Aviation History - July 2018

6 AH JULY 2018

briefing

double vision John Klatt

Airshows’ “Yak-110,” created

by joining two Yakovlev

Yak-55s, makes a test flight

(above). Builder Dell Coller’s

team has since added a

CJ610 turbojet, slung under

the center section (inset).

A

viation history is lit-

tered with examples

of siamesed, twin-

fuselage airplanes,

from the 1915 Black-

burn TB double-

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to today’s White Knight Two

and Strato launcher space-

craft carriers. In the early

years, it was an easy way to

double horsepower without

designing an all-new twin.

Later it became a means

of conveniently increasing

crew, fuel or cargo capacity.

The most successful of them

was the North American

F-82 Twin Mustang, but

the World War II Heinkel

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two-fuselage kludge in-

tended to tow the bloated

Messerschmitt Me-

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its day in the sun as well.

An audacious new mirror-

image mutant recently joined

their ranks when a free-think-

ing team of airshow pilots

mated two Yakovlev Yak-

radial-engine, single-seat

aerobatic aircraft to create

Twin Yak

Aerobat