Anyone ever heard of this obscure design?
PAYEN
PA 22
Roland Payen of France came up with the idea to mimic the aerodynamic properties of o paper airplanes! He realized that they were stable in flight and in his research and designs; the plane layouts he produced had some similar traits. In 1933, at the age 19, Payen built his Pa.100. This aircraft was looked upon with skepticism by his French peers due to its very radical concept. It had a delta-style main wing, canards, and a tail blended into the fuselage. In Germany his outside-the-box thinking would have received encouragement.
The Pa.100 did take short distance hops. Some French designers who found that the aerodynamic layout would lend itself to getting high speeds from low powered engines finally realized the potential of the design.
While the Pa.100 underwent testing, Payen designed the Pa.22, which was conceived to be powered by a jet. A turbine was not obtainable for the Pa.22 so Payen produced the aircraft using a conventional engine. The Pa.22 was completed prior to the invasion of France in 1940. The Germans captured the Pa.22 in 1941. After the Pa.22’s capture, it was tested under German control. Payen somehow convinced the Germans to return the Pa.22 to his design facility for alleged modifications needing to be done to the aircraft before its flight to Berlin
Though the Pa.22 was not a military design, Payen attempted to sell the French Air Force his Pa.112 design. This aircraft’s layout began in 1938 and was similar to the Pa. 22. It mounted twin 150 HP Samson engines turning contra-rotating, twin-blade, props controlled by an electrical gearbox. A full-scale mock-up of the Pa.112 was built and showed to the French Air Force but they had little interest.
Messerschmitt did pursue somewhat similar ventures in aircraft design with the 1944 P.1106 jet. A similar cockpit and tail layout used in Alexander M. Lippisch’s DM-1 glider.
Weapons for the Pa.112 were to have been one 7.5 mm machinegun on each wing and one 20 mm cannon firing through the prop hub. No performance estimates exist.
This plane offered nothing performance-wise over conventional designs.
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