**In the summer of 1937 David R. Davis met with Reuben H. Fleet, president of Consolidated Aircraft. Davis was a freelance aeronautical engineer who was trying to find development funds for his wing design, the "Fluid Foil." Davis had designed the wing "in reverse", starting with a basic low-drag teardrop shape and then modifying it as required to provide lift. In comparison to common designs, Davis's design was relatively "thick", but had a short chord and a high aspect ratio. Davis claimed the new wing would offer much lower drag than designs then in use, and would offer considerable lift even at a small angle of attack. Additionally the thickness of the wing would allow for excellent fuel storage, or even embedded engines (an idea then in vogue).
Davis had approached Consolidated with the aim of getting them to license the Fluid Foil for use on their large flying boat designs. The ability to generate lift at low angles of attack made it particularly interesting for use in flying boats as it would reduce the need to pull up the nose for takeoff and landing, which was often limited in flying boats due to the way they floated on the water.
Fleet was not particularly impressed, an opinion also held by Consolidated's chief engineer, Isaac M. Laddon. Davis failed to convince them to try out his new design.** A few days later, however, Davis had another meeting, this time with Glenn L. Martin and his chief designer, Peyton Magruder. Martin was also a major builder of large flying boats and Magruder saw potential in the Fluid Foil that Laddon had missed. An arrangement was eventually arrived at, and the licensed Davis Wing (as it was renamed) was later seen on Martin’s PBM Mariner and P5M Marlin flying boats. But before either of these flew, the Davis Wing was applied to a special project contracted by the NACA’s Langley Research Center for a long-range, high-altitude research aircraft.
Martin gave Davis full credit for the new research aircraft, designating it the Martin-Davis Model 171. Using a modified fuselage remaining from the Model 166 production line, the new research plane had a new crew pressurized crew compartment for the crew of four (pilot, copilot, and two test engineers. The most striking feature was the huge Davis wing, which mounted four turbocharged Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engines, provided 1200 horsepower each.
The first MD-171 first flew in December, 1939, and by mid-1940 was reaching altitudes above 48,000 feet. One other example of the MD-171 was delivered to Langley in May, 1940. Research and test flying continued until the MD-171s was finally retired in 1944, having made vital contributions to development of the B-29, B-32, and other high altitude aircraft.
More photos will follow after I return from my mini-vacation (Saturday or Sunday).
**the material between the **s was copied from Wikipedia (so it is real world "true" presumably)
Chuck