aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot ...

, a multiplane is a

fixed-wing aircraft A fixed-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air Aircraft, flying machine, such as an airplane, which is capable of flight using wings that generate Lift (force), lift caused by the aircraft's forward airspeed and the wing configuration, shape of ...

-configuration featuring multiple wing planes. The wing planes may be stacked one above another, or one behind another, or both in combination. Types having a small number of planes have specific names and are not usually described as multiplanes: *

Biplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While ...

- two wings stacked one above the other *

Triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement may ...

- three wings stacked one above another *

Tandem wing QAC Quickie Q2 A tandem wing is a wing configuration in which a flying craft or animal has two or more sets of wings set one behind another. All the wings contribute to lift. The tandem wing is distinct from the biplane in which the wings are s ...

- two main planes, one behind the other. The tandem triple or tandem triplet configuration has three lifting surfaces one behind another. While triplane, quadruplane and tandem designs are relatively uncommon, aircraft with more than four sets of wings rarely occur - none have proven successful.

Quadruplanes

The quadruplane configuration takes the

triplane A triplane is a fixed-wing aircraft equipped with three vertically stacked wing planes. Tailplanes and canard foreplanes are not normally included in this count, although they occasionally are. Design principles The triplane arrangement may ...

approach a step further, using efficient wings of high aspect ratio and stacking them to allow a compact and light weight design. During the pioneer years of aviation and World War I, a few designers sought these potential benefits for a variety of reasons, mostly with little success. From ca. 1909 the American inventor

Matthew Bacon Sellers II Matthew Bacon Sellers II (March 29, 1869 – April 5, 1932) was a United States inventor and scientist known for his work in the field of aviation. Biography He was born on March 29, 1869, in Baltimore, Maryland to Matthew Bacon Sellers I. ...

made a series of flights in the

Sellers 1909 Quadruplane Sellers may refer to * Seller, someone who sells * Sellers, Missouri, an unincorporated community * Sellers, South Carolina, a small US town * USS ''Sellers'' (DDG-11), a US Navy destroyer * Sellers (surname), people with the surname ''Sellers'' ...

, progressively fitted with powerplants of decreasing power, in order to investigate low-powered flight. He eventually achieved flight on only 5 to 6 hp at a speed of 20 mph.

Pemberton-Billing Noel Pemberton Billing (31 January 1881 – 11 November 1948), sometimes known as Noel Pemberton-Billing, was a British aviator, inventor, publisher and Member of Parliament for Hertford. He founded the firm that became Supermarine and promoted ...

Ltd. made two prototype

Zeppelin A Zeppelin is a type of rigid airship named after the German inventor Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin () who pioneered rigid airship development at the beginning of the 20th century. Zeppelin's notions were first formulated in 1874Eckener 1938, ...

killers, the

Pemberton-Billing P.B.29E Noel Pemberton Billing (31 January 1881 – 11 November 1948), sometimes known as Noel Pemberton-Billing, was a British aviator, inventor, publisher and Member of Parliament for Hertford. He founded the firm that became Supermarine and promoted ...

and Pemberton-Billing P.B.31E, respectively in 1915 and 1917. They were comparatively large, twin-engined fighters. After the company changed its name to

Supermarine Supermarine was a British aircraft manufacturer that is most famous for producing the Spitfire fighter plane during World War II as well as a range of seaplanes and flying boats, and a series of jet-powered fighter aircraft after World War II. ...

, the P.B.31E became known as the

Supermarine Nighthawk The Supermarine P.B.31E Nighthawk was a British aircraft of the First World War and the first project of the Pemberton-Billing operation after it became Supermarine Aviation Works Ltd. It was an anti-Zeppelin night fighter operated by a crew of ...

