Folding Wing Aircraft, 1920, with Wing Over Fuselage

Folding wing airplanes were first designed for aircraft carrier use in WWII, or where they?  F. M. Osborne designed a high wing monoplane, that itself being an advanced design for the day, which also had wings that folded onto the top of the fuselage for storage.  It also had a wing that went over the top of the fuselage for added lift.  This hints at the design of the SR71-Blackbird and F-16, which turn the fuselage itself into a lifting surface. 

 

Comments

[TRE]

Like it.

[Steve]

I've been looking for the patent number on the supposed F M Osborne foldable wing biplane. The picture shows old sketches of the plane with the writing "F M Osborne. Airplane. Application filed Nov 2, 1920. Patented Oct 18, 1921. 3 Sheets - Sheet 2."

The U.S. Patent database before 1975 is only searchable by Patent Number or Current US Classification. Can anyone find the actual patent number that shows this document isn't contrived?

--Steve

[Bob Shaver]

Steve:

If you know the date of the patent, you can find it using the PTO database. By trial and error, you find patents that were issued on a certain day, and just start looking at every patent issued that day. Its tedious, but possible.

[Steve]

Thanks, Bob. I did finally find the number. I got lucky; of 785 patents approved that day, I only had to look through 110 before I settled on # 1,393,820. The somewhat annoying thing was that the inventor, patent date, and patent # were all together on the same page (original document). Robert cut and pasted the inventor name to appear with the date, but left off the adjacent patent number. It would have been that simple. Oh well; I'm sure he didn't figure anyone would care.

[hgfdhgh]

Folding wing airplanes were first designed for aircraft carrier use in WWII, or where they? YOU HAVE A SPELLING MISTAKE AT THE END OF THE FIRST SENTENCE. IT SHOULD BE "WERE" NOT "WHERE"

[aircraft parts]

That's great story about the aircrafts and especially wing aircrafts. Were there any other members involved in the development having important role?

[Kit Spackman]

Folding wing aircraft existed YEARS before WWII. There were folding wing aircraft in service in the RNAS in 1914, the Short 184 is just one example. Even large aircraft had them back then too, the Handley-Page 0/400 bomber had them so it could fit into the small hangars of the time.