Dunne D.8
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Dunne's final designs were built during 1911‑1912. When the Dunne D.5 crashed in 1911 it was rebuilt as the D.8. Reverting to the biplane configuration he rebuilt the D.5 with a 4-cylinder, 60 hp Green engine and dual controls. It was a tailless four bay unstaggered biplane with its wings swept at 32°. The washout on tips well behind the centre of gravity provided longitudinal stability in the same way as a conventional tailplane. Wing tip elevons were used for control, operated by a pair of levers, one either side of the pilot. It was powered by a 4-cylinder, 60 hp Green engine that directly drove a single pusher propeller. The Green engine was later replaced by an 80 hp Gnome. The D.8 first flew in June 1912 at Eastchurch.
![]() Captain Carden, who had but one hand, used this machine to gain his Royal Aero Club Aviator's Certificate in June 1912. In August 1913 the aircraft was flown from Eastchurch in Kent to Paris, France for tests by the French Aeronautic Corps, during which Commandant Felix of the Nieuport company astonished crowds at a Deauville flying meeting by stepping from the cockpit and walking along the aircraft's lower wing in flight.
Three Dunne tailless biplanes were built by the Burgess Company of Marblehead, Massachusetts in 1916 and evaluated by the US Army, but by then Dunne had been advised by his doctors to give up aviation, which he did.
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