◆ SpookStack

=---_ ‘| 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 talking. They were taken by Farmer Trent, McMinnville, Oregon, U.S. must, of DEEereNy be subject to these dangers. They turned aside toinvestigate possible, wing forms wich should be safe from stalling an{i spinning. mong these ‘‘rebels” a few names 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 wingform based on the Zannonia leaf from which Rumpler and the majority of Ger- man builders developed the Taube monoplane. Dunne with his too stable, tailless, back-swept wing biplane 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. Civil airlines naturally used daptea war planes, and then ame World War II. Once more itations were imposed. tn spite of the orthodoxy of dpsign there was throughout the inter-war years, and \sse wouny London, who has studied all the evidence. @ there is still, a considerable bo y of technical opinion not satisfied that perfection has been reached. d here. I think, lies the real answer. This body of opinion has been continually searching for the “safe” design. Designers of many nationalities haye been striving since the early 1920's with wre success toward a foolproof plane of disc type. In 1934-35 Charles H. Zimmer- mann, in the United States, built a disc wing airplane combined with a helicopter capable | of vertical ascent and descent and a high forward speed. NAVY STEPS IN qn 1937 he granted licendes for his patents to tne Chance Vought Aircraft Division of the United Aircraft Corpora- tion in the U.S. But at that point the U.S, Navy stepped in, and all further devel- opment has been of @ secret nature, though it has been stated that this combination 3s capable of apbeds from 0 to 500 miles per ‘This performance is in accord with reports that flying saucers travel at great speeds hover, ascend and descend with little forward motion. It is pense) a little hard to believe that there can, as yet, ex- ist enough of these types tO; meet the many reports, bub 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 t secrecy would suggest that th is so. And there could Ne the mogt solid proof el he that, flying saucers f