Flettner airplane.html |
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| Flettner airplane | |
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| Part of a series on Categories of Aircraft |
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| Lighter than air (aerostats) | |
| Unpowered | Powered |
| • Balloon | • Airship |
| Hybrid Lighter-than-air/Heavier-than-air | |
| Unpowered | Powered |
| • Hybrid airship | |
| Heavier than air (aerodynes) | |
| Unpowered | Powered |
| Flexible-wing • Hang glider |
Flexible-wing • Powered hang glider |
| Fixed-wing • Glider |
Fixed-wing • Powered airplane/aeroplane |
| Hybrid fixed/rotary wing • Tiltwing • Tiltrotor • Coleopter |
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| Rotary-wing • Rotor kite |
Rotary-wing • Autogyro • Gyrodyne ("Heliplane") • Helicopter |
| Other means of lift • Ornithopter • Flettner airplane |
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| see also • Ground-effect vehicle • Hovercraft • Flying Bedstead • Avrocar |
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A flettner or rotor airplane is an airplane that has no wings but instead uses the Magnus effect to create lift. Thus it is similar to the Flettner rotor used in a Flettner ship. Such airplanes were first built by Anton Flettner.
History
The development of the rotor aircraft was inspired by Flettner's rotor ship. The rotor ship, the Buckau, now renamed the "Baden-Baden," successfully crossed the Atlantic on 9 May 1926, and landed in New York, where it attracted considerable attention. The image shows the prototype of the rotor aircraft in an American shipyard at Hudson. At that time, corresponding developments were made in Germany already.
The development of this unusual aircraft based on research by Ludwig Prandtl at the Aerodynamic Research Institute (AVA) in Goettingen. Prandtl experimented with rotating cylinders in the wind tunnel. The cylinders created up to ten times more lift than a plane wing, which was quite surprising.
