The Odd-Looking British Plane Designed To Be A True Helicopter Alternative

Since the first days of humanity's venture into the skies, aircraft designers have tried numerous designs and features. The history of air travel is filled with all manner of unusual aircraft, from Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose to Alexander Lippisch's Aerodyne; there are plenty of strange aircraft designs that took to the skies. Typically, a new design element is created to fill a niche, or something is modified in an attempt to make it more efficient, which doesn't always work.

If you look at an aircraft like the F-16 Fighting Falcon that's been around for 45+ years, you'll see numerous variants and design tweaks. That's common with military as well as civilian aircraft, and one of the strangest designs that made it to production is the Edgley Optica. The Edgley EA-7 Optica is a British aircraft designed specifically for low-speed observation. Essentially, the purpose of the Edgley Optica was to create a low-cost alternative to helicopters, and it has a distinctive shape.

The aircraft's unusual configuration is what makes it so fascinating because planes just don't look like the Edgley Optica. Of course, that's the point — the idea wasn't to make a new fixed-wing aircraft; it was to produce an alternative to a helicopter, which is a complex and expensive vehicle to operate. Ideally, the Edgley Optica could remain in an area for extended periods for observation missions, and to that end, it's been successful, though only 22 were ever produced, with one remaining unfinished.

[Featured image by Anthony Noble via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | GFDL 1.2]

The most notable thing about the Edgley Optica is its unusual configuration that makes it look like several aircraft were welded together to create something new. The fully forward cabin allows for 270-degree panoramic vision, with a near vertical downward visibility. The cabin can accommodate a single pilot and two passengers. Moving on from the cabin, the Edgley Optica features two booms with twin rudders. There's also a large pitch ducted fan just behind the cabin, making the Edgley Optica unusually quiet.

The aircraft's wheels are in a fixed tricycle position, and the whole thing is built from metal with an aluminum skin. For power, the Edgley Optica features a single Textron Lycoming IO-540-V4A5D air-cooled engine. This enables the aircraft to fly at a maximum speed of 132 mph, though its cruising speed is only 108 mph. The Edgley Optica doesn't need to fly through the air quickly — its designed purpose is to linger in an area, so it has more than enough energy to make that happen.

The Edgley Optica's service ceiling is a little over 14,000 feet, and its range is around 650 miles, with an endurance of eight hours. It certainly works for its designed purpose and was priced to sell at $65,000 in 1983 ($206K in 2024). Edgley initially planned to build 200 of its EA-7s, but the funding ran dry, so the 23rd aircraft was never completed. Despite this, the 22 that were built remain airworthy, and they serve the same functional use as helicopters for about one-third the cost.

[Featured image by TSRL via Wikimedia Commons | Cropped and scaled | CC BY-SA 3.0]