10%, was also fed into small nozzles on the wing tips to provide control thrust at low speeds. A similar system was later used on the Hawker Siddeley Harrier for similar reasons. This left little power for forward thrust, and the aircraft was limited to low speeds, but the takeoff speed was a mere 32 mph (52 km/h), a speed most light aircraft would have trouble matching.

Hunting was awarded the contract in 1959 to build two aircraft. The first of these, XN714, flew on 26 March 1963, painted overall yellow with a matt black anti-glare area on the nose in front of the cockpit. The second was never completed and did not receive a serial number. Test flights were carried out between 1963 and 1967. In 1969 it was shipped to NASA and was returned in May 1970, staying in storage until September 1972 when it was struck from the RAF records.


General characteristics
Crew: 1
Length: 50 ft 2 in (15.29 m)
Wingspan: 45 ft 4 in (13.82 m)
Height: 15 ft 6 in (4.67 m)
Wing area: 221 ft2 (20.5 m2)
Airfoil: NACA 4424
Empty weight: 8,240 lb (3,738 kg)
Max takeoff weight: 10,740 lb (4,872 kg)
Powerplant: 1 × Bristol Siddeley Orpheus BOr.3 Mk.805 turbojet, 4,000 lbf (17.83 kN)

Performance
Stall speed: 32 mph (51 km/h)

Text from Wiki
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunting_H.126
edited here by me,
and pictures from Aviastar. org,
http://www.aviastar.org/air/england/hunting_h-126.php
and from the report
'RESULTS OF FULL-SCALE WIND TUNNEL TESTS ON THE H.126 JET FLAP AIRCRAFT'
http://hdl.handle.net/2060/19730012270

There's more information in :-

'British Experimental Turbojet Aircraft', Barry Jones, Crowood, 2003, 183-188.

'British Experimental Jet Aircraft', Barrie Hygate, Argus Books, 1990, pp. 235-240.

British Research and Development Aircraft', Ray Sturtivant, Haynes, 1990, pp. 157-158.

'Percival & Hunting Aircraft', John Sylvester, self-published, 1987, pp. 187-189.



cheers,
Robin.
 

Attachments

  • Hunting H.126 3 view.png
    Hunting H.126 3 view.png
    187.8 KB · Views: 159
  • Hunting H.126#1.png
    Hunting H.126#1.png
    437.3 KB · Views: 133
  • Hunting H.126#3.png
    Hunting H.126#3.png
    632 KB · Views: 127
  • Hunting H.126#4.png
    Hunting H.126#4.png
    436.6 KB · Views: 139

Similar threads

Back
Top Bottom