There's also the fact that Frederick Handley Page refused government encouragement to merge with other aircraft manufacturers but insisted on remaining independent, after which whatever money there might have been in the RAF's budget was never going to be allowed to go towards the company.Lack of money=lack of resources and a hampered product. End of it all... good aircraft.
The frustrating thing was that the plans called for glue and drilled rivets plus rounded windows but for reasons which escape my memory wasn't used during construction. You've still got de Havilland playing silly beggars with the gauge of the skin due to lack thrust produced by the Ghost but that's at least a known fix.It didn't help that the rivet holes were punched through the skin rather than drilled creating micro fractures that grew and blew out the windows.
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This is not what I'd call attractive! Almost looks like a kid's toy that got hit in the center with an ugly stick--that's why it's bent. Piaseki Airjeep.
It was quite real. Even more amazing, it flew.
That looks more like something for use in a movie made from a comic book! "Time for the Batchopper!" Or for a villain, flying low to attack whoever with the classic disregard for physics of the Helicopter Blender! https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HelicopterBlenderAt least that's not just begging for a sniper to pick the pilot off. You'd better not lose your footing when you land either. One slip and you're one minced G. I.
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Fair enough. He does deserve more recognition for designing the first aircraft to fly non-stop from Japan to CONUS, a distance of over 4,500 miles.Cueing off some of the form-follows-function in our ugly/beautiful design discussions; Giuseppi Bellanca's early designs were often kinda angular, ungainly looking craft. However, by all accounts I've read, they were brick-outhouse sturdy and efficient performers. Beauty in action, rather than on the tarmac.
I'm pretty sure I saw a G. I. Joe toy vehicle like that...At least that's not just begging for a sniper to pick the pilot off. You'd better not lose your footing when you land either. One slip and you're one minced G. I.
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De Havilland were well aware of the stress concentrations of square corners and the Comet 1 did not have square windows but ones with rounded corners. When the thin skin/riveting issues began cracking under the stresses of repeated pressurisation cycles the cracks went to the nearest other stressed point which was the edges of the rounded corners. Certainly oval windows were a better idea but the problem began at the rivets in the thin skin. Possibly all aided by the choice of aluminium alloy chosen for the skin IIRC. Very few accidents have one cause. Almost always there are multiple issues which individually are survivable but when combined are fatal.OTL dH Comet was a pretty airplane and the first jet to enter airline service. I suffered fatigue cracking problems around window frames because the first design was modified to square corners and they learned the hard way about fatigue on pressurised cabins. Remember that Comet was also one of the first passenger airliners with pressurisation and they flew much higher (greater pressure differential) than piston-pounding predecessors.
Breguet 763View attachment 516199
Not necessarily ugly, but just weird. Does anyone know what this bird is? I take it that it is French built, but I have never seen it before.
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Not necessarily ugly, but just weird. Does anyone know what this bird is? I take it that it is French built, but I have never seen it before.
Why you don't design an aircraft using parts of other aircraft. :Fisher_P-75_Eagle
It's pronounced "Frankensteen", not "Frankenstine".MY GOD! MY EYES! IT BURNS, IT BURNS!
For just weird there is the Blackburn Beverley!
Its most interesting design quirk being the Toilets in the Tail. A potentially lethal piece of design as it was necessary to walk over the Paratroop Hatch to reach them, there was in fact a fatality due to this.
After which it's forever known as the "Oh Shit Hole""Going to the loo."
"Watch out for the hole in the floor."
"What hooooooooooleeeeeeeeee shiiiiiiiii……"
"That hole."
I served with an ex-RAF Squaddie who described the Beverley to me as a young digger. He said he hated going to the loo in the aircraft 'cause the hole would wobble when he crossed it.After which it's forever known as the "Oh Shit Hole"