Arsenal 1301

Arsenal 2301
SFECMAS 1301, late in development
Role	Full scale, piloted glider model of fighter aircraft
National origin	France
Manufacturer	Arsenal de l'Aéronautique
Designer	Jean Galtier
First flight	29 November 1951 (16 January 1953 as delta)
Number built	1

The Arsenal 2301, Arsenal Ars.2301, SFECMAS 1301 or SFECMAS Ars.1301 was an experimental French air-launched glider, built to test the aerodynamics of aircraft of novel configuration at full scale. It first flew in 1951 with swept wings but after 1953 it had a delta wing. Trials with this wing established the layouts of the Nord Gerfaut and Griffon.

In the 1950s more than one French aircraft design was tested with larger scale glider models than could be put into wind-tunnels. These were piloted and launched from the top of a large aircraft like a SNCASE Languedoc, as was the SCAN 271 or alternatively towed to altitude. The Arsenal 2301 was a full-scale model of a proposed rocket powered fighter aircraft which developed German ideas on swept wing aircraft expressed in the wartime DFS 346. It was a wooden aircraft, with swept, straight tapered mid-wings, square tipped at right angles to the leading edge. The fuselage was long and fine, with the cockpit well forward of the wing. The fuselage began to taper to the pointed nose just behind the canopy. The vertical tail was swept, straight tipped and tapered, though there was a curved fillet between the fin root and the fuselage. An all-moving tail, straight tapered, square tipped and with sweep on its leading edge, was placed about one-third the way up the fin. The 2301 had a bicycle landing gear, with a fixed main wheel under the central fuselage and a small, retractable nose wheel; retracting stabilizing wheels were positioned near the wing tips. Its span was 8 m (26 ft 3 in) and length 14 m (45 ft 11 in). Its primary purpose was to explore the low speed characteristics of the design.

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Wikipedia