Design
The No.21 was a wire-braced monoplane with bat-like wings and triangular horizontal tail. There was no vertical fin, and lateral control was intended to be accomplished by shifting the pilot's body sideways.
The wings were constructed with radial bamboo ribs and covered with silk, and had a span of 36 ft (11 m). They had noticeable dihedral, which would have contributed to the aircraft's stability had it ever flown, and could be folded like a fan for transport.
The fuselage was of rectangular box section with constant height, curved to taper inwards at front and rear when seen from above. Four small wheels were fixed to the bottom.
Although having two engines and twin propellers, the aircraft was not a conventional twin. It had separate engines for ground running and flight, both designed and made by Whitehead. The ground engine was of 10 hp (7.5 kW) and drove the wheels to reach takeoff speed. Propulsion was then changed to a 20 hp (15 kW) acetylene engine driving two counter-rotating tractor propellers mounted on outriggers.. The aircraft could supposedly take off under its own power and without assistance.
Later analysis by aviation historians concluded that the design as a whole was flimsy and aerodynamically unsound.
Read more about this topic: Whitehead No. 21
Famous quotes containing the word design:
“Humility is often only the putting on of a submissiveness by which men hope to bring other people to submit to them; it is a more calculated sort of pride, which debases itself with a design of being exalted; and though this vice transform itself into a thousand several shapes, yet the disguise is never more effectual nor more capable of deceiving the world than when concealed under a form of humility.”
—François, Duc De La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
“If I commit suicide, it will not be to destroy myself but to put myself back together again. Suicide will be for me only one means of violently reconquering myself, of brutally invading my being, of anticipating the unpredictable approaches of God. By suicide, I reintroduce my design in nature, I shall for the first time give things the shape of my will.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)