Practicality of Lenticular Vehicles

Delta Force

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During the 1950s and 1960s lenticular vehicles were seen as the configuration of the future for just about everything due to their presumed omnidirectional capabilities, weight balance, and high speed performance. The configuration was proposed for the Avrocar fighter, Pye Wacket missile, and various manned and unmanned spacecraft. All these programs were canceled due to development problems or budgetary issues. To my knowledge no one has ever attempted to design a lenticular vehicle that would be able to take advantage of developments in aerodynamics research, control systems, and propulsion (especially thrust vectoring). With today's technology could such a vehicle actually fly, and if so would it have any advantages over more conventional designs?
 
Not necessarily. Pye Wacket and some of the original Apollo designs had lenticular forms.
 
The largest…though drawn only to show the large size of fly-backs…was Bono’s ROOST saucer at www.astronautix.com

Now, I like that concept because it is so very wide that wing loading is low…and it could allow for wide, flat one-piece payloads.
 

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