Jonah J.6

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Jonah J.6
Jona J 6 S 01 large.jpg
Type: Experimental airplane
Design country:

ItalyItaly Italy

Manufacturer:

Piero Magni Aviazione

First flight:

1936

Number of pieces:

1 J.6 (6? J.6S)

The Jona J.6 was a one and a half-decker designed test aircraft from the 1930s, which was developed by the Italian company Piero Magni Aviazione SAI . New types of control elements for achieving automatic flight stability were to be investigated with the aircraft. To date, no other aircraft has become known that has a similar device for moving the wings around the longitudinal axis of the fuselage. While corresponding technical terms exist for the rotation of the entire wing around the vertical axis ( oblique wing ) and around the transverse axis ( tilting wing ), there is no technical term for tilting around the longitudinal axis. An external observer would probably have described the automatic compensatory movements of the wing in gusty weather as "wing wobbling".

history

The adjustment mechanism can be seen in the open casing
Model photos of the J.6 with three states of the movable wings. Above: normal straight flight, middle: wing tilts to the left, aileron deflected downwards, below: wing tilts to the right, right aileron deflected downwards

Piero Magni founded the later company Piero Magni Aviazione in Milan in 1919 under the name Laboratorio Construzioni Aeronautiche Piero Magni , which was mainly devoted to research, but also built some unusual aircraft. This included the Jona J.6 constructed by Alberto Jona.

The J.6 was designed to make it easier to control an aircraft and make it safer. Flight safety should be increased by a simple automatic control device to compensate for disturbances around the longitudinal axis. Second, automatic control of the ailerons should reduce the normal three-axis control to two axes in order to make it easier to steer.

A variant for military training tasks was planned with the J.6S. It should fly with the 240 hp Alfa Romeo D2 C30 nine-cylinder radial engine and get along without the special wing mechanism. It is not certain whether the J.6S was actually built.

After a successful trial, the Italian government bought the only J.6 and it was given the Air Force registration MM313. Nothing is known about the final whereabouts of the machine.

construction

The two-seat, cantilevered one -and-a-half-decker had a special peculiarity of an articulated upper wing with automatic control of the ailerons. This device was intended to make the aircraft spin-proof as long as the pilot did not block wing mobility.

The wing could be tilted sideways, but the angle of incidence to the fuselage remained unchanged. The pilot moved the upper wing via normal operation of the ailerons. However, if z. B. If a gust disrupted normal flight conditions, the ailerons should automatically compensate for this. Automatic Handley Page slats were installed on the upper wings , while the lower wings had expanding flaps . In order to support the aileron effect in flight conditions close to the stall speed, so-called "interceptors" were connected to the ailerons in addition to the slats. They consisted of small strips of metal or wood that usually lay flat on the upper wing in depressions. At very low speeds they folded up and reduced the lift in this wing area.

The fuselage was a welded tubular steel construction, the front and upper part of which was metal-clad and otherwise fabric-covered. The two wing spars and the ribs were made of wood with plywood planking.

The drive consisted of a 140 hp Fiat A 54 seven-cylinder radial engine, which was covered with a Townend ring and propelled a two-blade fixed propeller.

criticism

In the magazine Flight of October 10, 1935 it is noted that the torque of the engine constantly deflects the movable wing slightly from its neutral position, which means that the ailerons would have to show a permanent deflection as a counter-reaction. In addition, there is the observation that the type of wing attachment could lead to flutter .

As an advantage of the J.6 in blind flight , Jona also pointed out the possibility of dividing the pilot control. One crew member should operate the height control and the other should be responsible for maintaining the direction. This was portrayed as bizarre in the trade press .

Technical specifications

Parameter Data
in brackets differ from Jane's 1938
crew 2
length 7.42 m (7.40 m)
height 2.54 m
span above: 11.74 m (10.22 m), below: (6.71 m)
Wing area above: 18.39 m²
Empty mass 645 kg
Takeoff mass 970 kg
Top speed 200 km / h
Minimum speed 80 km / h
Engines 1 × Fiat A-54 seven-cylinder radial engine with 140 hp

See also

literature

  • Mike Hooks: Swing Wing - Unorthodox Aircraft . In: Airplane Monthly February 2005, pp. 30–33
  • A Novel Two-Control Airplane . In: Flight from October 10, 1935, p. 378 f. ( online )
  • CG Gray: Jane's All the World's Aircraft 1938. London: David & Charles, Reprinted 1972, ISBN 0-7153-5734-4 .

Web links

Commons : Jona J.6  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ A novel two-control airplane. (PDF) In: FLIGHT, October 10, 1935. Flightglobal.com , October 10, 1935, pp. 378–379 , accessed on June 2, 2016 (English).
  2. ↑ Airplane Monthly February 2005, p. 32
  3. ↑ Jane's 1938