Harry Grant Dart's Circa-1908 Multi-Winged Future

Harry Grant Dart (1869-1938) was an illustrator and cartoonist active in the early part of the last century. Around 1907-10 he created a number of scenes depicting what he saw as future developments in aviation. The illustration above, "Going into Action," is from 1907, and shows aerial combat of a form curiously like a naval action on the ocean's surface. Bear in mind that the Wright Brothers had flown for the first time less that four years before and the Great War was seven years in the future, so his conjecture can't be strongly criticized.

In any case, it's an exciting scene, with deck guns blazing and crewmen maneuvering a craft using what looks like a ship's wheel. The aircraft are not the boxy, kite-like affairs found in 1907. Instead, they have sleek fuselages surmounted by dragonfly-like wings or else are bird-like monoplanes. Missing is a lot of maneuvering in the vertical plane, but in 1907 the airplanes he knew about were content to be flown at a pretty constant altitude.

Dart's brief Wikipedia entry is here, and a link dealing with his cartoon work is here.

Gallery

Air-sea battle at night - 1910
Night sea battles were a rarity, and suggesting that aircraft might be part of the mix was an audacious prediction by Dart.

A Look into the Future - 1908
Another future combat scene. Shore-based artillery in the foreground. Battleships toward the horizon. What might be submarines or high-speed torpedo boats near the shore (it's hard to tell what Dart was depicting here). And that large aircraft sprouting wings in every direction. Oh, and I see something that could be a rocket or missile. Dart was really cookin' when he dreamed this up.

Transcontinental Flyer - 1909
Hard to say what's going on here. The aircraft doesn't seem to have crashed. More likely it landed on the mountaintop so that men could climb off and do some exploring or research nearby.

Transport of the Future
Note the swept-back wings on this job. Very sleek, but like the rest of his imaginary creations, unflyable in reality.

From Harper's - 11 June 1910
Huge wings and delicate frameworks, not to mention a boat-like fuselage with a small fore-deck for observers.

Clayton Knight: Illustrator, Clandestine RCAF Recruiter

Illustrators tend to be a solitary lot unless they happen to share studio space with others. Given that, it's easy to jump to the conclusion that they are mild-mannered sorts who avoid flash, dash and action.

Not all are of that stripe. For example, McClelland Barclay was killed when his ship was destroyed in the South Pacific during World War 2. Dick Calkins, the first Buck Rogers comic strip artist, was an Army Air Corps lieutenant. And some artists for 1930s aviation comic strips were pilots.

One pilot-illustrator was Clayton Knight (1891-1969) who was shot down on the German side of the front lines during the Great War. Before the American entry to World War 2 he, along with Canadian ace Billy Bishop, was involved in recruiting American pilots to fly for the RCAF and RAF.

Biographical information regarding Knight is sparse on the Internet -- here is a brief account. For a detailed report on the World War 2 Clayton Knight Committee, link here or, better yet, here.

Today, if Knight is known for anything, it is that he was the father of Hilary Knight, who illustrated Kay Thompson's "Eloise" books.

Here are some examples of Knight's work.

Gallery

American Boy magazine cover - April 1931
Knight's illustrations were mostly aviation-centered.

"Ace Drummond" comic strip
Rickenbacker got the credit for the strip, but Knight did the drawing.

Comic strip (French version)
Here we see knight's signature.

Saturday Evening Post cover - 4 September 1937
Knight sometimes was able to hit the big-time. He might have gained this Post assignment because he was typed as an aviation specialist.

Douglas DC-2 airliners - 1935
These planes are not skillfully depicted.

Sketch of Army Air Corps P-12
The Townend Ring around the motor is slightly too large.

Another P-12 sketch

Based on the illustrations above, I have to conclude that Knight's work was at the journeyman level, far from top-notch even where aircraft were concerned.

Ed Valigursky: Illustrating Real and Imaginary Technology

Illustrator Ed Valigursky (1926-2009) originally focused his efforts on science-fiction and other speculative subjects. Eventually he drifted over to depicting aircraft and other real-life technological objects and became one of the best in that business. Unfortunately, I couldn't find many examples of his aviation art on the Internet, so what's displayed below will have to do for now.

