Stanley
  Nomad
 Photo: Robert Deering 11/13/2007
Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum
Dulles International Airport (IAD)
Chantilly, Virginia		  
Stanley Nomad

Robert M. Stanley completed the Nomad in June 1938 in San Diego, California, during a stint in the U. S. Navy. He wrote down general specifications for the sailplane in 1935, and continued to refine the design while serving aboard the USS Ranger. Stanley finished building the Nomad in the basement and yard of a house he shared with other Navy personnel.

With no previous experience flying sailplanes, Stanley first flew the Nomad at the 1938 National Soaring Contest at Elmira, New York. After he landed in a field at the end of a cross-country flight, a souvenir hunter stole the elevator control surfaces. Stanley replaced the conventional tail with one of the first V-tails seen on an aircraft.

Stanley returned to Elmira in 1939 and he flew the Nomad to a new American altitude record, 4,987 m (16,400 ft), that more than doubled the old record. The next day, July 4, Stanley broke the record again, climbing to 5,254 m (17,284 ft) inside a towering thundercloud. Stanley became president of the Soaring Society of America in 1940, but he did not design and build another sailplane. He worked for the Bell Aircraft Corporation as that firm's chief test pilot during the war, and he made the first flight in America's first jet aircraft, the Bell XP-59 (see NASM collection).

Dimensions:
Wingspan: 17.4 m (57 ft)
Length: 6.6. m (21 ft 7 in)
Height: 1.7 m (5 ft 6 in)
Weights: Empty, 164 kg (360 lb)
Gross, 250 kg (550 lb)

Source: Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum

Stanley Aviation

Robert M. Stanley (August 19, 1912 - July 16, 1977) was an American test pilot and engineer. He became the first American to fly a jet aircraft on October 2, 1942, as a civilian test pilot for Bell Aircraft. He flew the Bell XP-59A Airacomet, which was the United States' first turbojet aircraft. The flight took place at Muroc Dry Lake, California. The Airacomet is on display at the National Air & Space Museum in Washington, DC.

Other Achievements

  • Started the Stanley Aviation company in Buffalo, NY in 1948
  • Participated in the design of the DC-3 while working with Douglas Aircraft
  • Created a patent for a mechanically controlled reversible pitch propeller later copied and used by the German Luftwaffe
  • While an ensign in the Navy assigned to the carrier Lexington, he designed the Stanley Nomad, a high performance sailplane with an aluminum fuselage and a tapered wing. He also designed and fitted this aircraft with the first known "Vee" tail and flew it to an altitude record of 17,284 feet inside a large cumulus cloud during a soaring contest in Elmira, NY, in 1939. This glider also set a cross-country record by flying from Elmira, NY, to Congressional Country Club in suburban Washington, DC. The 'Nomad'is now in the collection of the National Air & Space Museum and displayed at the Udvar-Hazy NASM facility near Dulles Airport in Chantilly, VA.
  • Proposed the development of the Project Kingfisher guided missile
  • Was engineering vice president at Bell Aircraft during the design of the world's first supersonic aircraft, the Bell X-1
  • He moved Stanley Aviation to Stapleton Airport in Denver, CO, where he patented and built ejection seats for jet fighter and bomber aircraft. He developed 'escape pod' style ejection seats for safe ejection from disabled aircraft flying at supersonic speeds. These were used in the Convair B-58 'Hustler' bomber and the North American RS-70 prototype supersonic bombers, among other designs.
  • First developed the idea of launching an aircraft from another aircraft at high altitude which was used for the launch of the Bell X-1 and X-2 experimental research aircraft from the bomb bay of a Boeing B-50 bomber.

Stanley was tragically lost July 16, 1977, flying with two of his sons, along with the wife of one son and fiance of the other, and lifelong friend, Darwin Phillip Lowry of Overland Park, Kansas, in the crash of the Stanley company's Aero Commander. The plane encountered a severe wind shear on approach to the Ft Lauderdale, FL, International Airport, as the family was returning from a vacation trip to the Caribbean and broke up in flight.

Source: Wikipedia