. Following test flights with the prototype Armstrong Whitworth F.K.9 in 1916, a small number of Armstrong Whitworth F.K.10 quadruplane reconnaissance fighters were produced, but none saw combat action. The private-venture

Wight Quadruplane The Wight Quadruplane, also referred to as the Wight Type 4, was a British single seat quadruplane fighter aircraft built by J Samuel White & Company Limited (Wight Aircraft) during World War I. Testing revealed design deficiencies and after ...

scout fighter was flown in 1917. The

Euler Vierdecker Leonhard Euler ( , ; 15 April 170718 September 1783) was a Swiss mathematician, physicist, astronomer, geographer, logician and engineer who founded the studies of graph theory and topology and made pioneering and influential discoveries in ma ...

of 1917 unusually featured a standard triplane arrangement of fixed wings with a fourth uppermost wing comprising left and right hand articulated surfaces which acted as full-span ailerons. Two examples were built, with different engines. Also in 1917, Friedrichshafen created the even more unusual Friedrichshafen FF54 scout fighter, which featured narrow-chord second and third wings, with struts connecting only the upper pair and lower pair of planes. The prototype proved unacceptable in the air and was later modified as an equally unsuccessful triplane, again with a short-chord intermediate plane. The

Naglo D.II The Naglo D.II was a German single seat quadruplane fighter, flown late in World War I. It took part in one of the fighter competitions but did not reach production. Design and development The D.II was the only fighter built by Naglo but it wa ...

quadruplane fighter of 1918 featured a standard triplane arrangement with a smaller fourth wing attached below the main assembly, somewhat analogous to a

sesquiplane A biplane is a fixed-wing aircraft with two main wings stacked one above the other. The first powered, controlled aeroplane to fly, the Wright Flyer, used a biplane wing arrangement, as did many aircraft in the early years of aviation. While a ...

. It participated in Germany's second D-type contest in 1918, and was praised for its construction and workmanship. In 1922 Besson constructed the H-5, a prototype quadruplane flying boat transport. It was unusual in having two braced biplane wing stacks deeply staggered and vertically offset such that the four wing planes were stacked in an overall zig-zag arrangement.
http://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1923/1923%20-%200090.html ''Flight'' 15 February 1923, Pages 89-90] The only example was damaged and development was abandoned.

More than four planes

Any fixed-wing aircraft with more than four wing planes may be referred to as a multiplane. Planes may be stacked vertically as with a biplane, or placed one in front of another as with a tandem wing. Both principles may be combined.

Stacked multiplanes

In the 1890s

Hiram Maxim Sir Hiram Stevens Maxim (5 February 1840 – 24 November 1916) was an American- British inventor best known as the creator of the first automatic machine gun, the Maxim gun. Maxim held patents on numerous mechanical devices such as hair-cur ...

constructed a steam-powered flying machine which he ran on rails as a test rig. It began as a biplane and later more lifting and control surfaces were added to create a bizarre multiplane. On one occasion the lift force was so great that the rail was damaged. Maxim did not allow the rig to take off because it had no effective controls. Horatio Phillips built a series of multiplane types from 1904. His Phillips Multiplane I had 20 stacked wings in an otherwise fairly conventional layout. It proved too unstable for sustained flight. By 1907 his third model was able to fly 500 ft, achieving the first successful powered flight in Great Britain. However the disappointing performance compared to more conventional contemporary types caused Phillips to abandon his ideas. In 1908 Roshon in America and D'Equevilly in France produced typical multiplane designs. The AEA Cygnet II, designed by

Alexander Graham Bell Alexander Graham Bell (, born Alexander Bell; March 3, 1847 – August 2, 1922) was a Scottish-born inventor, scientist and engineer who is credited with patenting the first practical telephone. He also co-founded the American Telephone and T ...

and constructed by the Aerial Experimental Association in America, featured a cellular multiplane formed by hundreds of tetrahedral shapes. Neither of these was capable of flight. One of the most infamous multiplanes was the 1923 Gerhardt Cycleplane, a

human-powered aircraft A human-powered aircraft (HPA) is an aircraft belonging to the class of vehicles known as human-powered transport. Human-powered aircraft have been successfully flown over considerable distances. However, they are still primarily constructed ...

with seven sets of wings which made a single short hop under human power alone. Its flimsy construction and subsequent collapse was filmed, and this is often used as

stock footage Stock footage, and similarly, archive footage, library pictures, and file footage is film or video footage that can be used again in other films. Stock footage is beneficial to filmmakers as it saves shooting new material. A single piece of stoc ...

mocking early impractical aircraft designs.

