maxmwill

Have a couple ideas kicking around which I'd like to share. They are a couple of little known designs, which might make for interesting building projects.

One is the Darmstadt D22, which was a biplane built in Germany during the mid-30's. It is a pretty little thing, but with a different. There are no struts between the wings, and consequently no flying wires. There are cabane struts, but otherwise, the wings are fully cantilevered. The only information I have on it is from a German model magazine, but I've a problem. The PDF is copy protected, which means I can't copy and paste it to anywhere else. But, there is enough information in the article(which is in German, but the 3 view is plenty clear enough to understand) that even a full-size homebuilt could be attempted. But, if anyone else who is more computer savvy than I am(I am actually more comfortable working on a Wright-Hisso or anything round from either Pratt and Whitney or Curtiss Wright), perhaps something could be done.

The other design is also from the 30's, but a far different country. It is the Belyayev DB-LK. The designation translates to long range bomber, flying wing. Well, at first glance, it might be a flying wing, until you take in the stabilizer that seems to have been hung on as an after thought. But, the unique characteristic of this is the fact that it is a foward swept wing aircraft. In the Soviet Union. During the 30's, when what we would consider to be conventional was still in relative technological infancy. Here is a three view:

soarrich

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That twin is pretty cool, I've never seen it before.
Thanks

maxmwill

According to Gunston, in his "Aircraft of the Soviet Union", it was based on a transport that Belyayev designed a couple years or so before, and the bomber, when it was finally authorised to fly, was quite stable, and relatively easy to fly. However, Stalin did not trust it(Stalin was in fact deathly afraid of flying. There are accounts that his one and only airplane ride, which was to Yalta, was one of white knuckles all the way for him), so it languished on the ground until sometime around 1940. Had it been built in sufficient numbers, this would've been the first Soviet bomber to hit Berlin, not the abortion known as the PE8. The Petlyakov, while a kind of pretty bomber, really wasn't that good a flying machine, most of the problems stemming from the engines. The only time it actually flew any kind of distance was when Molotov went to Washington, D.C.

As a model project, this would have lots of potential, not only as an RC, but even as a rubber scale model.

There are other Soviet designs, too, which aren't very well known here in the US, such as a lot of those by Kalinin. If there are any Kalinin designs known in the US, it is the K7 bomber, which was one of his less successful designs. But, it had the wing planform that was characteristic of Kalinin, the elliptical wing. Here, one called the K5:




And, just so you're not confused, here is the K7:

General characteristics

Crew: minimum 11
Capacity: 120 passengers in civilian configuration
Length: 28 m (91 ft 10 in)
Wingspan: 53 m (173 ft 11 in)
Height: (?)
Wing area: 454 m² (4,886.8 ft&sup2
Empty weight: 24,400 kg (53,793 lb)
Loaded weight: 38,000 kg (83,776 lb)
Powerplant: 7× Mikulin AM-34F V-12 piston engines, 560 kW (750 hp) each

Those canoes with the wheels were to also house the bomb load. This was his most spetacular failure.

BMatthews

Unless you have a question about the aerodynamics of something like this I'll move it to the scale subforum.