Retractable-Wing Aeroplane

created by Joshua Moretto

The Retractable-Wing Aeroplane is one of two aircraft based on the theories and designs of Miles Thompson. Though Thompson has a solid understanding of aeronautical engineering, this design (like its earlier cousin, the Folding-Wing Fighter) stems from Thompson's more fanciful, intuitive feel for flying machines.

The Retractable-Wing Aeroplane is a single-wing, propeller craft. With Doc Furious filling in the technical details (and expanding the boundaries of science to keep up with Thompson's fertile imagination), the craft boasts a vastly improved engine, capable of propelling the plane at near-sonic speeds. The most notable feature, however, and the one for which it is named, are the retractable wings. Inspired by the trick knives of stage actors, which collapse into the hilt, Thompson specified that the wings should be able to similarly retract into the fuselage of the plane at the press of a button.

Given the dubious utility of such a feature, Thompson was predictably questioned on this point. Adamant, he replied:

Naturally, it took the scientific genius of Doc Furious to create a structure that could withstand these kinds of forces.

Sadly, the only-existing prototype of this craft was crippled by Nazi sabotage, but Thompson's design was borne out when he utilized its torpedo-like retracted-wing form to skip the dying plane off of the surf on the coast of Spain, landing heavily, but safely, in a dune.