The Whatsit was a

swept-wing A swept wing is a wing that angles either backward or occasionally forward from its root rather than in a straight sideways direction. Swept wings have been flown since the pioneer days of aviation. Wing sweep at high speeds was first investigat ...

, tail-less airplane designed by

Waldo Waterman image:Waldo Waterman.jpg, 200px, Waldo Waterman in 1920 Waldo Dean Waterman (June 16, 1894 – December 8, 1976) was an inventor and aviation pioneer from San Diego, California, San Diego, California. He developed a series of tailless swept-wing ai ...

between 1911 (when he first got the idea) and 1932 (when the prototype was finally in testing phase). Waterman completed the prototype with friend and fellow engineer,

Max B. Harlow Max B. Harlow (1903 –1967) was an American aircraft engineer, educator, and producer. Early life Harlow was born in South Dakota in 1903. Harlow attended Stanford University, becoming an early aircraft engineering graduate. His first pos ...

. It was intended to be an aircraft which could be landed on the street, and owned by regular people."Tailless Flivver Plane Has Pusher Propeller"
''Popular Science'', May 1934, rare photos in article Initial designs of the plane were unstable, and it was shelved after some modification, until 1934, when its creator noticed that it met the design specifications of a government request for an inexpensive "

Model-T The Ford Model T is an automobile that was produced by Ford Motor Company from October 1, 1908, to May 26, 1927. It is generally regarded as the first affordable automobile, which made car travel available to middle-class Americans. The relati ...

of the air" for the common man. The plane was then rebuilt and named the Arrowplane, which became the prototype for the production-line Arrowbile. The original Whatsit was donated by Waterman himself in 1950 to the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum.

References

1930s United States civil utility aircraft {{aero-1930s-stub