Nelson PG-185B Hummingbird

Condition: Restoration almost finished

In 1949, Nelson began the design of another self-launching glider, but this time, he teamed-up with Harry Perl and Don Mitchell (see our Mitchell U-2). They called this new design the Hummingbird.

 

Introduced in 1953, the Hummingbird was an attempt to improve upon the marginal performance of the Dragonfly, of which only seven were produced. The resulting design is a mid-wing glider built predominately from wood, with the wing leading edge filled with styrofoam and doped aircraft fabric used on the aft portion of the wing, the tail and the rudder. After the first two were completed the remainder were built from metal in place of wood.

 

The design features an all-flying stabilator with an anti-servo tab, spoilers on the wing's top surface and dive brakes on the bottom. The Nelson H-59 4-cylinder engine was mounted on a retractable mast aft of the bubble canopy. The aircraft has two wheels in tandem, the front being steerable and connected to the rudder pedals.

 

The design was not type certified, and the seven built were registered under the Experimental - Racing - Exhibition category.