An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air. It counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or, in a few cases, direct downward thrust from its engines. Common examples of aircraft include airplanes, helicopters, airships, gliders, paramotors, and hot air balloons.
Alexander Martin Lippisch was a German aeronautical engineer, a pioneer of aerodynamics who made important contributions to the understanding of tailless aircraft, delta wings and the ground effect, and also worked in the U.S. Within the Opel-RAK program, he was the designer of the world's first rocket-powered glider.
Alexander Lippisch's Delta IV was a continuation of his work on delta wing designs pioneered in his Delta I, Delta II and Delta III aircraft.
The DFS 40 was a tailless research aircraft designed by Alexander Lippisch as the Delta V in 1937. The DFS 40 was a more advanced design than the previous DFS 39, and was built for comparison with that aircraft.
The Lun-class ekranoplan is the only ground effect vehicle (GEV) to ever be operationally deployed as a warship, deploying in the Caspian Flotilla. It was designed by Rostislav Alexeyev in 1975 and used by the Soviet and later Russian navies from 1987 until sometime in the late 1990s.
The Bartini Beriev VVA-14Vertikaľno-Vzletayushchaya Amfibiya was a wing-in-ground-effect aircraft developed in the Soviet Union during the early 1970s. Designed to be able to take off from the water and fly at high speed over long distances, it was to make true flights at high altitude, but also have the capability of flying efficiently just above the sea surface, using aerodynamic ground effect. The VVA-14 was designed by Hungarian-born designer Robert Bartini in answer to a perceived requirement to destroy United States Navy Polaris missile submarines. The final aircraft was retired in 1987.
The A-90 Orlyonok is a Soviet ekranoplan that was designed by Rostislav Evgenievich Alexeyev of the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau.
In aeronautics, a tailless aircraft is a fixed-wing aircraft with no other horizontal aerodynamic surface besides its main wing. It may still have a fuselage, vertical tail fin, and/or vertical rudder.
A ground-effect vehicle (GEV), also called a wing-in-ground-effect, ground-effect craft/machine (GEM), wingship, flarecraft, surface effect vehicle or ekranoplan, is a vehicle that is able to move over the surface by gaining support from the reactions of the air against the surface of the earth or water. Typically, it is designed to glide over a level surface by making use of ground effect, the aerodynamic interaction between the moving wing and the surface below. Some models can operate over any flat area such as frozen lakes or flat plains similar to a hovercraft. The term Ground-Effect Vehicle originally referred to any craft utilizing ground effect, including what is known later as hovercraft, in descriptions of patents during the 1950s. However, this term is nowadays regarded as distinct from air-cushion vehicles or hovercraft. The definition of GEVs does not include racecars utilizing ground-effect for increasing downforce.
The Fairey Fremantle was a large single-engine biplane seaplane designed in the mid-1920s for a proposed around-the-world flight. Only one was built.
Akaflieg Darmstadt is one of approximately twenty aviation groups attached to German universities. Akaflieg is an abbreviation for Akademische Fliegergruppe, an academic group of students and faculty from a German University.
The KM, known colloquially as the Caspian Sea Monster, was an experimental ground effect vehicle developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s by the Central Hydrofoil Design Bureau. The KM began operation in 1966, and was continuously tested by the Soviet Navy until 1980 when it crashed into the Caspian Sea.
The Schütte-Lanz D.VI was a single engine, parasol wing fighter aircraft designed and built in Germany towards the end of World War I. It had a very short career, crashing on its first flight.
The RFB/Grumman American Fanliner was an experimental German light aircraft of the 1970s, propelled by a piston engine driving a ducted fan. A joint venture between the German company Rhein-Flugzeugbau (RFB) and the American general aviation manufacturer Grumman American, two examples were built, but no production followed.
The Collins X-112 was an experimental two-seat ground-effect vehicle, designed by Alexander Lippisch in the United States in the early 1960s to test his thick reverse delta wing concept.
The RFB X-114 was a ground-effect craft, designed chiefly to operate over water but capable of flight at higher altitudes where required, carrying five or six passengers or freight along coasts and capable of surveillance duties. One was evaluated by the German military in the late 1970s, but no orders followed.
During the pioneer years before the First World War, Cedric Lee and G. Tilghman Richards in the UK built and flew a series of aircraft having a novel flat ring-shaped or annular wing. They built both biplane and monoplane types, and in 1913 their first monoplane proved to be an early example of a statically stable aircraft.
The Rohrbach Ro III was a twin-engined, all-metal flying boat built in Germany in the mid-1920s. A development of the Ro II, it could be configured either as an airliner or a reconnaissance aircraft. It was developed into the similar but more powerful Ro IIIa Rodra, intended only as a military reconnaissance/bomber. Four Ro IIIs were bought by Japan and two Rodras by Turkey.
