The Kayaba Ku-3 was a glider built in Japan in 1941 to investigate the possibilities of tailless aircraft. Building on the success of the
Ku-2 design of the previous year, the Ku-3 was a substantially larger aircraft with several novel features. The small vertical fins of the Ku-2 were abandoned, leaving the Ku-3 with no vertical control surfaces. The
crescent wing
The crescent wing is a fixed-wing aircraft configuration in which a swept wing has a greater sweep angle on the inboard section than the outboard, giving the wing a crescent shape.
The planform attempts to reduce several unpleasant side-effects o ...
had three pairs of
control surfaces on the
trailing edge
The trailing edge of an aerodynamic surface such as a wing is its rear edge, where the airflow separated by the leading edge meets.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third edition'', page 521. Aviation Supplies & Academics, 1997. ...
. The outer, less-swept wing sections had a greater dihedral than the inner sections.
The prototype crashed after 67 flights, when the test pilot was unable to recover from a spin.
References
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日本飞翼的短暂研究
{{Japanese Army Glider Designation System
Kayaba aircraft
1940s military gliders
Tailless aircraft
1940s Japanese experimental aircraft
Aircraft first flown in 1941