◆ SpookStack

a= ‘| believe they are disc-type aircraft, sayS— G. TILGHMAN RICHARDS, senior Research assistant and official lecturer at the South Kensington Science Museum, Enlargements from flying saucer pictures—front-paged last week —which set everyone tal They were taken by Farmer Trent, McMinnville, Oregon. U.S. must, of necessity, be subject to these dangers. ‘They turned aside tolinvestigate possible wing forms. wijich should be safe from stalling ani spinning. mong. these ‘rebels”.a. few naines have become air history. Jose Weiss and Arthur Keith wit their completely stable swallow. like monoplane in 1909. Etrich and Wels in Austria in 1911, evolving a stable winefor based on the Zannonia leaf from which Rumpler and the majority of Ger- man builders developed the Taube monoplane. Dunne, with his 00 stable, tailless, back-swept wing piplane ‘in 1912, and the Lee- Richards annular monoplane of 1910-14, with which I was asso- ciated. NOT PERFECT WITH, the outbreak of the . 1914 war research of this type was abandoned, and study concentrated on perform- ance tather than safety. By 1918 the modern plane was established, and earlier research was. forgotten. airlines naturally used daptea war planes, and then me World War II. Once more itations were imposed. in spite of the orthodoxy of dpsign there was throughout the inter-war years, aNd \rwouay London, who has studied all the evidence. C) . there is still, a considerable bo! iy of technical ‘opinion not satisfied spat perfection has been reached. ‘d here, I think, lies the real answer. ‘This body of opinion has been continually searching for the f Sate” design: Designers of many nationalities have, been. striving since the early 1920's with great Success toward a foolproof plane of disc type. In 1934-35 Chatles H. Zimmer. mann, in the United States, built a dise wing airplane combined With a helicopter capable | of Vertical, ascent and descent and a high forward speed. NAVY STEPS IN PY, 1987 be granted licendes: for his patents to the Chance Vought Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corpora- tion in the US. But at that point the U.S. Navy stepped in, and all further devel: opment has been of a secret nature, though it has been stated that this combination js capable of speeds from 0 to 500 miles per our. ‘This performance is in accord with reports that flying saucers travel at great speeds, hover, ascend and descend with little forward motion. Tt is. perhaps, a little hard to believe that there can, as yet, ex- ist enough of these types to) meet the many reports, but there is no reason at all why such aircraft should not have been seen. provid. ing that full scale work followe the experimental period. And tI Boe would suggest that thi iS $0. And there could lie the pou proof that, flying Res