__NOTOC__ The de Bruyne DB-2 Snark was a British

experimental An experiment is a procedure carried out to support or refute a hypothesis, or determine the efficacy or likelihood of something previously untried. Experiments provide insight into cause-and-effect by demonstrating what outcome occurs when a ...

four-seat cabin

monoplane A monoplane is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration with a single mainplane, in contrast to a biplane or other types of multiplanes, which have multiple planes. A monoplane has inherently the highest efficiency and lowest drag of any wing con ...

Aero Research Limited Aero Research Limited (ARL) was a British company that pioneered several new adhesives, intended initially for the aeronautical industry. Formed in 1934 by Norman de Bruyne at Duxford, Cambridgeshire from an earlier company of his, the Cambridges ...

(ARL) of Cambridgeshire. It was built to test low weight, bakelite-bonded plywood,

stressed skin In mechanical engineering, stressed skin is a type of rigid construction, intermediate between monocoque and a rigid frame with a non-loaded covering. A stressed skin structure has its compression-taking elements localized and its tension-taking ...

wing and fuselage structures.

Development

Apart from the structure the Snark was a conventional looking low-wing four-seat cabin monoplane, powered by a nose-mounted 130 hp (97 kW)

de Havilland Gipsy Major The de Havilland Gipsy Major or Gipsy IIIA is a four-cylinder, air-cooled, inverted inline engine used in a variety of light aircraft produced in the 1930s, including the famous Tiger Moth biplane. Many Gipsy Major engines still power vintag ...

piston engine. Registered ''G-ADDL'' the Snark first flew from Cambridge on 16 December 1934 flown by de Bruyne. Though stressed plywood skinned aircraft had been built before, it was claimed at the time that the Snark was the first to have been designed with full

stress Stress may refer to: Science and medicine * Stress (biology), an organism's response to a stressor such as an environmental condition * Stress (linguistics), relative emphasis or prominence given to a syllable in a word, or to a word in a phrase ...

calculations, including loads carried by both wing and fuselage skins. This led to a high loaded/unloaded weight ratio of 1.82; the similarly engined, almost exactly contemporary 3/4 seat Miles Falcon had achieved 1.62. In May 1936 the Snark was transferred to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough for research into the aerodynamics of thick wing monoplanes, with serial number ''L6103''. The aircraft was sold by the RAE on 8 June 1938Halley, 1993, p. 68 but was destroyed by German bombing at Croydon Airport in 1940.Dunnell ''Aeroplane Monthly'' January 2015, p. 102.

Specifications

References

Notes

Bibliography

* * * * {{Refend 1930s British experimental aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1934 Low-wing aircraft Single-engined tractor aircraft Conventional landing gear