science

Stout Batwing

Stout Batwing is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Stout Batwing rather than just read about it. In short: The Stout Batwing was an experimental low aspect ratio flying wing aircraft developed by William Bushnell Stout. The aircraft used wood veneer construction and was an early example of cantilever wing design.

Key takeaways

Stout Batwing belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Stout Batwing to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Stout Batwing from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

The Stout Batwing was an experimental low aspect ratio flying wing aircraft developed by William Bushnell Stout. The aircraft used wood veneer construction and was an early example of cantilever wing design. The internally braced wing was also one of the first American aircraft designed without drag-producing struts.

Development During World War I, William Bushnell Stout was employed by Packard in 1917 when he was appointed as a technical advisor to the War production board, who gave Stout a contract to develop an aircraft. Funded by the Motor Products Corporation, Stout developed the "Batwing" aircraft hoping to sell the aircraft to the United States Army Air Service. Stout first experimented with an all-wood flying wing glider, the "Batwing Glider", tested at Ford Airport in 1926. Stout's design was nicknamed "Bushnell's Turtle" (a reference to the unrelated David Bushnell's American Turtle shape).

Design The Batwing was designed with an unusually broad chord, thick section of cantilevered wing with the horizontal stabilizers set very close to the rear of the aircraft. The wings were covered with a three-ply wood veneer only 1/20 of an inch thick. The internal bracing consisted of hundreds of spruce struts. Nine spars tested to 1 ton of load each. Likely encountering a Junkers F.13, Bill Stout abandoned wood construction for metal corrugated skinning over a metal frame. To reduce drag, the aircraft employed a cantilever wing without support wires or struts. This required a "thick" wing to build a spar deep enough to support the aircraft. To maintain the thin airfoil sections commonly used at the time, the chord also had to be longer, as the wing became thicker. In the case of the Batwing, the chord was almost the entire length of the aircraft. Since the spar did not need to be as thick toward the tips to support the load, the chord decreased further out along the wing, forming an oval-shaped wing. As ideal as this was, it caused significant engineering challenges. Further aerodynamic drag reductions came from having the water-cooled engine embedded into the wing with retractable radiators. The pilot sat in an open cockpit placed at the top of the aircraft. Downward visibility was restricted by the wing. The Batwing was the first example of a cantilevered wing designed and built in the United States.

Operational history The mockup of his first thick-winged aircraft design was built at the Widman woodworking plant in Detroit, Michigan. The 150 hp engine was acquired from Charles W. Nash, who had an interest in the project. The first flight was in Dayton, Ohio, on 13 January 1919. The pump shaft on the engine was broken, but the plane was flown anyway. Although the flight was successful, the test pilot Jimmie Johnson commented that the aircraft was too dangerous to fly because of the poor visibility. Stout later called the visibility "abominable". The test aircraft was put into storage. Soon afterward, Stout submitted British patent #149,708: a Batwing aircraft with the corners squared off rather than the oval design of the prototype. The updated aircraft was never produced. Stout went on to focus on more conventional aircraft featuring the advancement of all-metal construction but maintained that the airplane of the future would look like the Batwing.

Variants Stout drew up plans for a scaled-up version of the Batwing, with a 100-foot wingspan. The larger aircraft may have solved the visibility issues but did not get past the planning stage. The all-metal "Batwing 11" was publicized as being capable of 200 mph with a forty-foot wingspan and magnesium construction. Stout also used the term "batwing" in the name of future aircraft that used cantilever wings.

Specifications (Batwing) Data from SAE Dec 1922General characteristics Wingspan: 20 ft (6.1 m) Wing area: 480 sq ft (45 m2) Empty weight: 1,542 lb (699 kg) Powerplant: 1 × Hispano-Suiza 8 V-8 water-cooled piston engine, 150 hp (110 kW) Performance

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Stout Batwing

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Stout Batwing claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Stout Batwing before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Stout Batwing ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Stout Batwing

In research: Stout Batwing appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Stout Batwing in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Stout Batwing is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1910s United States experimental aircraft, Aircraft first flown in 1919, Aircraft with fixed conventional landing gear, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Stout Batwing outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Stout Batwing in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Stout Batwing means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Stout Batwing out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Stout Batwing in simple terms?

Why does Stout Batwing matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Stout Batwing?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Stout Batwing.