Vincent Justus Burnelli
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Vincent Justus Burnelli (November 22, 1895 – June 22, 1964) was an American aeronautics engineer who created the flying wing concept.
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[edit] Early life
He was born in Temple, Texas. With his friend, John Carisi, designed his first airplane in 1915, at Maspeth, Queens, New York. The open biplane was first demonstrated at the old Hempstead Plains Aviation Field, later to become Roosevelt Field. A few years later, he designed a "night fighter" in the hopes that it would be used as a combat aircraft in the First World War. His hopes were not realized but he did sell the plane to the New York City Police Department, when plans were made to create an aerial police operation.
In 1919, Mr Burnelli refined his ideas about aircraft design, after he had turned out what is believed to have been the world's first large commercial airliner in Milwaukee, Wisconsin for the Lawson Airlines.
[edit] Flying wings
Burnelli was one of the first American designers to capitalize on the "flying wing" mystique. In the 1920s, he produced two biplane transports with large, airfoil-shaped fuselages that contributed a considerable portion of the airplane's lift. His goal was to develop a more efficient airplane that could carry a large payload. Although Burnelli referred to his lifting body transports as "flying wings," his production aircraft invariably retained some kind of a tail, frequently supported by upswept booms that extended rearward. More accurately, Burnelli had a "lifting body" design rather than a true "flying wing" where all major aeronautical components are housed within the wing.
Burnelli's first monoplane, the CB-16, appeared in 1928. This aircraft and subsequent Burnelli types produced into the 1940s had certain features in common:
- The engines were close together and ahead of the cabin structure
- The airfoil fuselage section, which provided 50 percent lift at cruising speed, housed the passenger cabin and the pilot's and mechanic's compartments.
More than 60 percent of the weight and strength of the aircraft structure surrounded and protected the passenger cabin section for maximum resistance to telescoping.
Burnelli maintained that his lifting design had unparalleled safety, economic, and operational advantages over conventional transport designs. His design philosophy was supported by many prominent civil and military aviation experts well into the late 1940s, but he failed to gain the political and economic backing that would have ensured public acceptance of his unconventional designs. Through various partnerships, he worked for and created a diverse number of companies that would produce his designs, most of which saw the light as experimental or prototype aircraft. The elusive production contracts that he so wanted, would continue to elude him. His last design, the CBW-3 Loadmaster was manufactured by Canada Car and Foundry in Montreal. The sole prototype was extensively tested but failed to gain a production contract.
[edit] Later years
Moving to Southampton, N.Y., Burnelli remained tireless in his determination to promote his airfoil-shaped fuselage transport planes. In 1955, he adapted his final design, the Burnelli CBY-3 Loadmaster to carry an expedition of 20 passengers and 41 sled dogs, along with their equipment, to the North Pole, but the enterprise was canceled. Until his death in 1964 at the age of 69, Vincent Burnelli championed his "flying wing" designs.
The Loadmaster continued to fly regularly as a commercial airliner both in northern Canada and South America. Acquired with design rights by Airlifts Inc (Miami FL), it went to Venezuela and returned to Burnelli Avionics for refitting with Wright R-2600s. The CBY-3 finally ended its flying days at Baltimore's airport in Maryland. In 1964, the quintessential Burnelli "flying wing" air transport was retired to the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Conneticut, where it sits today, displayed outside, northwest of the B-29 building.
[edit] Burnelli designs
- Burnelli Continental KB-1 (1915)
- Burnelli (Lawson Airlines)
- Remington-Burnelli Co. RB-1(1921)
- Remington-Burnelli Co. RB-2 Air freighter (1924)
- Burnelli CB-16 Chapman Airliner (1928)
- Uppercu-Burnelli Corp. UB-20 (1929)
- Uppercu-Burnelli Corp. GX-3 (1929)
- Uppercu-Burnelli Aeromarine-Klemm Amphibian seaplane (1930)
- Burnelli Aircraft Co. UB-14 (1935)
- Cunliffe-Owen Aircraft Corp. OA-1 Clyde Clipper (licence-built British version of the UB-14) (1939)
- Burnelli Aircraft Co. XCG-16 cargo glider (1943)
- Burnelli Canada Car and Foundry CBY-3 Loadmaster (1945)
