Kayaba Ku-3

The Kayaba Ku-3 was a glider built in Japan in 1941 to investigate the possibilities of tailless aircraft. Building on the success of the Ku-2 design of the previous year, the Ku-3 was a substantially larger aircraft with several novel features. The small vertical fins of the Ku-2 were abandoned, leaving the Ku-3 with no vertical control surfaces.

Ku-3
General information
Type	Research glider
National origin	Japan
Manufacturer	Kayaba Industry
Designer	Hidemasa Kimura and Joji Washimi
Number built	1
History
First flight	February 1941

The crescent wing had three pairs of control surfaces on the trailing edge. The outer, less-swept wing sections had a greater dihedral than the inner sections.

The prototype crashed after 67 flights, when the test pilot was unable to recover from a spin.

References

• Wooldridge, E.T. "Japanese flying wings". History of the Flying Wing. Retrieved 29 April 2007.
• 日本飞翼的短暂研究 Archived 2012-02-13 at the Wayback Machine