getty

Dunne, Biplane

from National Library of Ireland on The Commons

• 24 older comments, and then…
• Niall McAuley said:

  The raked wings are very unusual, and no stagger. Hmm. Aha! John William Dunne! Dunne worked initially on early military aircraft, concentrating on tailless swept wing designs to achieve the first certified inherently stable aircraft. He later developed a new approach to dry fly fishing before turning to philosophy, where he achieved some pre-eminence and literary influence through his theory on the nature of time and consciousness, which he called "Serialism".

• Niall McAuley said:

  An even more unusual feature is that this plane had no tail - it was a flying wing design.

• Nigel Leyland said:

  It's a Dunne tailless biplane, as designed by J.W. Dunne. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_William_Dunne The powered planes were driven by a pair of pusher propellers, which I can't see here, which at first makes me think it's a D1 or D3, which were gliders, but I'm wondering if it might be the D4, D5 or D8, rolled out before completion, or maybe the propellers are hidden behind the wing and just don't show well at this resolution? Anyway, if it's the man himself, that puts it between the building of the D1 in 1907 and 1914, when he more or less stopped work on tailless planes.

• Niall McAuley said:

  Nigel Leyland I don't think we could miss the engines and propellors if they were present, see this diagram. I think this is a D5 before the engines are fitted.

• Niall McAuley said:

  The wikipedia article has a photo labelled "John William Dunne in his D.5 biplane at Eastchurch, 14 June 1910." The plane has propellors, but Dunne is wearing a dark jacket and flat cap like the gent at right here. The photo is tagged as by "Unknown - probably a Life magazine photographer "