Biographical Sketches

VINCENT JUSTUS BURNELLI

Born: November 22, 1895    In: Temple, TX
Died: June 22, 1964    In: Southampton, NY

After graduating from St Peters College (NJ), Vincent Justus Burnelli soloed a glider in 1914 to claim his spot in the sky. With friend John Carisi in 1915, he designed and built his first airplane at Maspeth NY. Next came a combat plane that he hoped would be used in WW1, which was not to be, but the NYC Police Department bought it for their new aerial police operation. In 1919 he designed what was likely the world’s first successful large commercial transport, the Lawson Airliner, but dissatisfaction with his own design -- he called it a "streetcar with wings" -- put him on a path to the future from which he would not stray.

The Lawson’s bulky boxlike fuselage stirred visions of a more streamlined shape that could also serve as an airfoil, and the first practical concept of a lifting body, where all major aeronautical components were housed within the airfoil, was born in his RB-1 of 1920. A design patent filed in January 1921 took nine years to be issued, but it was a harbinger of what could revolutionize commercial aviation.

Yet manufacturers were reluctant to change from what then was considered standard, despite appeals of better performance, economy, and safety -- it was much the same case as with John Northrop’s flying wings. While much support and encouragement came from prominent civil and military aviation experts, a lack of vital financial and political backing meant that Burnelli would travel his path pretty much alone.

In the ’20s, subsequent biplanes refined what Burnelli often referred to as his "flying wings," at the time a popular term for anything that differed from conventional airplanes, although his lifting bodies had normal wings, as well as tails, sometimes on large booms. His first monoplane, the CB-16, appeared in 1928, and it and subsequent Burnelli types had features in common -- engines close together ahead of the cabin, and an airfoil fuselage that produced 50 percent lift at cruising speed.

In various partnerships, he worked for and created a number of companies to produce his experimental and prototype aircraft. The last Burnelli, CBY-3 Loadmaster, was extensively tested but, again, failed to gain any buyer. He adapted it in 1955 to carry 20 passengers and 41 sled dogs along with their equipment to the North Pole, but the expedition was canceled. However, his Loadmaster went on to fly regularly in Canada and South America as an airliner, perpetuating the genius of Vincent Burnelli until its retirement to a museum in the mid-1960s.

Burnelli is credited with 92 U.S. and foreign patents; among them, besides the lifting body principle, a leading-edge design combined with high-lift flaps, end-plated wing-tips (now known as "winglets"), the first multi-engine aircraft with retractable landing gear, and the first American aircraft to use flat metal stressed-skin construction.

REFERENCES:
Morehouse Early Pioneers

Denotes an individual known to have soloed an aircraft prior to December 16, 1917, whether they were members of the "Early Birds of Aviation" Organization or not.