Tandem multiplanes

The American Williams 1908 Multiplane featured four planes in tandem while the

Zerbe Sextuplane The Zerbe Sextuplane was an unconventional early aircraft designed by James Slough Zerbe around 1908. The aircraft mounted six wings, heavily staggered, above a framework on which the pilot sat; propulsion was provided by a single propeller moun ...

of 1908 had six. The same year, in Switzerland the

Dufaux 1908 Tandem Triplane Dufaux may refer to: People *Dufaux (surname) Other uses *Dufaux automobile, Swiss race car manufacturer, 1904 - 1907. *Dufaux, the Japanese name of Dufort, a character in Zatch Bell! *Dufaux triplane (Dufaux 3), an experimental aircraft construc ...

provided the country's first native design in the form of a tandem pair of stacked triplane wings with a smaller biplane horizontal stabiliser.

Stacks in tandem

Anthony Fokker Anton Herman Gerard "Anthony" Fokker (6 April 1890 – 23 December 1939) was a Dutch aviation pioneer, aviation entrepreneur, aircraft designer, and aircraft manufacturer. He produced fighter aircraft in Germany during the First World War suc ...

designed his bizarre Fokker V.8 about the same time as his famous

Fokker Dr.I The Fokker Dr.I (''Dreidecker'', "triplane" in German), often known simply as the Fokker Triplane, was a World War I fighter aircraft built by Fokker-Flugzeugwerke. The Dr.I saw widespread service in the spring of 1918. It became famous as the ...

triplane. It featured a tandem arrangement of five wing planes, grouped as a stacked triplane fore wing and a biplane rear wing. Unlike its successful cousin, it barely flew and was soon abandoned. As late as 1921, the Italian

Gianni Caproni Giovanni Battista Caproni, 1st Count of Taliedo (July 3, 1886 – October 27, 1957), known as "Gianni" Caproni, was an Italian aeronautical engineer, civil engineer, electrical engineer, and aircraft designer who founded the Caproni aircraft-man ...

mated three stacks of triplane wings from his

Caproni Ca.4 The Caproni Ca.4 was an Italian heavy bomber of the World War I era. Development After designing the successful Ca.3, Gianni Caproni of the Caproni works designed a much bigger aircraft. It shared the unusual layout of the Caproni Ca.3, being ...

series to a single fuselage in tandem triple arrangement, to create the nine-winged

Caproni Ca.60 Noviplano The Caproni Ca.60 Transaereo, often referred to as the Noviplano (nine-wing) or Capronissimo, was the prototype of a large nine-wing flying boat intended to become a 100-passenger transatlantic airliner. It featured eight engines and three sets o ...

prototype long-range airliner. It proved unstable and crashed on its first flight.

List of multiplane aircraft

This list includes types having four or more wing planes. , - , Maxim Flying machine , , UK , , 2 to 7 planes , , Experimental , , 1890s , , Test rig , , 0 , , Planes mostly stacked. Various configurations investigated. Held down on rails, it lifted but was never allowed to fly free. , - , Phillips test rig , , UK , , 41 planes , , Experimental , , 1893 , , Test rig , , 0 , , Stacked planes. Tethered to rails, lifted 3 ft. , - , Phillips Multiplane I , , UK , , 20 planes , , Experimental , , 1904 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Stacked planes. Hops but too unstable for sustained flight. , - , Phillips Multiplane II , , UK , , 200 planes , , Experimental , , 1907 , , Prototype , , 1 , , 4 tandem stacks of 50 planes each. First successful powered flight in Great Britain. , - , Williams 1908 Multiplane , , US , , 4 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Tandem planes.Jane (1913), page 19b. , - ,

, , US , , 6 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Tandem planes. , - ,

Dufaux triplane The so-called Dufaux triplane was an unnamed experimental aircraft built in Switzerland in 1908. It was constructed by the brothers Armand and Henri Dufaux who had previously experimented with a model helicopter. This new aircraft incorporated a ...

