Goodyear Inflatoplane
Goodyear Inflatoplane
New thinking was welcome in the military aviation business, especially after World War II and into the Cold War. Goodyear had spent plenty of time making blimps and transports for the US Army. Now that those technologies were on the wane, and they wanted to build a rubber airplane, and in 1956, flew a prototype rubber plane. The body of the Inflatoplane was solid and as lightweight as they could make it. But the wings and much of the super structure were inflatable rubber, so the plane could be rolled up and stored rather well.
It flew on the 60 horsepower McCulloch engine and 12 examples were built. Ultimately a rubber plane has no protection against any gunfire and if that’s the case, it wasn’t worth the expense.
The Goodyear Inflatoplane, Stored
Source: Wikipedia
