Those years following World War II were boom years for civil aviation in the United States in general, a time of unprecedented growth for both airlines and aircraft manufacturers. In an effort to capitalize on the boom, Canadian Car and Foundry promoted Burnelli’s CBY design in the late 1940s under the name “Loadmaster.” However, the plane, like Burnelli’s designs of the 1920s and 1930s, never fully shared in the industry’s general prosperity.

Despite their operational advantages, Burnelli’s post-World War II designs faced many problems gaining industry acceptance. Like its predecessors, the Burnelli transport was again hampered by its unconventional design and unusual appearance. More important, however, the designs faced fierce competition. The end of the war left available large numbers of surplus military aircraft. Such planes had proven service records and were inexpensive. Those were difficult circumstances for even the most promising experimental aircraft design to overcome.

But Vincent Burnelli did not abandon his designs. Until his death in Southampton, N.Y., in 1964 at the age of 69, Burnelli remained tireless in his determination to promote his airfoil-shaped-fuselage transport plane. In 1955, he adapted his Burnelli Loadmaster transport to carry an expedition of 20 passengers and 41 sled dogs, along with their equipment, to the North Pole, but the enterprise was canceled. The Loadmaster also flew regularly as a commercial airliner in South America and languished abandoned for some time at Baltimore’s airport in Maryland until it was finally retired to the New England Air Museum in Windsor Locks, Conn., in the late 1960s.

Few figures in the history of American aviation have sparked more controversy than Burnelli did during his lifetime, and the disagreement continues only slightly abated today. Supporters claim that only a shortsighted aviation industry, with a vested interest in preserving conventional designs, kept Burnelli’s ideas from revolutionizing aircraft design. Others claim the advantages of the Burnelli design were overstated.

The argument remains unresolved and is not confined entirely to the past. The disagreement is sparked anew when designs of modern aircraft, and even spacecraft, incorporate Burnelli’s design concepts. Some have suggested that today’s airliners would be safer if they incorporated Burnelli’s lifting-fuselage design. Some even suggest that the “lifting body” characteristic that keeps the U.S. space shuttle flying after re-entry is a direct application of Burnelli’s lifting-fuselage design.

Aviation magazine, in a 1935 issue, paid high tribute to the design when it said “few people have stuck to an idea that seemed to them inherently good as has Vincent Burnelli with his airfoil fuselage.” Three more decades of effort by the designers followed that 1930s tribute. But Burnelli’s contribution to American aviation was more than just determination, it was genius as well. Both qualities made Vincent Burnelli a true aviation pioneer.

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John Pelzer of Dover, Del., writes frequently about history when he is not busy teaching the same subject at Wesley College. For additional reading, see the Crown book History of Aviation; and “Burnelli’s Lifting Fuselages” in Aeroplane Monthly, March 1980.

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