Article about twin-boom aircraft

[Tophe]

Try this Tophe

Thanks Chris. Well, I had the Putnam Westland book, somewhere in my boxes for moving soon to a new home. And I knew the famous Pterodactyl family, pure flying wings, but what is the relation with lifting lateral lengthwise areas holding a tailplane aft or a foreplane in front? The MoTIS and Willoughby-Delta F were very original in this way, almost twin-boomers. No?
Well, I respect the love for genuine Flying Wings as well, a very pure way to fly. Have you seen the wonderful book "Les ailes Volantes" of Alain Pelletier, an incredible collection of such projects. see http://dogbert.abebooks.com/servlet/Search...=Ailes&sortby=2 If you don't have it, you need it badly, Chris...

[Jschmus]

Tophe,

I saw a note about this in this morning's news, another Rutan design trying for a world record:

Virgin Atlantic Global Flyer

The pilot took off from Salina, KS sometime Monday night, and is currently somewhere over southern Africa.  

[Tophe]

Thanks a lot, Jschmus, I was not aware that the attempt was on going... Alas, French TVs seem to boycott this adventure (and nice twin-boom plane) classifying it as commercials not paying enough to be celebrated. It is so sad, as the sailing boats are so much advertised with very similar labels of banks or socks... Maybe it is journalists' rejection of American influence, as a fight back to US journalists requiring to boycott French products (I have heard of, I do not know). As far as I am concerned, I love US twin-boomers, British ones, French ones, just as well.  

[Tophe]

Alas, French TVs seem to boycott this adventure (and nice twin-boom plane)

No! Celebrated, just 2 minutes ago, on Channel 3 (FR3), with lots of in-flight views and beautiful pictures...  

[Tophe]

Celebrated, just 2 minutes ago, on Channel 3 (FR3)

And celebrated also on Channel 4+   ! The pilot from the sky saying he saw over China the Great Wall of China, thousands of miles long, then over Paris: "I see mainly the appartment of Mr Gaymard" (a local scandal, of a minister having a huge and free appartment of 600m², and putting on rent his own appartments and houses, hidden with many lies to journalists, while requiring his tax employees severely to decrease public expenses and tax-payers to pay or go to jail...). Smile   through twin-boomers , what-if the World was honnest and nice after all...?  

[Tophe]

I have turned the triangle into a circle (P-51CH), for my friends Max and Libelula fans of such wings

Max directed me to the Geobat project and indeed, that brings a new twin-boom way: genuine booms + circular lifting areas acting like booms... Twin-boom or quadruple-boom?

[Tophe]

As I said that I did not consider a lifting area as a boom, I also do not consider as a boom a long fin or a kind of wall : see these P-82 Twin-Fin and Twin-Wall:

At last, my personal subject is the Twin-Tail-Tube Aircraft ot T³-aircraft... (no matter if the tube is a little empty pipe or a big fuselage carrying passengers/cargo).
Anyway, I just try to classify my view. Other opinions are welcome as well...  

[Tophe]

Of course, a circular section is the best for a tube, but a rounded square can do as well (it is even more appropriate for the French word "poutre" used for "boom"), and it is clearly impossible to have a limit between square and round, all the intermediates being available (at least in the what-if Universe).
In the same way, I may reject vertical and horizontal very long sections, but all the intermediates are possible between them and the perfect square...

CONCLUSION , precisely: my definition is "I call twin-tail-boom what I call this way"...
Dictionary writers just do the same, with just the power to decide this will be The Law forever...  I feel different: let everyone decide in his/her way, welcome to opinions . Sometimes, a general law is required (if you must be free to drive on left or right of the road, there will be severe accidents... ) but not for aircraft-class definitions, according to me. And I did not like at all the French man that insulted me severely   for not respecting THE definition for "rotating wing" - I just used it about Magnus effect too, and I keep on thinking that was rather logic, not criminal.

[elmayerle]

As I said that I did not consider a lifting area as a boom, I also do not consider as a boom a long fin or a kind of wall : see these P-82 Twin-Fin and Twin-Wall:

At last, my personal subject is the Twin-Tail-Tube Aircraft ot T³-aircraft... (no matter if the tube is a little empty pipe or a big fuselage carrying passengers/cargo).
Anyway, I just try to classify my view. Other opinions are welcome as well...

That second one would do better with the booms brought forward of the wing and either heavy weapons (30mm or larger caliber cannon) or sensors installed in a suitably aerodynamic shell.  Alternatively, right around the cg is an excellent place to put fuel tanks, you don't get any shift of cg as you burn off fuel.

[Tophe]

I also do not consider as a boom a long fin

In the Real World, the question occured mainly for the Yak-58

This plane included also the questions: Was my 3c sketch a twin-boomer? a twin-tail? Is the stool-tailplane a double-T?

[Tophe]

my personal subject is the Twin- Tail-Tube Aircraft

I confirm: I have been misleaded speaking of twin-booms and it is right to have been driven to this twin-tail subject: booms without tail are not what I am interesting in (for some reason, the psychiatrists will explain).
Below: 2-2 has 2 tail-booms and 2 propeller-booms
0-2 is a flying wing for Chris, with 2 propeller-booms, with X-2 as a 'twin-tail' XF5U-Flying-Pancake-like variant
1-2 is almost classical, with one fuselage + 2 propeller booms.