, , Switzerland , , 8 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Tandem pair of stacked triplane wings with a smaller biplane horizontal stabiliser. First Swiss aircraft. Failed to fly. , - , Roshon multiplane , , US , , 26 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Tandem stacks of 13. Failed to fly.Angelucci & Matricardi (1977). , - , D'Equevilly multiplane , , France , , 7 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Failed to fly. , - , AEA Cygnet II , , US , , 16 planes , , Experimental , , 1908 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Planes of repeat tetrahedral form, stacked. Cellular multiplane designed by

. Failed to fly. , - ,

, , US , , 4 planes , , Experimental , , 1909 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Investigation of low-powered flight. , - , Pemberton-Billing P.B.29E , , UK , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1915 , , Prototype , , , , Zeppelin killer.Green & Swanborough (1994). , - , Armstrong Whitworth F.K.9 , , UK , , 4 planes , , Reconnaissance fighter , , 1916 , , Prototype , , , , , - , Armstrong Whitworth F.K.10 , , UK , , 4 planes , , Reconnaissance fighter , , 1917 , , Production , , , , , - , Pemberton-Billing P.B.31E , , UK , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , , , Zeppelin killer. Became the Supermarine Nighthawk. , - ,

, , UK , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , , , Zeppelin killer. Previously the Pemberton-Billing P.B.31E. , - ,

Wight quadruplane The Wight Quadruplane, also referred to as the Wight Type 4, was a British single seat quadruplane fighter aircraft built by J Samuel White & Company Limited (Wight Aircraft) during World War I. Testing revealed design deficiencies and after ...

, , UK , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , 1 , , , - , Euler Vierdecker , , Germany , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , 2 , , Standard triplane arrangement of fixed wings with a fourth uppermost wing comprising left and right hand articulated surfaces which acted as full-span ailerons. , - , Friedrichshafen FF54 , , Germany , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , , , Narrow-chord second and third wings, with struts connecting only the upper pair and lower pair of planes. Later modified to triplane configuration. , - ,

, , Germany , , 4 planes , , Fighter , , 1918 , , Prototype , , , , Standard triplane arrangement with a smaller fourth wing attached below the main assembly, analogous to a

. , - , Fokker V.8 , , Germany , , 5 planes , , Fighter , , 1917 , , Prototype , , , , Tandem arrangement, grouped as a stacked triplane fore wing and a biplane rear wing. , - , Johns Multiplane , , US , , 7 planes , , Experimental , , 1919 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Unable to maintain controlled flight. , - ,

Zerbe Air Sedan The Zerbe Air Sedan was an American single engine quadruplane passenger aircraft project started by Professor James Slough Zerbe in 1918. The machine made one flight in 1921, was damaged during landing, and was subsequently abandoned. Design and ...

, , US , , 4 planes , , Experimental , , 1919 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Crashed on first flight. , - ,

, , Italy , , 9 planes , , Transport , , 1921 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Three tandem stacks of triplane wings, nine in all. Flying boat. , - ,

Besson H-5 __NOTOC__ The Besson H-5 (or sometimes Besson MB-11) was a French transport quadruplane flying boat designed by the Marcel Besson company of Boulogne. The only H-5 was damaged and development was abandoned. Development The HB.5 (MB-10) original ...

, , France , , 4 planes , , Transport , , 1922 , , Prototype , , , , Flying boat with two braced biplane wing stacks deeply staggered and vertically offset such that the four wing planes were stacked in an overall zig-zag arrangement. , - , Gerhardt Cycleplane , , US , , 7 planes , , Experimental , , 1923 , , Prototype , , 1 , , Stacked wings. Human-powered

References

Notes

{{reflist

Bibliography

*Angelucci, E. and Matricardi, P.; ''World Aircraft - Origins-World War 1'', Sampson Low, 1977. *Green, W. and Swanborough, G.; ''The complete book of fighters'', Salamander, 1994. *Jane, F.T.; ''All the world's aircraft 1913'', Sampson Low, 1913, facsimile reprint David & Charles, 1969. Wing configurations Lists of aircraft by design configuration