Payen Arbalète
French homebuilt aircraft design
The Payen Arbalète (English: Crossbow) was a small, pusher configuration, experimental French tailless aircraft, designed by Nicolas Roland Payen, and first flown in 1965.
Design and development
Though there were significant changes during its development, the Arbalète's basic, unusual configuration remained unaltered. It was a low wing cantilever monoplane resembling a cropped double delta in plan, with a short fuselage ending at the pusher engine and propeller. The centre section of the wing was strongly swept and of very broad chord, extending from the engine to the cockpit. Swept fins were placed at the outer end of the centre section and beyond them the wings were much less strongly swept, with blunt tips. The Arbalète had a fixed tricycle undercarriage.
The first version of the Arbalète was the Pa.60 which made its first flight on 5 June 1965. It was powered by a 105 hp (78 kW) Hirth HM 504 air-cooled, four cylinder, inverted inline engine, which was totally enclosed within the flat sided fuselage with no side-scoops for cooling air, an arrangement which led to overheating. Its swept, straight edged fins were placed with their leading edges on the wing leading edges; they extended beyond the wing trailing edge via rounded tips to rudders with swept, curved trailing edges and trim tabs. The two side-by-side seats were enclosed by a long, wide two piece canopy.
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This entry incorporates text from “Payen Arbalète” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.