19 1 1 "umbrella plane"

The Wright brothers play an important role in the history of aviation technology development. Everyone knows that they invented the real plane, but few people know anything else about the two brothers. They applied for patents for some aircraft technologies and monopolized them, which greatly hindered the development of aircraft technology for a period of time. However, this does not stop the pace of other designers. Many incredible designs have been put forward, which have great influence on later generations, such as aileron and flap design, which have been used to this day. ?

In order to avoid patents, there was another aircraft design at that time, that is, the circular wing aircraft. Compared with the flat wing of the Wright brothers, the round wing designed the wing into a big circle with the fuselage in the middle. Although its wingspan is small, its wing area is large.

American designer Chance Vought spoke highly of the round-wing aircraft. He believes that the larger wing area is conducive to improving the flight performance of the aircraft, and he himself is also considered to be the founder of the circular wing aircraft. Chance Vought turned his idea into reality in 19 1 1 year, and designed and built a unique airplane, because its shape was called "umbrella airplane".

The structure of "Umbrella Aircraft" is very simple, which is thin compared with other designs of the same period. The plane is made of wood and fabric, and the wood is used to build a simple frame fuselage to stabilize the engine, landing gear and other equipment. The landing gear has a dual structure of wheels and skids, and the pilot rides on the fuselage. The engine drives the Shuang Ye wooden propeller at the front end through the transmission shaft. ?

With the machine body as the center, there are nine wooden beams spread radially, and the middle of the wooden beams is connected with fabric, which also plays a certain stabilizing role, and a large number of metal wires are used. This circle of "cloth" is the wing of the plane. It looks like a nonagon from above, and there is a small vertical tail at the tail. ?

I believe that most people will find it impossible to take off when they see this unique plane. In fact, it didn't complete the real flight, but there are photos showing that the plane left the ground in a limited way.

Although Chance Vught devoted himself to the development of round-wing aircraft before his death, this structure has not yet become the mainstream. There are only a few experimental models. Chance Vught failed to see the perfect flight of the plane and died of septicemia in 1930 at the age of 42.

However, he still has great influence in the aviation industry, and many planes are named after him. An aircraft company founded by him and Bodsey Lewis is the second aviation manufacturing company in the United States. A few years after his death, the United States introduced the round-wing plane "sunshade", and later there was a more famous "flying pancake", which was considered to be the success of the round-wing plane.