| Mallard | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Role | two-seat light aircraft |
| National origin | U.S.A |
| Manufacturer | Cornelius Aircraft Co. |
| Designer | George Cornelius |
| First flight | 18 August 1943 |
| Number built | 1 |
The Cornelius Mallard was a single-engined light aircraft of very unusual configuration, tailless and with a swept forward wing of variable incidence. It flew between 1943-4.
The Mallard was the third aircraft type produced by Cornelius Aircraft. [1] The first two, the FreWing and the LW-1 were conventional in layout but unusual in using independently variable incidence wings for pitch and roll control. The wings of the Mallard could also be adjusted in the air, [1] [2] but they were of low aspect ratio with marked forward sweep. The trailing edge carried conventional ailerons near the tips and elevators close to the fuselage. The Mallard was also a tailless aircraft, in the sense of lacking a horizontal tailplane. The rest of the aircraft was conventional, with single fin and rudder and a side-by-side cockpit for two behind a flat four engine. The undercarriage was fixed and of the tailwheel type. Like other Cornelius designs, the sole Mallard was built by the Spartan Aircraft Company. [1]
The Mallard first flew on 18 August 1943, flown by Arthur Reitherman, [2] though some sources [3] suggest that most of the subsequent 18 flights were in the hands of the Romanian aerobatic pilot Alexander Papana. The first public flight was on 7 September 1943. [2] It was reported to have been 700 lb (320 kg) overweight [1] and there were plans to install a more powerful engine. The designer claimed that the Mallard was stall and spin proof, though the later loss of the much larger but similarly configured Cornelius XFG-1 in an irrecoverable spin has cast doubt on this. [4]
Data from [2]
General characteristics
Performance
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