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A Bizarre Fat Airplane that Changed Military Aviation Forever

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Published on 25 Sep 2022 / In Film & Animation

The early 1930s saw the most extravagant aircraft with unique shapes and sizes as part of a widely experimental phase in the aviation industry. And still, the Stipa-Caproni stood apart.

The inventive airframe designed by Italian aeronautical engineer Luigi Stipa and manufactured by the Caproni Company was in many ways like a cartoon aircraft. But it was functional!

The so-called flying barrel consisted of a mere tube for a fuselage and an engine and propeller that washed the airflow through the cylinder’s length, creating thrust.

Some experts consider the Stipa-Caproni the ugliest aircraft ever built, while others still call it an aerodynamic aberration. Still, there is reason to suggest that the bizarre concoction was the direct predecessor of the modern turbofan engine…

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Life_N_Times_of_Shane_T_Hanson

Now I don't know everything that went through Stipa's mind about the Venturi Effect hollow framed plane, but he had it, and he built it and I don't know why these stupid people are always labeling what these remarkable pioneers did as "Crazy / Strange / etc"., but Stipa and many others have had ideas, AND they tried them out....

You see when you have great ideas, it can be very important to "try it out" - because there is a LOT of education in it, and most ideas will work, either brilliantly, kind of good - kind of not so good, or rather poorly at best.

But you gain insights and understanding - from the doing of it.

And this makes you at least 100 x as smart, as all the fucking idiots, who had nothing but opinions about what you have done.

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