Gilbert Davis Flying wing

While poking around Caldwell (EUL) airport in Idaho I spotted an aircraft
that appears to be a part of the Gilbert Davis flying wing. I found the
following link:
http://www.twitt.org/DavisWing.html

Just wondering if any of the posters here knew anything about it.

Comments appreciated.
Gary

Gary,

Davis use to have a hangar at the Nampa, ID airport. I saw his small single
seat flying wing and the project described on the twitt.org website in the
last 1980s or early '90s.

If my memory serves me correctly, it was the belt reduction system failure
that forced him to land in the Snake River once and led to his final
accident near the old Floating Feather airport which left him paralyzed.

His physical condition prevented him from further work on the project. The
little make-shift Quonset hut he used as a hangar wasn't large enough for
anything but his wing, or maybe an ultra light. The hangar was finally
demolished to make room for a row of new hangars.

I have always wondered what happened to the contents.

Wayne
HP-14 N990 "6F"
http://www.soaridaho.com/photogallery/Mackay_2006



"keepitrunning" wrote in message
. ..
While poking around Caldwell (EUL) airport in Idaho I spotted an aircraft
that appears to be a part of the Gilbert Davis flying wing. I found the
following link:
http://www.twitt.org/DavisWing.html

Just wondering if any of the posters here knew anything about it.

Comments appreciated.
Gary

Sorry to say all was lost of the Davis wing and his later 2 and 5 seat models. I spent many hours trying to track down any thing as I would love to produce one of the original single seat models. What I found was:

Gil Davis has passed away from cancer after a very hard divorce. However before this the project was lost do to a fire that totally destroyed the original wing and the new aircraft he was producing. Also lost in the fire were all the records, plans, and even simple scetches of all the designs.

Unfortunatly the only thing left of the flying wing is a few websites with one or two pictures. Not even enough for me to extrapulate the basic design.

If any one does have better pictures, any information or even some good guesses please come forward, I haven't lost hope on this design.

Mike

If my memory serves me correctly, it was the belt reduction system failure
that forced him to land in the Snake River once and led to his final
accident near the old Floating Feather airport which left him paralyzed.

Would you mind elaborating? How did the prior water landing contribue to the later accident?

What were the flying characteristics of the Davis Wing?

Originally Posted by Chris Wells

Would you mind elaborating? How did the prior water landing contribue to the later accident?

What were the flying characteristics of the Davis Wing?

Don't know if anyone will ever look at this, considering how old these posts are, but thought I'd clear a few things for anyone who might.

As far as I know the original plane is in Caldwell. It was damaged in a 1988 crash and was later donated to eventually be put on permanent display, but was never repaired. This was primarily because Gilbert was never able to oversee the reconstruction and he was the only person with intimate knowledge of the plane.

The crash was the result of a faulty rubber belt which powered the single prop. The belt was made from a batch of rubber that never should have passed quality control and it basically disintegrated after 2 hours of use, causing a sudden and complete loss of power. Because he was flying low to the ground and near stall speed when it happened, there was no time to react and the plane was blown into the side a hill near the town of Star, ID. The resulting crash broke Gilbert's lower spine and caused permanent paralysis from the waist down as well as additional ongoing health problems.

The previous landing in the Snake River, if I remember correctly, was due to a problem with a new muffler that had just been fitted, which he was testing for use with the plane. It was a controlled crash landing immediately after take off that resulted in very little physical damage to the plane, no injuries, and was completely unrelated to the later crash.

After the later crash which resulted in Gilbert's paralysis, the whole project was indefinitely put on hold. Due to the injuries sustained he was not able to continue to pursue it as a primarily one-man project and there was no one else to step in and take over. At the time he had a 2 man version of the plane about 50% finished. The single-spot wing was only built as a proof of concept design, and the two man model was the version that was supposed to go into production. His physical limitations as well as a drawn-out lawsuit with Gates Rubber, who had produced the faulty belt, ultimately resulted in the demise of the project.

There never was fire that destroyed anything. Eventually it became too costly to maintain the lease on the two buildings in Nampa (there was a shop/hangar in addition to the quonset hut that he originally worked out of), and the airport had plans for development that involved using the ground. The second, partially completed plane, was ultimately cut into pieces and hauled to the landfill after sitting untouched in his building at the Nampa Airport for several years.

Gilbert died in 2007. He did not have cancer, but passed away from complications resulting from health problems stemming from the 1988 crash.

If anyone does see this post and has any additional questions or comments, feel free to PM me and I'll answer them if I can.