Era

Laister LP-15 Nugget

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Laister-Kauffman Aircraft Corp was later succeeded by Laister Sailplanes Inc and in 1970 Jack Laister and his son Bill, an aerodynamicist, started design work on the LP-15 Nugget Standard Class single-seater of metal construction.

It is a cantilever shoulder-wing monoplane with a T-tail and long-span flaps which are raised slightly for high speed flight, are lowered 8° for soaring in thermals and can be extended to 85° for use as air brakes. Up to 185lb of water ballast can be carried on the center of gravity. The wings and top-hinged plain ailerons are of Chem-Weld bonded aluminium alloy construction, while the semi-monocoque fuselage has the forward portion of moulded glassfibre and the rear part of bonded aluminium alloy construction which incorporates the swept fin. Landing gear consists of a retractable monowheel and the pilot sits in a semi-reclining seat under a two-piece canopy with a removable section and a sliding ventilation panel.

They decided to wait for the recommendations of the CIVV conference on Standard Class requirements before starting construction of the prototype in February1971, and this first flew in June that year, its maiden flight also being a contest flight; the Nugget was certificated in mid-1975.

The ship was available only as a factory-built product and 15 were built. One Nuget belongs to the National Soaring Museum.

Wingspan: 15.0 m / 49 ft 2.5 in.
Wing area: 10.13 sq.m / 109 sq.ft
Airfoil: Wortmann FX 67170/150
Wing aspect ratio: 22.2
Length: 6.1 m / 21 ft
Height: 1.27 m / 4 ft 2 in
Gross Weight: 408 kg / 900 lb
Empty Weight: 193 kg / 425 lb
Wing loading: 40.27 kg/sq.m / 8.26 lb/sq ft
Payload: 215kg / 475lb
Water Ballast: 84 kg / 185 lb
Max airspeed: 135 kts 126 kt / 233 km/h
Rough air speed: 126 kt / 233 km/h
Stall: 34 kt / 63 km/h
Lift to drag: 37 at 93 kph / 50 kts / 58 mph
Sink: 0.66 m/s / 2.16 fps / 1.29 kt at 43 kts
Seats: 1

Laister / Laister-Kauffmann

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One of the pioneer US sailplane designers, John W. (or Jack) Laister built his first design, a gull-winged acrobatic sailplane in 1938 and later formed, with John R. Kauffman, the Laister-Kauffman Aircraft Corp. This produced, among other types, the TG-4A training glider version of the LK-10 for the USAAF and was one of the 16 firms taking part in the Waco CG-4A Hadrian programme, building 310 out of the nearly 14,000 CG-4As completed. Laister-Kauffman also produced one of the biggest troop-carrying gliders of the war, the 42-seat XCG-10A, which had a span of 105ft and could carry a 155mm howitzer or a 2½ ton truck.

Laisnez & Wilfart Auto-Volant

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L’Auto-Volant, was a helicopter invented and built by Jean-Baptiste Laisnez and Charles Wilfart in France during 1905–06. Two rotors consisting of three arms, each of which held small moveable blades closed to form a flat surface on the downward stroke. The machine was featured in the February 1905 issue of the Parisian publication “Cosmos”. It was also the subject of the 1905 French patent #357,036.

Laird, Charles L.

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Charles L Laird, Wichita KS.
Brother of Matty Laird.
Charles Laird of Wichita, Kansas, built the Whippoorwill cabin biplane and changed company name in 1927 to avoid confusion with his brother “Mattie” of E. M. Laird Airplane Company.

1930: Aircraft Engineering, Chicago IL.

Charlie Laird established Aircraft Engineering (unrelated to the parent company for ACE biplane) in Chicago after he left Wichita in 1930, also had a hand in the Greer College Bryan-Laird B-1B N516K.

Laird-Turner LTR 14 Pesco / (Lawrence) Brown Pesco Special

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The Laird-Turner LTR 14 Pesco (or (Lawrence) Brown Aircraft Co Special / Pesco Special) was designed by Howard Barlow and Roscoe Turner, and built by the (Lawrence) Brown Aircraft Co of Montebello CA., USA, in 1937. It was sometimes known as the Turner-Laird because of its Laird-built wings, originally 22’0″.

Registered NR263Y Ring-Free Meteor, it was renamed by Turner in 1938 for sponsor Pesco Pump Co, and won the 1938 and 1939 Thompson Trophies.

Engine: P&W Twin Wasp, 1830 hp
Wingspan: 25’0″
Length: 23’0″
Max speed: 330 mph
Stall: 87 mph
Seats: 1

Laird LC-DW-500 Super Solution

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In the Super Solution, Doolittle had won the 1931 Bendix and gone on to set a transcontinental speed record of 2,882 miles in 11 hours, 16 minutes, and 10 seconds, while averaging 217 mph. But in the seventh lap of the Thompson, the plane’s 525-hp Pratt & Whitney Wasp Junior radial engine blew a piston, forcing Doolittle to drop out.

Less than two weeks remained before Labor Day weekend and the 1932 National Air Races at Cleveland, Ohio. The main events—the Burbank-to-Cleveland Bendix Trophy endurance race and the closed-course, 100-mile Thompson Trophy dash—demanded two very different types of aircraft, but Doolittle believed he had a plane capable of winning both.
The pace of innovation meant that not even the Super Solution could age a year without the threat of obsolescence. Figuring the decreased drag would more than offset the increased weight, Doolittle replaced its fixed, spatted wheels with a retractable landing gear. He was about to regret the decision. As he attempted to winch down the hand-cranked gear, which had functioned according to plan in ground tests, the pressure of the slipstream prevented the wheels from deploying.

“I spent two hours trying to jar the gear loose…nothing worked,” recalled Doolittle. Finally he resigned himself to bellying in the LC-DW-500. He emerged unhurt, but with the plane’s prop blades bent and fuselage crumpled, the Super Solution would never make the Nationals.