I love the Flying Flea designs of Henri Mignet. They meet all the requirements for something I would love. Much maligned, small, inexpensive, bizarre, and misunderstood... Oh, and cute as a button. The Flea caused a huge stir when it was first released upon the world in the 1930's. It's bizarre design; which included a main wing that pivots for attitude control, a very short fuselage, tandem wings and generally a motorcycle engine for power made the rest of the aviation world think Mignet was crazy. It didn't help that Mignet was selling a book saying that anyone could build their own airplane and fly it, which also included the plans to build this plane.

There were a lot of people that crashed their Fleas after they built them. There was a bug or two in the design that got worked out back in the 30's, but it was too late to save public opinion about the design. Mignet kept designing and building airplanes with the same formula, and people still build and fly Flying Fleas today. They have a rich history, which is unfortunately mostly documented in French.