In random reading about matters aeronautical I have twice come across essays in defense of rectangular wings. Not coincidentally, perhaps, both were by men who had taken part in the design of the Piper Cherokee, the airplane whose thick rectangular wing gave a new application to the name “Hershey Bar.” The first essay was by the late John Thorp, best known as the designer of the T-18 homebuilt. The second was by Karl Bergey, who is, among other things, emeritus professor of aerospace engineering at the University of Oklahoma.
Bergey is building a fast, high-performance homebuilt that happens to use a Cherokee wing?the original stubby rectangular one, before they added the tapered outer panels. So many people found the combination of “fast” and “rectangular wing” incongruous that Bergey felt obliged to put his case in writing.
