England’s Many Tailless Monowing Prototypes.

It’s odd how creative the British aircraft designers were after World War I. Armstrong Whitworth, Miles, General Aircraft, and Westland were making prototypes of some of the first real X-craft. In particular, the tailless, canard, and swept wing aircraft were fully explored in many iterations.

The Pterodactyl was the name for a series of X craft designed by Geoffrey T. R. Hill. The motivation really was safety as designers wanted a plane that would resist spinning and stalling, and would have forgiving properties for a pilot trying to recover. The Pterodactyl was a glider at first. Adjustments were made to the wing and the Pterodactyl I was a braced monoplane. The Pterodactyl IV was a larger aircraft with a three seat cabin. It was 44 ft 4 in width and wingspan and 19 ft 6 in length. the Pterodactyl V was a straight on fighter aircraft with a sesquiplane lower wing. the VI model was a V with a pusher propeller configuration. the Pterodactyl VII was a seaplane.

There were plans for a large Atlantic crossing passenger aircraft of the monowing design. Oddly. None were fully commissioned.

The Miles 35 A has been featured here before. the Miles 39A was another variant of the lighter fighter version the 35B. Essentially the canard design 39A was a bomber. These flew by well, but limited government and private funding was losing the air battle to simpler more conventional designs, cool as these X planes were.

The General Aircraft GAL 56 series were all essentially monowing tailless research gliders. They flew, or they flew only on schematic diagrams.

The three DeHaviland tailless Swallows were built and tested after World War II? The third variant, the DH 120 became the United Kingdom’s first super sonic plane.

It did not stop there. Armstrong Whitworth was building absolutely brand new technology research with laminar-flowering flying wing bombers. The AW52G was featured here.

The Handley Page 75 Manx had a tailless pusher propeller configuration that flew very nimbly. Partially swept wings supported vertical stabilizers.