If you think that the Duo-Mono concept of Delanne is of no loner use in the current aviation, you are wrong. I am sure there are fields where the Delanne can even solve a few current problems.
Big airplanes
Who hasn't heard of the troubles people make about noise near airstrips. It is due to history that a lot of large airstrips are located near cities. Or should I better say "large cities placed near large airstrips". Anyway, people don't like the noise of the airplanes. How can we solve that problem?
To my opinion there are a few options.
- Change the position of the airfield. But you can understand that this is not so easy. If they ever would do it I guess there will be more airstrips near the coast. There are less people living on the water. ;^)
- Changing the engines to less noisy engines. Yep, that could do it. But are we not near the limit of that? Engines will always make noise. The first electrical 747 is still not designed, and ... would it be less noisy?
- Make the airplanes pass higher over the cities. In Heathrow in London, airplanes land and take off at a higher angle. Why? Well, if the distance between houses and airplanes gets longer, the noise will be less. So, they want to make the distance as large as possible as quick as possible.
Remember what we said about the advantages of the Duo-Mono? It climbs faster. I think that the link to the last option is very clear. Just look at the drawing to see what I mean.
New York had a complaint about the Concorde at its beginning. They didn't want that noisy airplane. But the engineers assured that the Concorde passed higher over the city and so the noise would be no problem (I saw a video about that problem in New York and the claim of the engineers. It was my inspiration to start this page). Well, it worked. The Concorde had a beautiful career. If it worked then, why would it not work now?
Another advantage to the large airplanes is the fact that the Delanne variant will be smaller. Its span is less than the conventional airplanes with the same wing area.
Smaller means:
- more airplanes in the same hangars.
- more possible airplanes next to each other at terminals in a airport. With other words ... you can increase the capacity of a airfield without enlarging the airfield.
°°°°°Can anybody draw me a comparison between a terminal with conventional airplanes (not the big ones, no 747, better choose airplanes for "inter-city" flights (right word???)) and a terminal with a Delanne variant with the same wing area? If help is needed to draw that Delanne variant, I will help. But ... I have no clue about the terminal.°°°°°
If the Delanne can land slower than the conventional airplane, it is easier to land and that increases the safety. OK, those steeper landings still will require some good piloting. But ... if they can make a F117 fly on computers, than they sure can guide a Delanne towards a airstrip at a steeper angle.
Now I am in unknown territory. I am not a calculation guy, but I hope that my guessing is pretty close to reality. Here I go.
I repeat ... the Delanne variant will have less span. And I thought that shorter spans mostly lead to less heavy constructions in the wing. The structure needs to prevent the wing from breaking up in the air. Shorter wings are less fragile. So, they need less reinforcement. Less reinforcements lead to less empty weight. Lower empty weight leads to better climbing. So, again it works to a advantage.
For now, those are the advantages I can think of. If you know any other, please, tell me.
Light aviation
Sure that there is one. Just remember that Mr. Delanne designed his Mono-Duo to make it easier to learn to fly. So .. trainers and small personal airplanes can have this configuration to ease up the learning process for beginner pilots. Owning a Delanne light airplane can be a great help to have a safe airplane as first and as fast later.
I have some ideas and hope to draw them soon and add them to the "Few of my thoughts" section. If I seem to have forgotten, just tell me.