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Finer £ Mt ory Deflated By Air Force Experimental Craft Will Be Examined For Other Clues fg, Zhe Air Force's long search for ‘flying saucers” has turned up two contraptions almost as weird as| anything. yet descril he most ‘Wwild-eyed “witnesses” of two sum- mers ago. “Held for the examination of ex- erts” are two _weather-beaten remnants of an inventor's dream. | uncovered yesterday in a tobacco) “shed neat Glen Burnie, Md. an’ outer suburb of Baltimore. An official Air Force statement issued today said “the two ey-, perimental aircraft found neqr Baltimore yesterday have absq-| Tutely no connection with the re-| ported phenomenon of flying sau- ers.” This does not mean, how- Ever, that they will not be xamined for other clues by Air ‘oree representatives, it was said. The relics are more than 10) years’ old, and so far as can be ‘determined, only one of them ever B08 F under its own power. This occurred in _Wash- ington almost __10 years. nd ended in near-disaster after a flight of about 60 seconds: ——~Ppilot Tells of Test Hop, ‘rhe inventor, Jonatian test well, who is now over 70, if still jiving, and his wife and son left ‘Glen Burnie in 1940 after Mary- Jand authorities ordered Mi Galdwell to “cease and desist from selling stock to finance his| ( aeronautical ideas. None of the neighbors have heard from them} since. } ‘Willard E. Driggers of 1530 Olive | street N.E., now with the Civil| Acronautics Administration at Na- tional Airport,"made the first and only test hop in Mr. Caldwell’s helicopter, the Gray Goose, at the old Benning Race track in 1940. Mr, Driggers said he helped de- sign the helicopter. ‘The machine rose about 40 feet ‘and after some 60 seconds in the! air, Mr, Driggers became aware} the controls were not operating) properly, he told The Star. | He decided if he took it any) igher he might not get do lafely and he crash landed qa Ine vace track. He was unij~ red, but the machine was dant~ aged. “ived Here Several Years. iggers said the saucey fhe rotors was design s a wing after the shi ad attained cruising altitu ‘The rotor would then be stopp! and the ship flown with the con- ventional propeller. He explained, however, that this was theory, because the ship was never flown| again. ‘Mr. Caldwell lived in Washing- ton for several years before his disappearance, and seems to have returned here briefly from Glen Burnie before dropping from’ sight. The model tested here was small helicopter whose rotors projected from a saucerlike disc) mounted on a tripod above the) cockpit. | Tattered remnants of this disc, covered with cloth, and the bat- tered fuselage were found in the shed, along with a ‘plywood box,| like a huge circular cheesebox, | shose top and bottom sections vere designed to revolve in oppo- ite directions with short rotors rojecting from the. rims. The pilot was to have ridden in the middle, near the motor mount. | Capt. Claudius Belk, head of the Baltimore office of Special Investi- gation of the Air Force, revealed that his office has “been investi- gating the machines for months” ‘as possible prototypes of the fiying| saucers reported so frequently. He said efforts are being made to Jocate Mr. Caldwell in the hope of} getting engineering data on his | roto-plane ideas. i} The remains of the two ma- chines were placed in storage by Maryland State police, who helped locate them at the request of the Air Force. The material will be held, it was said, until it can be}. determined if experts from the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base ight _wingless ge with ropeller’ in front and a_ tripo er the cockpit which mountey fhe saucer-like rotor and it projecting blades. | Except for the pancake struc- ture around the inner sections of the rotor, the model was much the same as other experimental] jobs of that time. i Mr. Caldwell, a former carpen: ter, whose friends said he had! studied the science of aeronautics | in several books, had a far less conventional idea in his “flying cheesebox.” t The upper and lower lids, con-| taining short rotor blades jutting from their outer rims, were sup- posed to rotate in opposite direc- tions, giving rapid life and some stability in flight, Mr. Caldwell’s friends said. They admitted the 1,500-pound contraption neve; flew, but said Mr. Caldwell ha claimed that a light model prove; successful. ‘The inventor earlier had trict) a third model. This looked something like a complicated hay rick on wheels, and had rotors designed to fan the airysomewhat after the fashion of} the paddle wheels on old steam- boats. There were no claims that this machine ever left the ground, and Mr. Caldwell abandoned it in} favor of later ideas. Attorney Robert E. Clapp, who was Assistant Attorney General of Maryland at the time of Mr. Caldwell’s disappearance, and helped administer the blue-sky Jaws, conducted a hearing in 1940 into the affairs of two of Mr. Cald- ell’s. companies —Gray Gogse Builder Was gerpenter. i The helicopte! sisted of qf! if i Aksways, Inc:, and Rotor Plangs,| Ine, He later restrained the firths| \from selling stock in Maryland, at Dayton, Ohio, wish to exam- ea “AML he had was models,” Mr.| Clapp said, “and whenever one failed and he needed more funds, he went out and sold st6gk.” | In his report, Mr. Clappysaid: “The literature used MyBonnec-| “tion with these stock sdles:clearly | WASHINGTON STAR Page meliy indicates that the publicswas led to| believe that tlie invention was oat the verge-of perfection and would be completed and ready for general) production within a very short time, whereas, ‘the fact as testi- fied by Mr. Caldwell indicate that no machine on which he had ever worked had been successfully flown. or was in any condition for manu, facture and sale upon @ satisfac. tory commercial basis. * * * “The history of the develop. ment’ of these companies indicated that they were organized merely for the purpose of raising money to develop the ideas of Mr, Caiq.| Well, and that as soon as this) Money was raised, it was treate as belonging solely to him and as the subject of any use which he deemed proper. “No meeting of stockholder: eyer been held by either eee be no Brana yeport to slock- jolders has ever come out treniéation MAT pA Tolson CBaggy 7 legs, Glavin, a Nichol ee Rosen, Y Tracy. 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