The Ongoing Mystery Aircraft Thread Part Deux.

[lefty]

Don't have a proper mystery - but perhaps someone can identify this curious tailless object spotted when Google Earth-ing Biggin Hill ?

[Moses03]

That blue and white Piper(?) is still parked in the area but no sign of the tailless airframe. Looks kind of Rutanish (at least the wing shape anyways).

[lefty]

Don't know which version of GE you have, Kevin, but it's still there in mine, imagery dated 4/8/17 (British date version)

It looks like a glider, perhaps, and, judging by the shadow, has winglets....

[fabulousfour]

I found it too, on my laptop and on my ipad as well.

I don't think it is a glider, the center of gravity would be too much forward without a canard, provided that there isn't missing a part of the plane.

Somehow I get the imagination that the mystery is lying upside down, I can't see any windows.
The black dot on the nose might be a part of the nose gear then.

My first thought was that it is a Velocity, but it doesn't quite fit the shape - and where are the canards?

[Moses03]

I just pulled up Google maps, assuming it was up to date. No idea then.

[lefty]

If Walter doesn't know, which I find unlikely, we'll have to leave it. (Don't think it is upside-down, Robert - the shadow of the winglet precludes that.) Let's have OH ?

[fabulousfour]

Let's go on with this mystery.

[Moses03]

Look at that wood grain. I would be a little surprised if it didn't come out of some old growth timber in the Black Forest.

[fabulousfour]

Kevin, the plane is European but NOT German. And it is not a "homebuilt".
It was used military.

[lefty]

Robert, that looks like a Walter motor - could this be an ANBO V with the larger engine option ?

[fabulousfour]

Mike, close enough for me, I have it as ANBO III.

An alcohol-free beer in the morning for you

[lefty]

Thanks Robert - have given myself a sharp rap on the knuckles for sloppy identification !

Here's something bigger --

[fabulousfour]

That looks very much like the SABCA S.11 in its redesigned form.

[lefty]

Indeed it is, Robert - looks sophisticated enough, but the poor pilot was still stuck out in the open air ! Over to you -

[fabulousfour]

Thanks, Mike

I will be back at my own PC only in a few hours again, so, if anybody wants to post a mystery earlier feel free to do so.

[wout]

To keep you busy (for a while) . A twin booms tail with reverse V-tail.

[wout]

This is the CL-1 Zipper by W.Cleary and Jack Laister. Registered N3999C and fitted with a Kawasaki TA440 engine. She first flew July 1983.

OH please!

[fabulousfour]

I still owe you a mystery from yesterday, so here we go with a tiny bird.

[pomme homme]

Maybe the SAI KZ-8?

[lefty]

seen here - (Danish Air Museum, 2013)

[fabulousfour]

The KZ-8 it is!

The picture shows the plane with a British registration.
Over to France, where the cider grows.

[pomme homme]

Thank you, Robert. Here's something a little older.

[srgalahad]

I found it too, on my laptop and on my ipad as well.

I don't think it is a glider, the center of gravity would be too much forward without a canard, provided that there isn't missing a part of the plane.

Somehow I get the imagination that the mystery is lying upside down, I can't see any windows.
The black dot on the nose might be a part of the nose gear then.

My first thought was that it is a Velocity, but it doesn't quite fit the shape - and where are the canards?

A couple of thoughts on the "Biggin Hill mystery":
Google Earth 'stiches' tiles, and not all are from the same date, which is the case here. Depending on the date you end up loading, and where your view is centered, you may be looking at images from different dates. In this case (for example, at 1600 ft 'eye alt.') you see two different tones to the image. Mouse over the north half and you'll see a fairly recent (2017) date, but hovering over the hangars and mystery a/c you get July 18, 2013. Easy to check if you got thru the 'historical imagery' (the clock icon at the top) and you'll see the identical image.

However, if you go back a bit further - to August 21, 2011 - there is, in the same location, clearly a canard a/c (in poor resolution) but complete and facing the opposite direction. Note that GE does not always default to the latest images and sometimes those shift as you zoom in/out as it's loading. Once loaded, you keep that data until you reload/restart/update. I have an idea why, but that's irrelevant.

I did a bit of measuring and the 2011 and 2013 images come out with a wingspan of 30 ft (very close) which matches a Velocity XL (other versions vary slightly) and definitely larger than a Long-EZ's 26 ft. It appears the engine/prop have been removed and likely some part of the nose structure as well to facilitate removal of the canard plane. Lack of a visible cockpit may be due to a tarp or cover over the rest of the fuselage which would be logical with bits removed. It could be another type, but the wing planform matches - the Long-Ex and Berkut for example have a double taper to the inboard leading edge.

Sorry for the length, but photo-interpretation gets messy.

[lefty]

Rob, congratulations on some brilliant detective work ! I agree 100% with your conclusions, and that the mystery is indeed a 'modified' Rutan.....

Google Earth and its updates are something of an issue with me - the default scenery for my area dates back to 2006 and Google's excuse for not updating is that there is a lot of cloud in Scotland, and 'thinly populated'.

So I checked the wettest, cloudiest and most remote location I could find (the south-west tip of New Zealand ) to find scenery dating 2014. Even that other highly-populated area, the dead centre of the Sahara, is 2013. Grrr.....

[giruXX]

Pomme Homme's aircraft might be the Glenny & Henderson Gadfly G-AAEY without her extra wing-tip ailerons.



Also my thanks to srgalahad for the excellent detective work!