Now, which ones of them are twin-boomers? I would choose 2-2 as the only twin-tail-boom, but any another choice is allowed, according to me.

[Tophe]

Celebrated

I have waited day after day for the news of the successful arrival, but nothing came (on French TV). I have asked Google and knew: Success!!!    Glory to twin-boomers  

Well, in the Middle Age, the goal was around-the-World in 80 months, then 80 weeks. In the 19th Century: 80 days. Now: 80 hours. I hope the next twin-boomer of Burt Rutan will do it in 80 minutes, then his son may invent a twin-boom rocket to do it in 80seconds...  

[Tophe]

I know that many people classify the P-82 as twin-fuselage not twin-boom. As far as I am concerned, I do not care if a 'body' carrying fin or stabilizor (tail-tube) carries inside (allways or on some versions) people or load or tank or engine or nothing, I just focus on shape.

According to a Belgian friend of mine: "a tail boom is an extension (other than a fuselage holding freight or people) which carries the tail; twin-boom aircraft have 2 and only 2 extensions carrying elevator(s) and/or fin(s) & rudder(s), at the rear of the aircraft (or else: in front of it)". So my sketches BB/4B/2P/3a/3b/3c/3d would be outside the twin-boom class, while 4T would be inside. This is the realist useful logic: depending on the goal leading to the twin-tail design, the words boom or fuselage are used.

As far as I am concerned, I prefer the dreamy way, focusing on shapes, choosing to forget bomb loads for instance, and considering aircraft as desk-models without people behind the "windows". I respect the realists, that built air travel and killed the Nazi Reich, while I am just loving aircraft handy-work and aviation-art for psychological reasons, not serious... I should have sub-titled my books « twin-tail-tube aircraft », simply, it is clear now. Thanks to all.

I have been also misdirected by my French mother-language, "bi-poutre" (with 2-booms) being not the "à 2 poutres jumelles" (with 2 twin-booms) I had in mind. Parallelism is not mandatory, as converging booms may hold the tail staying twins, but completely-different booms are not twin-booms maybe (in my last book : Go244T, P.111-2, P-38DE-2, in my update: Benett 145,417) – I was not refering to twins as just born the same day from the same (design-) mother  - "jumeaux heterozygotes" in French...

[Tophe]

Notes :
- The 4T sketch could be mentioned as both twin-boom and twin-fuselage, while for me it is twin-tail-tube + twin-pod.
- Classifying tanks is not easy: a tube containing them is not an empty support and is sometimes rather big; on the Ki 105 Ohtori tanker, the freight-load was a huge tank ; on the Voyager & GlobalFlyer, the booms included the main tanks to feed the aircraft engines.
- A crewless QP-82 may still be classified as twin-fuselage, meaning simply that "big booms" may be classified as fuselages or not ; here like almost everywhere there is a continuum, and separating in classes is artificial, imperfect.
- I see that I have been wrong trying to define the twin-boom class, rejecting the impure ones not belonging to it, in a racist way... I have never meant that every twin-boom plane is always more efficient than every non-twin-boomer. I don't like weapons and do not look for the best killers, I don't like capitalist-jungle and do not clap my hands for the best money-makers. "Happy the poor, the disabled" said the New Book, and I understand it. Though I see a contradiction somewhere in me: I understand a scorned bird may be happy to find a fan because of its twin tails pleasing someone unusually, I understand a beautiful bird may be unhappy to be rejected because it was born without twin tails. Though, I find the answer thanks to what-if spirit and half-breed state of mind: every bird is allowed to become twin-tail and touch my heart... No racism, as the door is open, welcoming new comers from "abroad"...
- What-if a model is "connected" to the twin-boom or twin-tail subject while "not at 100% inside"? My answer now is: welcome! A plane having 2 twin booms on one side, lateral, and one boom on the other side, central, is as a whole a triplex-boomer (see Alvis' friend Ken's Push-S P-38 below), while one part features the twin-boom layout that I love. This is a variation (in a What-if spirit) to the genuine standard and I do not condemn it at all. The Push' below has also twin rear tail + a single front tail, twin-fuselages and one boom. Even the Push² with its 4-tails is a twin-fin twin-boomer somehow...

- I have been wrong trying to register all the twin-boomers in History, needing a precise definition and including very ugly models as well as beauties. I regret having been directed in my Aircraft-model hobby by severe Historian teachers and Historian magazines, rather than by smiling dreamers considering shapes of imagination: what may be future, what if in the past, what is wrong but pleasant.
- It is too late now, I just say thanks to the what-ifers and tolerant History-fans that have cleared my mind lately. Alas, what-ifism is outlaw in France, History being holy here, I should have been born in Canada, or perhaps in UK/ Australia/ USA/ Dutchland/ Sweden...

[Tophe]

Next step in the love story between Twin-Mustangs and Christophers: the P-82 having seduced Tophe pretending she was a twin-boomer is transforming into a Flying Wing to seduce Chris...