As a kid building from The Great International Paper Airplane Book I was intrigued by the very unconventional plane seen near the bottom of this page with the two circular wings connected by a rigid tube body:
I am not sure if they are even considered wings in the conventional sense. Has something like that been used on a full-size aircraft? I almost think it could be scaled up as a life-saving device for certain situations.
Up until the 1950s or so, engineers would sometimes build things simply because they were curious or desperate and because nobody had yet guaranteed that they wouldn't work. Thank goodness. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coleopter
Airflow at a given angle of attack will produce lift over many "unconventional" surfaces, just not as efficiently as a classic wing.
Low weight makes many creative forms possible with paper airplanes. Low Reynolds numbers and strength considerations also change design parameters towards lower aspect ratios.
But this "double tube" glider does share commonality with other aircraft with its fore and aft airfoils.
Most importantly, it shows that circular shapes can create lift. Scaled up to a fan jet with high speed air intake, flying at low airspeeds and high AoA, the lift created by the nacelle may have a significant effect on the pitching properties of the aircraft if placed too far away from the center of gravity.
The channel wing was actually patented in 1929 by Willard Custer and flown in 1942 as the CCW-1.
