The Curious Case of Roy Scroggs Last Laugh
Roy Scroggs on a tailor who live in Oregon, USA in the early 20th century. His true passion was aviation and developing an airplane that would bring safety, economy and short takeoff and landing (STOL) performance to everyday flying. He patented his low-aspect-ratio delta aircraft design in 1917, a short 4 years after the Wright Brothers flew Kitty Hawk. A delta wing is a wing shaped in the form of a triangle. It is named for its similarity in shape to the Greek uppercase letter delta (Δ).
Ray’s unconventional airplane design appears to have been inspired by paper airplanes. Its ability to fly was doubtful, but that didn’t stop him from patenting it (US1848578A). It was the airplane to use its fuselage as a lifting surface. Although long studied, it did not find significant applications until the Jet Age, when it proved suitable for high-speed subsonic and supersonic flight. Naturally, his unconventional ideas were rejected by aeronautical experts and he received much ridicule from his neighbours for his persistence.
When he finally built his dream airplane in 1929, his chosen name, The Last Laugh reflected his faith in his invention. Roy’s aviation ideas lived through The Last Laugh’s fleeting success. By the end of the 1960s, the delta aircraft design was an idea whose time had come — to take wing.
On March 2, 1969, when Concorde 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse on 2 March 1969, piloted by André Turcat, it was inspired by Roy Scroggs delta aircraft design. The Handley Page HP.115 of 1961, designed to test the Concorde wing plan at low speeds, had a very similar Delta leading edge angle of swept.
And on October 1, 1969, when the Concorde went supersonic and crossed the speed of sound, Roy Scroggs had The Last Laugh.
