Military History
The fate of modern combat aviation could have been very different, with wild Tandem-wing seaborne aircraft that resemble dragonflies taking the place of the sleek, streamlined, and low-wing monoplane configurations we are accustomed to. Aircraft design almost steered in that direction when naval aeronautical engineers faced a seemingly insurmountable problem: how to make seaborne warplanes land safely and reliably on aircraft carriers when their downward view was almost entirely obstructed by the engines and the wings. Even so, designer George Herbert Miles had a crazy idea that might just have worked. It consisted of pushing the main wings to the rear and mounting another set of smaller wings in the front, above the cockpit, clearing the view for pilots to land safely even on the narrowest flight decks. This idea produced one of the most bizarre yet fascinating aircraft prototypes, the Miles M.35 Libellula, an incredible warplane that almost became the blueprint for carrier-based combat warplanes of the 20th century…
Credit Dark Skies