My take on aviation art is that there are several approaches to depicting airplanes. One is the "show all the rivets" hard-edge style. I suppose this appeals to the crowd that loves seeing details. The other extreme is what I'll call the "French watercolor" approach where hardly any details are seen, and the details present are inaccurately drawn. My conjecture is that the audience for this is comprised of people who do not like or understand airplanes. Then there is a middle ground where aircraft are portrayed as they might be seen in real life at a glance, with one area in focus, others de-emphasized. A master in this was R.G. Smith who I mentioned here. Valigursky's aviation art fell in the range between the rivets school and Smith, presenting his subjects clearly and with artistic flair.

Below are examples of his aviation art along with science-fiction and other subjects as context.

Gallery

Stukas
To set the scene, here is one of his aviation paintings.

Amazing Stories cover - December 1956

"Space Viking" cover - 1963

"The Cosmic Computer" cover - 1964
The two lower covers are examples of his better SciFi work. Sometimes he dashed off cover art with sad results, as can be seen in the topmost cover.

Saga magazine cover - September 1953

Nautilus - for Saga, April 1959
Two illustrations featuring submarines.

"Flying in Flanders" cover

"No Parachute" cover

"Full Circle" cover

P-38s and Messerschmitt
More aviation art. The lower two examples are the kind of Valigursky illustrations I like best. But to nit-pick, the P-38s seem to have 1942-43 vintage U.S. markings, yet the serial number on the tail of the near aircraft has a 1944 fiscal year serial number indicating when its construction was budgeted.

An Airplane I Should Have Known About

That's a C-46 Curtiss Commando transport pictured during its World War 2 heyday. (The nickname seems inappropriate, its closest relationship to real commandos lies in alliteration, though I suppose at one time or another some commandos or other special forces types might have parachuted from one.) A lengthy Wikipedia entry about it is here.

I have been aware of the Commando for almost as long as I've been aware of airplanes. Sometimes I must have seen one in the air, but the only real early memories I have were seeing some that were operated by non-scheduled passenger or cargo airlines sitting along the edge of Seattle's Boeing Field.

Commandos are probably best known for their role flying "The Hump" -- cargo plane routes from Allied bases in India over the Himalayas to bases in China when land-based supply to the Chinese sector was difficult or entirely cut off due to Japan's conquest of Burma. After the war, the Commando was mostly used as a cargo plane because scheduled airlines preferred the DC-3s they had been using pre-war and then purchased postwar airliners.

This future usage was unknown, of course, around 1937 when the Commando was first conceived as the CW-20 design. It was to be a large, twin-engine passenger transport with a figure-8 fuselage cross-section. The upper bulge was to be pressurized (a radical step, then) and the smaller, lower bulge left unpressurized for mail and other cargo. As it turned out, no pressurized version was ever built. As for "large," the Commando's wingspan was 108 feet (33 m), more than four feet wider than that of the brand-new Boeing YB-17, the Army Air Corps' newest four-engine bomber.

So what was it about the Commando that I was unaware of for all these years? It was that the prototype at first had twin tails instead of a single vertical stabilizer. It was only recently that I came across the images below via the Internet.

That's a wooden mockup of the CW-20 on display at the 1939 New York World's Fair. Note that only one of the twin tails exists; mockups didn't need to show every redundant feature.  The fighter in the foreground is a Brewster Buffalo whose markings indicate that it was about to be serving on the aircraft carrier Saratoga (CV-3).  (It's possible that this photo is from the 1940 version of the fair, because the Buffalo didn't enter service until late 1939.  But the Wikipedia link above states that the display was in 1939.)

The prototype on the tarmac. A pitot tube is attached to the nose for flight test purposes.

And here's the twin-tail CW-20 prototype in flight.

Airliner Cockpit Windows

Aircraft designers have comparatively little wiggle room when it comes to applying aesthetic considerations to a plane's design. This is especially true when it comes to airliners, where much of the fuselage is necessarily in the form of a tube for containing passengers, their luggage and some cargo.

Before the Jet Age, when aerodynamic refinement for high speeds was less important, designers could indulge styling whims on parts of aircraft such as in the shape of the vertical stabilizer/rudder element. For example, the de Havilland company favored a shape that for years was a kind of trademark.

One detail that has been comparatively immune to engineering consideration is the arrangement of windows in the cockpit. True, visibility, outside airflow and (since around 1940) pressurization considerations have always been important. But the number of windows, their placement and shape also admit to some aesthetic judgment.

