Horton wingless aircraft.

**Mike1158** · #1 07-07-2017, 11:38 AM

From Popular mechanics of December 1952.

**Yeti** · #2 07-07-2017, 09:24 PM

Mike, thanks for posting. I had never seen that one before. In the image you posted, I was able to make out "Horton Wingless" and looked that up. It really flew! The video clip below shows a few short sequences of it in flight.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WobX6ZMDzSE&gl=NL

**Mike1158** · #3 07-08-2017, 03:06 AM

The reasons for failure are astonishing, Howard Hughes wanted all rights and patents in his name and when he did not get that, shut them down. Big ego or what?

**SCEtoAUX** · #4 07-08-2017, 04:56 AM

Very interesting.
"...bigger models could be developed to carry 4000 passengers at a time."

That oughta be a lot of fun.

**Mike1158** · #5 07-08-2017, 09:38 AM

I would not like to think about 'dropping' 4,000 passengers plus the crew, anywhere. In an airport that includes a large city in its glide path it could get very nasty quickly.

**Isaac** · #6 07-08-2017, 09:50 AM

Ideas are cheap! putting things to practice is where its at.

I have thousands of ideas too. But none will pan out because it takes a lot of resources beyond a prototype to make anything out of them.

Flying wings make a lot of sense, however, not a single aircraft manufacturer has put it to commercial use. Delta winged fighter planes were built because the allies capitalized on German WW2 technology. But no transport or commercial airliners went that way either.

Isaac

**mbauer** · #7 07-08-2017, 01:29 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Isaac

Ideas are cheap! putting things to practice is where its at.

I have thousands of ideas too. But none will pan out because it takes a lot of resources beyond a prototype to make anything out of them.

Flying wings make a lot of sense, however, not a single aircraft manufacturer has put it to commercial use. Delta winged fighter planes were built because the allies capitalized on German WW2 technology. But no transport or commercial airliners went that way either.

Isaac

What? No commercial aircraft using delta wing technology? What about the Concorde?

Horton wingless aircraft.-concorde-copy-2-.jpg

Mike

**Kevin WS** · #8 07-08-2017, 01:46 PM

And the TU144, Space Shuttle and Buran - all were used commercially.

**cfuruti** · #9 07-08-2017, 02:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Kevin WS

And the TU144, Space Shuttle and Buran - all were used commercially.

I agree Isaac's overgeneralization on delta wings is not warranted. But sorry, here the exceptions seem to prove the rule. Buran was never used as intended, only an unmanned test. The Concorde ultimately failed due to high operational costs, not enough capacity, and possibly a safety scare. The Tu-144 failed for all that, plus probably technical issues. And the shuttle never fulfilled the promise of cheaper reusable flights.

**Kevin WS** · #10 07-08-2017, 03:38 PM

I don't agree, but then we can beg to differ!

The comment was....."Deta wings...... But no transport or commercial airliners went that way either."

The aircraft Mike and I mentioned were all designed and/or used as transport or commercial aircraft. These were delta winged aircraft that were designed and flew!

The debate wasn't about commercial longevity or profitability!

Concorde also wasn't the failure implied either - it did fly successfully commercially for 27 years, and Virgin were still wanting to buy the aircraft when they stopped operation, as they wanted to use them commercially for many years to come.