The Little World

I was always puzzled by two aircraft; the Douglas X-3 Stiletto and the Lockheed F-104 Starfighter. They were fabulous looking and built for speed, but the tiny size of the wings always suggested that they just couldn’t lift themselves. There were troubles galore when they overloaded the F-104 but otherwise they seemed to work.

But could you do the same with a commercial airplane? Surely if there wasn’t the pressure for military speed there would be no need for truncated wings.

The Handley Page Jetstream seems to fall somewhere in a similar category of extreme wing design. Thin little things supporting a hefty fuselage cross-section. The fact that there are two efficient turboprops on the wings is one thing, but the fact that the lifting surfaces themselves are thin seems to dictate a fast landing and take-off speed.

I’m just grateful that Airfix have made a decent fit of the one-piece lower surfaces so that they don’t raise lips and bumps with the fuselage. I know it’s under where most people won’t see it but it’s a matter of pride to finish under there as well as above it.

Puzzling a bit about the tail lump/winglet at the rear of the fuselage. Is it an electronics housing or a subsidiary air surface because the rest of the tail does something wrong? It doesn’t appear on Google images of later real aircraft.

A small braking chute housing? A lunchbox? Urban art?