Below is a gallery of airliners with differing cockpit window treatments for your consideration. Wide-body jets are left out to simplify comparisons.

Gallery

Ford Tri-Motor and Boeing 727
The Ford didn't fly very fast, but was comparativly "clean" for its late 1920s time. The windscreen is sharply V'd. The Boeing 727 is from the mid-1960s. Its window treatment is the same as that of Boeing's original jetliner, the 707 and was continued for the Boeing 737 which remains in production today and for the foreseeable future. The windshield is sloped and V'd and there are two main side windows, the leading (transitional) one having a dropped lower rear corner. Two small cockpit roof windows are above both the pilot's and co-pilot's positions for upward visibility.

Curtiss Condor
The Condor dates from around 1930, but is of the obsolescent biplane configuration. It features large cockpit windows that crudely blend with the otherwise fairly streamlined fuselage.

Boeing 247
The Boeing 247 is considered the first modern airliner. But some of them featured an odd windscreen design that was fashionable in the early 1930s that (I suspect) was intended to be relatively free from raindrop obstruction even though it was aerodynamically questionable.

Douglas DC-2
The more successful DC-2 and DC-3 airliners had a simple combination of a sloped, V's windscreen plus a single side window. This was continued in later four-motor Douglas piston engine transports, though with 2-piece panels on each windscreen V section.

De Havilland Albatross
The beautiful but flawed Albatross of the late 1930s used a similar window configuration. Note the characteristic de Havilland tail.

Boeing 307
The 307 was the first airliner with a pressurized cabin. Perhaps the designers were being cautious given the new technology, so the cockpit features many small windows in a wraparound configuration. For Seattle buffs, the background is a circa-1940 view of Beacon Hill, the tip of Sward Park, Mercer Island and beyond to the east. All of this but the extreme background is now built up.

Curtiss Commando
The Commando was intended as an airliner, but appeared at the start of World War 2 and was built as the C-46 transport/cargo plane. It was used post-war by secondary and tertiary airlines. The designers wanted to attain a curved fuselage profile, so avoided the stepped windscreen arrangement. The window design features excellent downward views to the sides.

Lockheed Constellation
Like the Boeing 307, the Constellation was pressurized and designers opted for small, multiple windows.

Boeing Stratocruiser
The Stratocruiser was derived from the B-29 bomber that also had a rounded front profile and many windows. Yet again, Boeing provided upward views from the cockpit.

Airspeed Ambassador
The Ambassador follows the DC-3/Albatross pattern, but the cockpit roof is shallow and the windows more slit-like.

Avro Tudor
On the other hand, the Tudor had a generously high roofline, but still had slit-like windows.

Bristol Britannia
The Britannia was a large British airliner that had the misfortune of entering service about the time of the 707. Here we find multiple windows plus Boeing-style overhead panes.

SNCASO Bretagne
Given its early post-war debut and mid-wing configuration, I doubt that the Bretagne was pressurized. Which is perhaps why the cockpit windows are so large.

De Havilland Comet
Another beautiful and ill-fated de Havilland design, the Comet was the first jet airliner to enter service, this in the early 1950s. Multiple windows are again in evidence, though in this case the transition windows on each side are triangular.

Vickers Viscount
The commercially successful Viscount featured odd, bulged cockpit area shaping and less windscreen sloping than was common at the time.

Douglas DC-8
Douglas' first jet airliner did not have a V's windscreen treatment. It actually could not because, in place of the V was a central pane. Douglas also used this arrangement on its DC-9/MD-80 twin-engine airliners. Boeing-style ceiling windows were incorporated.

Airbus A320
Europe's Airbus 320's primary windscreen pattern is similar to Boeing's practice except that the rearmost side window is taller the its neighboring transition window. No overhead windows, however.

Boeing 757
Boeing dropped overhead windows for its 757 series. The window treatment and general shape of the nose area have an awkward appearance. This was because Boeing wanted to have the cockpit interiors match those of its wide-body 767 as closely as possible so that airlines ordering both models could simplify pilot training.

Ultimate Airliner Stretch

"Back to the drawing board" has become an extremely expensive option for airplane designers and manufacturers, given the complexity of modern aircraft. Rather than coming up with an entirely new model to meet customer demands, builders nowadays routinely modify existing designs until technological advances demand an entirely new product.

