Multiplane (aeronautics)

Types having a small number of planes have specific names and are not usually described as multiplanes: While triplane, quadruplane and tandem designs are relatively uncommon, aircraft with more than four sets of wings rarely occur - none have proven successful.

The quadruplane configuration takes the triplane approach a step further, using efficient wings of high aspect ratio and stacking them to allow a compact and light weight design.

During the pioneer years of aviation and World War I, a few designers sought these potential benefits for a variety of reasons, mostly with little success.

The prototype proved unacceptable in the air and was later modified as an equally unsuccessful triplane, again with a short-chord intermediate plane.

The Naglo D.II quadruplane fighter of 1918 featured a standard triplane arrangement with a smaller fourth wing attached below the main assembly, somewhat analogous to a sesquiplane.

In 1908 John William Roshon in America and D'Equevilly in France produced typical multiplane designs.

The AEA Cygnet II, designed by Alexander Graham Bell and constructed by the Aerial Experimental Association in America, featured a cellular multiplane formed by hundreds of tetrahedral shapes.

One of the most infamous multiplanes was the 1923 Gerhardt Cycleplane, a human-powered aircraft with seven sets of wings which made a single short hop under human power alone.

Its flimsy construction and subsequent collapse was filmed, and this is often used as stock footage mocking early impractical aircraft designs.