![]() On some demonstration flights, a Ford automobile was slung beneath the UB-20, and a mechanic would clamber down to the car at altitude to show how easily its engine started in freezing temperatures. Next came the 1930 UB-20, distinguished by its stressed-skin construction, a novelty in America at the time. Chapman, president of Sky Lines Incorporated, it was test-flown by Leigh Wade, who had gained renown as one of the pilots on the globe-girdling 1924 flight by Douglas World Cruisers.Īn amazing flow of designs followed, including the radical 1929 GX-3, intended as an entry in the Guggenheim Safe Aircraft Competition (it arrived too late to compete). Built as an executive aircraft for Paul W. The CB-16 (also named the Uppercu-Burnelli CB-300, after its backer) had a 12-foot-wide fuselage and retractable landing gear. This twin-engine monoplane retained the previous designs’ lifting fuselage but solved the control problem with a twin-boom empennage. The CB-16, introduced in 1927, came next. Moreover, although the control problems had been improved, they hadn’t been entirely resolved. As with the RB-1, the aircraft received good press coverage but no production orders. Burnelli had a salesman’s flair, outfitting the RB-2 to serve as a flying showroom that carried two Essex automobiles. Fitted with larger engines, it could carry up to 6,000 pounds of freight. The RB-1 first flew in June 1921, and while its performance was deemed acceptable, there were stability issues related to the way the tail surfaces were affixed to the aircraft’s fuselage. Its two engines were smoothly faired into a 14-foot-wide airfoil-shaped fuselage, which provided about half of the aircraft’s lift and could accommodate up to 30 passengers. Remington, forming the Airliner Engineering Corporation to build the Remington-Burnelli RB-1. More precisely, these were lifting bodies, i.e., large twin-engine biplanes featuring an airfoil-shaped fuselage. Given the tenor of post–World War I times, it’s remarkable that Burnelli was able to obtain financing to build the first two of his “flying wings,” as he called them. (And they were much sounder than an earlier project with which Burnelli had been associated, the lethal Christmas Bullet.) These were advanced designs for their time, especially the 1919 Lawson C-2, the first multiengine commercial airliner. They worked together on several airplanes, including four designs sponsored by the versatile though volatile visionary Alfred Lawson. Some major manufacturers have also offered variations on the lifting-body or high-aspect-ratio configuration, but Burnelli and Hurel are rarely mentioned in discussions of how those designs originated.īorn in Texas, Burnelli was only 20 when he designed his first aircraft, in concert with his friend John Carisi. There are striking similarities between NASA’s recent proposals and the aircraft designed by those two men. Today, decades after Burnelli and Hurel developed their groundbreaking ideas, high fuel prices have inspired NASA to explore seemingly futuristic designs that rekindle their efforts. Both obtained sufficient backing to ensure their aircraft flew successfully, but neither man could sustain enough interest in his designs to garner major production orders. Burnelli advocated the lifting-body design (sometimes incorrectly called a “flying wing”), while Hurel championed the advantages of a very-high-aspect-ratio wing. While visionaries like Kelly Johnson, Ed Heinemann, Willis Hawkins and Leroy Grumman are well known, dozens of other once-prominent aeronautical engineers have been mostly forgotten-including some who developed very advanced designs long before the industry was ready to accept them.Īmong those who fall into the latter category are Vincent Burnelli and Maurice Hurel. The aviation industry has always attracted brilliant designers. NASA validates the genius of unsung pioneers from the past in some of its latest, most futuristic projects. ![]()
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