To say that the Johnson’s Uni-plane of 1934 was once offered by his builder to a hamburger company to make flying advertisement will completely make the case. The builder, though, couldn’t: due to an unfortunate crash upon take off -one in a series of them, if I may add- sponsorship was unplugged.
At a mere 14 feet span (about 4.27 meters) massive it is
not, but oozes charm. A Church Marathon of 42 hp took the plane to the air, but
since in its first incarnation it had only control in two axis (no ailerons),
it was extremely difficult to make it stay there. Further development included
a single vertical tail and the missing ailerons, but this lovely machine
stubbornly refused to stay aloft. It made, though, a series of straight-line
long hops and eventually –err, after some crashes- reached plane’s heaven,
wherever that may be.
Some info can be consulted at http://aerofiles.com/_j.html
looking under the plane’s name.
Oh, behold the strange shape of the Uni-plane! Any
resemblance with the “Voyager” of “Star Trek” or the nose of the “Seaview” from
“Voyage to the bottom of the sea” is a mere coincidence.
The (not-to-be) flying hamburger is another proud member of
a long lineage of airborne food items like the Lee-Richards annular wing –AKA
flying doughnut-, Charles Zimmerman’s “flying pancakes”, B. I. Cheranovsky’s
“flying croissants” and so forth.
With this one, the expression “piece o’cake” reaches new
heights.
Enjoy!
No comments:
Post a Comment