[1][2] Stanley designed the Nomad between 1935 and 1938, while serving in the US Navy, building it in the basement of a house that he shared with other sailors in San Diego, California.

The original design had a conventional cruciform tail, but in 1939 this was replaced with one of the first V-tails used on any aircraft and the first employed on a sailplane.

[1][2] Stanley had never flown any glider when he entered the Nomad in the 1938 US Nationals, held in Elmira, New York.

After one out-landing a souvenir hunter stole his removable elevators, putting him out of the remainder of the competition.

For a time in the 1980s it was on loan to the National Soaring Museum, but in 2011 was on display and suspended from the ceiling of the Boeing Aviation Hangar at the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center.