Shape of The Wings from 1950s

Hi,

did that Atomic-powered flying boat design by Saunders-Roe ?.
 

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Illustration 2,3 and 4 are artists impressions for Proff. G.Hill's
Aero isoclinic wingtip (rotatable wingtips) concepts.
Short Sherpa was the proof of the idea.
 
lark said:
Illustration 2,3 and 4 are artists impressions for Proff. G.Hill's
Aero isoclinic wingtip (rotatable wingtips) concepts.
Short Sherpa was the proof of the idea.

I'd suggest that only 2 is inspired by Hill's aero-isoclinic wing work, as the rotating tips were something he was fond of, it bears more than a passing resemblance to his Short Sherpa and the article says something about it. 3 is the crescent type as fitted to the Handley Page Victor and based originally on German research, as far as I know Hill was not involved and any resemblance is coincidental. 4 is a curious thing I have not seen before, I don't know who brewed it up and unlike the other two it was never built.
 
Project 2 is the Short PD.8 of May 1952.
The others could be artist impressions of the swept forward or cresent wing shape indeed.
I have no idea about the strange "split" at the wingstip of these

Source for the PD.8 : Air Enthusiast No. 81 page 54.
 
3. is indeed a crescent-wing aircraft, very similar to the Handley-Page HP.88 testbed aircraft.
4. is described in the linked article as a 'reverse crescent wing', and IMHO is shown purely to illustrate some of the more exotic configurations being studied at the time. The M-Wing is briefly mentioned in the article.
1. is extremely interesting. The article states :-

"A typical aerofoil section for a suction wing is illustrated and also a proposal for a suction wing airliner made by Mr. T. S. Keeble at the Third Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference. On the basis of results obtained from test with the experimental glider flown by the Australian Aeronautical Research Laboratories, such an airliner would carry forty percent more load and would be forty percent faster than one designed on conventional lines while still consuming no more fuel for the same range."

There is a thread on the suction wing test programme here :

http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,10444.msg98181.html#msg98181

including a drawing of the proposed scale test model of the Suction Wing Airliner, the GAD-4.
I will update the above thread with the images posted here.

cheers,
Robin.
 

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3. is indeed a crescent-wing aircraft, very similar to the Handley-Page HP.88 testbed aircraft.
4. is described in the linked article as a 'reverse crescent wing', and IMHO is shown purely to illustrate some of the more exotic configurations being studied at the time. The M-Wing is briefly mentioned in the article.
1. is extremely interesting. The article states :-

"A typical aerofoil section for a suction wing is illustrated and also a proposal for a suction wing airliner made by Mr. T. S. Keeble at the Third Anglo-American Aeronautical Conference. On the basis of results obtained from test with the experimental glider flown by the Australian Aeronautical Research Laboratories, such an airliner would carry forty percent more load and would be forty percent faster than one designed on conventional lines while still consuming no more fuel for the same range."

There is a thread on the suction wing test programme here :


including a drawing of the proposed scale test model of the Suction Wing Airliner, the GAD-4.
I will update the above thread with the images posted here.

cheers,
Robin.

That airfoil reminds us of the more recent Goldschmied (sp?) fuselage concept. Several people have sketched Goldschmied fuselages, but I don't think any have flown.
 
To put this all into context, the article in Flight (and others) summarises a paper presented by David Keith-Lucas, chief designer at Short Bros and Harland, to the British Association in Belfast. The full title is 'The Shape of Wings to Come' and he discusses the latest ideas on wing design, plus some possible developments for the future. As robunos says in post #9 the suction wing is the work of Keeble while the remainder are illustrations for the presentation made by artist C Griggs to show Keith-Lucas' examples and concepts. Some are clearly based on work underway at Shorts, such as the Hill isoclinic types, while others are purely speculative.
The caption for the illustration of an atomic-powered flying boat reads 'An atomic powered flying boat - as it probably will not be', so do not take it too seriously.
 

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