Interesting concepts. Must have not been practical enough to put into production though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8y5suPs ... re=channel

Interesting. I guess you can make anything fly if you give it enough thrust...

For wings, the greater the aspect ratio, the lower the induced drag, but stiffness and strength become difficult to maintain at super high aspect ratios and roll rate goes down pretty quickly, especially with fuel in the wings. That machine has a very low aspect ratio, it would probably be extremely light beacause the wing structure necessary would be very minimal, but excessive drag probably eliminated any possibility of competing with other ships of the day that accepted the physical reality of aspect ratio influence as a design consideration.