Rutan's first unusual design was the Vari-Viggen, a delta-wing canard like the Swedish fast jet from SAAB that inspired it. Canards have been around since the American Wright brothers. The swept-wing canard was included in British patent No 26441 by British pioneer JW Dunne and granted in 1910, and first appeared in the flesh (to my knowledge) in the Italian Ambrosini SS.4 of 1939. The German WWII work was widely circulated during the late 1940s, but had been assimilated and all but forgotten by the time Rutan's generation came along. SAAB developed the idea of close-coupling the canard to the wing, in order to obtain a positive interaction between them. None of the projects documented by Frost do this.Rutan may have been inspired by this, perhaps?
A mistery project to me, published in 1941, Flugsport magazine, heft 26-8. A fighter, with a DB 601. Maybe stemmed from a TH rather than an aircraft company.
that is the Skoda-Kauba V-7A mistery project to me, published in 1941, Flugsport magazine, heft 26-8. A fighter, with a DB 601. Maybe stemmed from a TH rather than an aircraft company.