Tudha Y-Wing Shape Airplane

[hesham]

From Aviation magazine 1975.

 

[martinbayer]

As an aerospace engineer, to me this is just one of those countless amateur designs that are based on a pseudo-philosophy of "function follows form", rather than "form follows function", i.e. "let's just come up with some ultra kewl (not) looking shape and then try to make up some pseudo sciency sounding justification why this is the best thing since sliced bread."

 

[Silencer1]

Isn't this is April 1st issue?

 

[martinbayer]

Good point - there appears to be no town or city named Grönfeldesz, let alone an associated university, and neither an engineer named Pflattspein or Pflatt-Spein that alledgedly graduated from an apparently also non-existent university of Yaduszgrad. That, together with the apparent date of 1-4-75 (European notation) in the lower margin clinches it. Great debunking!

 

[Foo Fighter]

You mean the famous Proff Flat-Spin.

 

[Nik]

Looks like a one-night stand between that German VTOL 'Tri-unpronounceable' sorta-helo and a French LeDuc whatsit...

Upside, it looks crazy enough to actually fly: Add little ram-jets to the wing-tip pods, tail's tall enough to keep the prop off the ground. Okay, getting flight certification might be nigh-on impossible but, as a 'WTF ??' RC model...

Yeah, verily, I've seen a Snoopy Kennel fly, both as control-line and 'free'...

 

[Aerohydro]

...a 'WTF ??' RC model...

Or even as a FF model. The American modeller Roy J Clough Jr was very active in the middle of last century, designing dozens and dozens of unusual models. One of them was the "Triad", which he described as having a radial-wing configuration. An article and plans for this little rubber-powered free-flight model appeared in the September 1946 issue of Popular Science.

I've seen this wing configuration described as being 'trihedral'. It's far from being a new idea, though, and dates back well before even the "Triad" model. Indeed, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, several examples can be found; on Tatooine, Luke Skywalker owned a T-16 Skyhopper, and the Empire made use of the Lambda-class shuttle. Emperor Palpatine himself used one when he visited the Death Star.

Cheers,
Paul