Sud-Ouest Triton – Φώτο & Βίντεο

Teh Σουντ-Ούεστ SO.6000 Τρίτωνας ήταν το πρώτο γαλλικό αεριωθούμενο αεροσκάφος που κατασκευάστηκε και ολοκληρώθηκε κατά τη διάρκεια της δεκαετίας του 1940 από την SNCASO. Ο σχεδιασμός του SO.6000 ξεκίνησε το 1943, ως παράνομο έργο λόγω της γερμανικής κατοχής, υπό τον μηχανικό Lucien Servanty. Λίγο μετά τον πόλεμο, η γαλλική κυβέρνηση απαίτησε να κατασκευαστούν πέντε πρωτότυπα.

Πηγή: Σουντ-Ουέστ Τρίτων στη Βικιπαίδεια

Teh Σουντ-Ουέστ Τρίτων was a French experimental aircraft designed and built in the late 1940s to test the concept of a tailless delta wing. The Triton had a triangular wing with a sweep angle of 60 degrees and a small vertical fin at the rear. The pilot sat in a pressurized cockpit in the nose, and the powerplant was a single turbojet engine mounted in the fuselage. The Triton made its first flight on 11 March 1950, piloted by Jacques Guignard.
The aircraft demonstrated good stability and handling qualities, but suffered from low speed performance and high landing speed. The Triton was modified several times to improve its aerodynamics and flight envelope, but it never reached its design speed of Mach 0.9. The Triton program was cancelled in 1953, after 93 flights and about 40 hours of flight time. The Triton was one of the first aircraft to explore the potential of the delta wing configuration, which would later be adopted by many supersonic fighters and bombers.