The Douglas company was following this strategy as far back as the 1940s and 50s with its series of four-motor prop-driven airliners ranging from the unpressurized DC-4 through the DC-6 and DC-7 models. So when turbojet-propelled airliners came on the scene near the end of the 1950s, Douglas was careful to plan its planes to have most of the fuselage as a uniform-width tube. If airlines demanded more seating capacity, it was comparatively easy to add sections to the fuselage to increase length. This was done with the DC-8 jetliner and carried out to an even greater extent for the DC-9. I don't have statistics handy to prove it, but I strongly suspect that the DC-9 was stretched relatively more than any other airliner over its production run and name changes.

Shown below are the original DC-9 and the MD-90 which exemplifies the ultimate stretch (final-production Boeing 717s were about the same size).

Information regarding the DC-9 series can be found here. The DC-9-10 pictured above was designed as a short-haul airliner with a moderate seating capacity of 70 to 90, depending on whether a first-class section was available. Fuselage length is 92.1 feet (28.07 m) and range was around 1,000 miles on average. The first flight was in 1965.

The MD-90 first flew in 1996, more than 30 years after that of the DC-9. Its length is 152 ft 7 inches (46.5 m), though this statistic might include part of the tail as well as the fuselage itself. According to the Wikipedia link, its capacity was 153-172 passengers depending upon availability of first-class seating. Range was around 2,500 miles.

The MD-90 was in many respects a different aircraft than the original DC-9-10. It had larger, more powerful engines and a different wing. Similarities centered on the fuselage. The cockpit window arrangement was essentially the same for all versions and all featured five-abreast seating for coach class with three seats on one side of the aisle and two on the other.

Note that the strongest visual difference is the length of the fuselage forward of the wing, the MD-90 having wings set seemingly ridiculously far aft. The arrangement was necessary; the long nose was needed to balance the weight of the large, heavy engines at the rear.

Nieuport Aircraft: From Elegant to Ugly

During the 1930s the aesthetics of French military equipment improved markedly. I wrote about the appearance of battleships here, and in this post I consider aircraft, featuring an exception to the general trend.

Gallery

Amiot 143 - first flight of Amiot 140, 1931
The Amiot 143 was part of the 140 series of 1931. It and other bombers and "multiplace combat aircraft" (a French theoretical concept of multi-rôle aircraft that proved impractical in practice) of the late 1920s and early 30s were stunningly ugly.

Amiot 351 prototype - 1938
But by the later 1930s French bombers were much more sleek, including the Amiot 350 series. It's hard to believe that the Amiot firm could be responsible for such different designs over such a small interval.

Nieuport-Delage Ni-D 62 - from 1928
Now for the counter-example. Nieuport was one of the major builders of fighter planes on the Allied side during the Great War, and it continued that tradition through the 1920s with its 29 and 42 series. The Ni-D 62 was a major refinement of the early 1920s 42, though its performance was not much better. If you look closely at the sleek (in its day) 62, you will notice that it isn't a biplane. Rather, it is a sesquiplane with one full wing mounted high and a half-wing mounted at the lower part of the fuselage. A tertiary airfoil of sorts can be seen between the landing gear wheels.

SNCAC NC 1070 - 1947
Another triumph of the French tendency to value theory over practice was the nationalization of much of its aircraft industry in 1936. The Nieuport firm, already a part of another company, completely disappeared, becoming part of the SNCAO (Société Nationale des Constructions Aéronautiques de l'Ouest) which itself was later merged into the SNCAC (Société Nationale de Constructions Aéronautiques du Centre). The NC 1070 was a clandestine World War 2 project for a carrier-based attack aircraft.

SNCAC NC 1070 - three-view drawing
These plan drawings illustrate the odd, ugly appearance of the NC 1070 better than most photos can. Its wings folded just outboard of the engine nacelles and its length was stumpy indeed. These features were intended to make it compatible with elevators transferring aircraft between the hangar deck and the flight deck. Also, the short length would allow more of these aircraft to be spotted on the flight deck, an important consideration in carrier operations. The 1070 was flight tested, but never entered production even though an order had been contemplated at one time.

SNCAC NC 1071 - 1948
The NC 1071 was a jet propelled version of the NC 1070, and it was equally ugly. It too was test flown, but again there were no production versions.