I have studied and worked with tailless aircraft design for about fifty years. While studying the generalities in engineering school I became convinced that the plank (i.e, straight chord) configuration was the best for slow speed flight if the reduced c.g. range was acceptable. In 1954 I designed a small full-scale plank sailplane that was to the best of my knowledge the first of this type to be built and flown in the US. It received wide publicity at the time and several were completed by home builders from my plans both in the US and abroad. I like to think that this little machine significantly helped in the acceptance of the plank type models and full-scale aircraft. The most outstanding current examples are the electric aircraft being flown by Paul McCready's AeroViroment group. Paul was one of the many pilots who flew the little sailplane mentioned above. In the early seventies I designed a small straight chord type airplane that flew well but was plagued with engine problems. Although I built models as a kid after I left the Navy in 1946, I did very little that was not associated with full-scale aircraft. In the early eighties I had the opportunity to visit Chuck Clemans who had designed and built several tailless R/C models. At that time he let me fly his Gross Vogel at altitude. This large low wing plank was controlled by elevator and rudder plus throttle; the design was published in Model Builder of February 1979. About a year later I did start to build model airplanes again. I was doing freeflight first and built a one-quarter scale freeflight Gross Vogel that was CO_2 powered and flew very well.
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