1938 Stanley Nomad

A very effective composition and photo.  Nice high-key background, too -- one doesn't often find hangars that well-lit.

This particular sailplane is such a gorgeous piece of work!  By the registration numbers, the technologies employed in both the wings and fuselage, and the general configuration of the wings, fuselage and empennage, this appears to be an American sailplane, possibly from the late 1930s but more probably from the late 1940s or early 1950s.  It would have been quite a high performance sailplane for its time, with an L/D ratio perhaps in the high 20s or low 30s, say somewhere between 27:1 and 32:1. 

I'd love to know who designed and built this, and who flew it.  In certain ways, it looks a good deal like a Harland Ross design (the fuselage looks somewhat like his famous RS-1 "Zanonia"), although most of his designs used aircraft-grade plywood rather than aluminum.   This was not a sailplane for novices -- the handling characteristics might have been a bit tricky at the margins.  Perhaps the National Soaring Museum on Harris Hill in Horseheads near Elmira, NY could identify it from their archives. 

Sailplanes are mostly made our of carbon fiber and fiberglass these days.  While they have gained a good deal in performance, they have also lost a great deal in individuality and character.  It is sad to see this beautiful aircraft hanging on wires from the rafters of a museum hangar, rather than still being kept airworthy and flown.  It's like seeing a Stradivarius violin inside a display case in a museum, no longer played.

A friend and soaring pilot, Jeffrey Stringer, has helped me to identify the sailplane in your picture. The information which follows comes from several Wikipedia articles, the links to which are provided below. 

The sailplane is the Stanley Nomad, completed in 1938 by engineer and aviator Robert M. Stanley (1912-1977).  Both the aircraft and the pilot have interesting histories.

Stanley designed and built the Nomad between 1935 and 1938, in the basement of a house in San Diego that he shared with others while serving as an Ensign in the US Navy assigned to the aircraft carrier Lexington. It was a high performance sailplane for its time. The fuselage was an aluminum monocoque.  The wings, with a wingspan of 57 ft. (17.37 m) and an aspect ratio of 18.5:1, and the empennage (tail), were built of wood with fabric covering.    The wings used airfoil sections developed by the National Advisory Commission on Aeronautics (NACA), the predecessor of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).  For those having a background in soaring, the Nomad had a wing loading of 3.1 lb./sq. ft. (15kg/sq. meter); a minimum sink rate of 174 ft./min.  (2.9 ft./sec., or 0.88 m/s) at 41 mph (66 km/h); and a maximum lift to drag ratio (L/D), or glide ratio, of 27:1 at 44 mph (71 km/h).

During the US Soaring Nationals at Elmira, NY in 1939, flying the Nomad, Stanley earned the first FAI Gold Badge, the first American pilot ever to do so; set US national altitude records on two successive days, climbing to 16,400 feet (4,99 meters) on July 3, 1939 and to 17,284 feet (5,268 meters) on July 4, 1939; and finished second in the contest even after failing to complete the final day's task.  During the following year, 1940, he served as the national President of the Soaring Society of America (SSA), a group which is still in existence and active today.

During WWII, Stanley worked as the chief test pilot for Bell Aircraft Corp.  On October 2, 1942, he was at the controls when the Bell XP-59A Airacomet, the first jet aircraft designed and built in the US, became airborne during a high-speed taxi test.  That flight was made at Muroc Dry Lake in California, which would later become known as Edwards Air Force Base. 

Stanley was Bell's Engineering Vice President when the firm designed the Bell X-1 in 1944, built it in 1945, and first test-flew it in 1946.  He also developed the concept of launching an experimental aircraft from another aircraft at high altitude.  On October 14, 1947, flown by test pilot Chuck Yeager, the X-1 became the first aircraft ever to break the sound barrier. 

He later founded Stanley Aviation, a company which designed and built ejection seats for jet aircraft.  His firm provided the ejection seats used in the B-47, B-52, F-104, F-106A, and the F4H Phantom, and the ejection capsules used in the Convair B-58 Hustler supersonic bomber and the XP-70 Valkyrie experimental supersonic bomber.  Sadly, he died in 1977 when the plane he was flying on a vacation trip was caught by a powerful wind shear while landing.  His widow, Katherine Stanley, donated the Nomad to the National Air and Space Museum the following year, in 1978. 

To sum up, this isn't just a good photo of a sailplane with an interesting history.  It also evokes the memory of its designer and builder, Robert Stanley, an engineer and pilot who subsequently worked on the Bell XP-59A (first US-built jet) and the Bell X-1 (first aircraft to break the sound barrier), and later founded a company which built ejection seats for military jets.

Links to related Wikipedia articles:

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Nomad 

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_M._Stanley

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_XP-59A_Airacomet 

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_X-1 

     http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Aviation

     http://www.ejectionsite.com/stanley/

Peter - Great research and information.  It really caught my eye as a beautifully designed plane.  After you identified it I looked it up at the museum's website (http://airandspace.si.edu/collections/artifact.cfm?id=A19800123000) and read a little more about it.  Pretty amazing guy!