In The Air
Was a humble wooden glider the subject of Canada’s second saddest story of star-crossed aviation innovation?
In the never-ending hunt for quirky, original and offbeat story ideas, Google is an absolutely invaluable tool — but you all know that already, of course. But in a recent search — I think it was for something clever to mark Canada’s National Aviation Day for our Twitter feed— the algorithm at Google somehow dropped this irresistible nugget just one click away from the real work that really needed to be done.
And that, as they say, was the afternoon in the bin.
I thought Canada was the home of only one tragically sad, what-might-have-been aviation story: the Avro Canada Arrow. This aircraft has been the obsession of ‘Arrowheads’ since not long after that ignominious day back in 1958 when the project was cancelled and subequently all prototypes along with all the production tooling destroyed — with ‘‘extreme prejudice”. But that story is for another day, perhaps. (For those who can’t wait for that day, see the Resources section below for relevant links.)
Yep, I’ll admit it. I’m an unapologetic Arrowhead.
However, that is not the main subject of this essay. But just one other note before I leave the Arrow: it was also featured in the very last issue of the RC Soaring Digest from the legendary Bill and Bunny Kuhlman era: December of 2018. It contains just about every detail you might conceivably need for building a power scale soaring (PSS) model of same (hint, hint!)
No, it was not the Arrow which yet again caught my attention a few days ago, but rather the aircraft above and below, simply called the NRC Tailless Glider. That ‘wasted’ afternoon revealed surprisingly little about the aircraft built in Edmonton, Alberta in 1946. What I did learn, though, was that Geoffrey T. R. Hill — the designer of the Westland-Hill Pterodactyl series of tailless aircraft of the pre-war period — was the British Scientific Liaison Officer to the National Research Council (NRC) Canada during the Second World War. I guess it should come as no great shock, therefore, that Geoffrey Hill advised the NRC to explore the control and stability of the flying wing configuration. In other words, a logical continuation of Hill’s work from the 1920s and 1930s it would seem, except with the full faith and credit (and money) of Canada’s NRC.
The full-size version of the NRC Tailless Glider was towed aloft by a DC-3, and flight tested over the next couple of years. It was eventually towed all the way from Edmonton, Alberta to Arnprior, Ontario — a distance approaching 2300 kilometres — for further testing closer to the home office of the NRC. By 1950, however, the all-too-brief testing program was coming to an end and the mostly-wooden aircraft scrapped, presumably.
The NRC Tailless Glider received sufficient attention during its short life that it became the subject of detailed study by NACA, the agency that eventually became NASA. The Tailless Glider tested out quite well according to a detailed study of a 1/10-scale model which was flown in the Langley ‘free flight’ tunnel. The innovative work of those aeronautical engineers up there in the frozen north was getting some justifiable attention.
The almost unbearably sad part of this story, of course, is that Jack Northrop’s futuristic flying wings were being developed around the same time. Their ultimate progency, the B-2 Spirit stealth aircraft, wouldn’t fly until 1989 nearly 40 years after the Tailless Glider was sawed up into souvenirs or scrap. The tailless configuration — particularly in the uncrewed systems space — may be entering a new sort of golden age. The Tailless Glider would appear to have had a four decade head-start. Who knows where it would have lead if the development had continued. What this Canadian wonders is whether yet another dream of Canadian aviation greatness was lost to history.
I really hope that some reader might consider doing the necessary research to build a scale model of the NRC Tailless Glider. It would seem to be a very worthy subject, and certainly a unique scale model that really ought to fly well. That future project would make for a great article in a future edition of the New RC Soaring Digest.
As usual, I have allowed my stream-of-conciousness prose get the better of me, so I won’t delay you further as you turn to the first article in this month’s issue. However, I do want to welcome a brand new contributor, Greg Lewis, who has a fantastic article on the ChocoFly 1/3-scale ASW 17. Greg’s article is entitled An Icon Goes Red and (spoiler alert!) provides details on the setup of this ship for GPS Triangle Racing.
I also want to draw your attention to a new item up there on the navigation bar: Clubs. This month, RCSD is kicking off an ongoing series where we focus on local clubs. We hope this effort results in new interest being generated in this community-oriented aspect of RC soaring. We kick off with Club in Focus: Mississippi Valley Soaring Association and hope to feature at least one new club in each issue.
Finally, I want to express my deepest gratitude to Norimichi Kawakami, whose magnificent year-long series on his exquisite Mita 3 project comes to a close this month. It has truly been a pleasure working with you on this! (Note: don’t tell anyone, but I’m trying to convince Kawakami to follow up with a new series. We’re keeping our fingers crossed and stay tuned for further information.)
So until next month, fair winds and blue skies.
Resources
- The Arrow: The path not taken 60 years ago has a nation still wondering what might have been. — from Terence C. Gannon, Medium, January 23, 2019
- Slope Soaring Candidate: Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow — from the December, 2018 edition of RC Soaring Digest
- Jack Northrop’s Flying Wings: An old idea for which the best years may still lay ahead. — from Terence C. Gannon, Medium, May 15, 2019.
- Canadian Warplanes 5: NRC Tailless Glider — a great article on the subject, from which some of the details for this In The Air were drawn.
- Investigation of Stability and Control Characteristics of a 1/10-Scale Model of a Canadian Tailless Glider in the Langley Free-Flight Tunnel — NASA Technical Reports Server
Cover photo: A moonlight flight captured by Stefan Eder of Aer-o-Tec in Germany. It’s a beautiful shot, Stefan, thank you so much for the opportunity to feature it.
Here’s the first article in the March, 2022 issue. Or go to the table of contents for all the other great articles. A PDF version of this edition of In The Air, or the entire issue, is available upon request.
