Short-Gnosspelius Gull

The Gnosspelius Gull was a British experimental ultra-light monoplane of the 1920s, designed by Major O.T. Gnosspelius, head of research at Short Brothers, and built by Shorts at Rochester for the 1923 Lympne light aircraft trials. Tests with his aerodynamic pendulum suggested that a small step in the upper wing surface at its thickest point would cut drag, and the design was reworked around a 679 cc Blackburne Tomtit V-twin motorcycle engine driving two chain-driven pusher propellers. It was a single-seat high-wing monoplane with a circular spruce monocoque fuselage and a thin four-spar wing with the stepped RAF 19 section. Two were built. The first, G-EBGN, flew on 26 May 1923 with Short test pilot John Lankester Parker, and the second flew at Lympne as number 19 and crashed at Cramlington on 18 June 1926, killing the pilot.