If we look at space toys, especially vintage ones, beside the rockets and astronauts and moon crawlers we will always find the flying saucer. The term 'Flying Saucer' was popularised after airman Kenneth Arnold saw a squadron of 'aircraft' with
glass cockpits skipping across the sky like saucers on water in 1947.
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| Kenneth Arnold showing object he saw at Mount Rainier, Washington |
The fifties and sixties were full of popular accounts of UFO's and flying saucers and many B movies memorably featured them, such as 'Earth Vs the Flying Saucers' and the original 'Day the Earth Stood Still'. The 1957 classic 'Forbidden Planet' featured Earth Cruiser C57D as a beautiful saucer shaped craft.
Many people claimed to have seen saucers and quite often their occupants, but few made quite such an impact on society as polish born George Adamski. He claimed to have seen a large alien mothership hovering overhead as early as 1946 and continued to be contacted by alien beings from Venus for a number of years. In December 1952 he presented the photograph of a venusian 'scoutship' which he alleged was piloted by his friend and mentor 'Orthon' a tall nordic looking humanoid.
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| Classic Adamski photograph and orthographic projection showing probable shape. |
Skeptics naturally criticised Adamskis fabulous claims and the photograph of the ship was said to be part of an ice cream machine, a chicken brooder and just a fabricated model. Adamski wrote several books and achieved a cult following. The shape and style of the saucer is still referred to as the 'Adamski'
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| George Adamski with painting of his Venusian friend |
In 1967 the tv series 'The Invaders' introduced Roy Thinnes as architect David Vincent who discovers a secret alien invasion and sets about trying to convince people of the threat. Aurora produced a fabulous model of the titular saucer, complete with removable cockpit cover and detailed interior. The kit was rei
ssued several times over the next few years.
The Invaders saucer bears a strong resemblance to the classic Adamski design, with some slightly modern streamlining.
Meanwhile life was busily imitating art in the development of various secret projects in the aerospace industry. Avro Aircraft in Canada drafted in designer John 'Jack' Frost to produce a new type of aircraft which would exploit the 'coanda effect' (put an upturned spoon under a flowing tap to see it in effect) which meant that ducted air running over a convex surface would be concentrated beneath the craft. Several designs were considered and recently declassified government documents from 1956 show a 'Project 1794' complete with nifty saucer logo, which detail the development of a saucer shaped fighter with internal turbofans directing ducted thrust through vents in the edges.
The project anticipated the vehicle to exceed Mach 4, but despite several developmental trials, the project was cancelled. In 1959, the Avrocar, a working 'proof of concept' testbed vehicle was built. Unfortunately, dangerous stability and engine problems meant that the craft could not rise much further than a few feet from the ground and even then, the thrust induced a destabilising wobble which proved the vehicle to be impractical and the project was quickly scrapped.
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| AVROCar and Silverbug models |
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| Avrocar |
Cool post Billster. Very informative and much food for thought. In many ways the murky world of spotting and photographing UFO's reminds me of the history of the Loch Ness Monster. Maybe its only right that such entities that excite our imaginations so much are naturally difficult to capture on film.
ReplyDeleteExcellent post Bill !! Flying saucers have always been a fascinating staple of sci-fi lore and movies! It's funny, but I've lived here in Vegas for 22yrs - just a few miles from Sunrise Mountain (which I see every day going to work) and which is s'posed to be a hot bed of UFO spottings, but I haven't seen a single unexplained phenomenon - although a few of the two-legged critters around here may come from Betelgeuse!! (Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice)
ReplyDeleteSo have you been to Roswell Ed?
ReplyDeleteNope Bill, although I've traveled through New Mexico a couple of times - Haven't been to Tonopah, Area 51, or traveled up north on the Extraterrestrial Highway (Nevada State Route 175)either. - my keeper doesn't let me out much :-)
ReplyDeleteNew mexico is somewhere on my bucket list, along with the canadian rockies, tokyo and iceland!
ReplyDeleteNew mexico, Canadian Rockies, Tokyo and Iceland. Inneresting bucket list Bill. Been in/on/over the American Rockies a couple of few times - very nice.
ReplyDeleteA STOL aerodynamic-flight vehicle might very well work.
ReplyDeleteSee from the '30s, Arup S-2 and 4, which led to the Navy interest in the flapjack naval fighter, which they only investigated in the abortive attempt at the VTOL tail-sitter Zimmerman wanted. The Arup 2 was the seed for that Navy STOL fighter interest, and it did not need the outward-rotating flapping props to counter wing-tip vortex. 780 pound, with 19kts landing speed, 84kts on just 37 hp engine. The round planform in the Zimmerman/Vought V-173 was specifically chosen to maximize it to help with "parachute lift" effect at very high AoA very low speed landing. Like little flying wings, they were low-drag at cruise, so it's not clear why the Navy persisted. with the un-necesary complication of the huge props. They did not need it and Langley tests of early models of the V-173 showed it to not be necessary. The vortex drag is not present at high=speed low AoA flight.
See the Vought jet skimmer for what it could have been.
See the "Little Bird" planes from the '80s which verified all these reported traits of the Arup. Today the Rowe "UFO" is a disc with a fin and cockpit with prop on front. The Dyke and Verhees Delta planes both work well as similar intent low-aspect-ratio all-wing planes. See also the Wainfan "Facetmobile Wainfan works for Northrop/Grumman designing stealth modern military planes, and he designed the little FM-4 with all flat surfaces since fewer straight parts should be easier and simpler than many curved parts. Sleek lifting body with very slow landing speed. About as unlikely-looking as any of these, or the little coal-dust powered Lippish P-13 was to be.
In the '30s Cheranovsky built a series of planes that look exactly like the things Arnold saw, the first monoplane flying wing BICh-3 in '32 and the larger BICh-7a.
Around that same period, Fauvel, Payen, Canova, and Lippisch & Eschelman in the '40s all built working planes of the same sort of design philosophy, of varied planform short aspect-ratio (span squared, divided by area. Under 3 works for this kind of "parachute lift" STOL, the Arup and Vought were ~1.27, as is a circle. Zimmerman found that it maximized the lift at very slow speeds about 3x normal.
Vought and Sikorsky both had designs for jets with nearly circular wings Rather like the Avro but without the underside jets (they figured that <40 kts landing speed was good enough) not VTOL, they were sleek finned all-wings.
John, thats a comprehensive and informed post, gives me lots to look into. Ill do a little research on those designs and prepare an updated post in the near future. Many thanks
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