UFO UpDates Mailing List
From: Moderator, UFO UpDates - Toronto
Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 13:34:54 -0400
Fwd Date: Mon, 03 Aug 1998 13:34:54 -0400
Subject: Of Flying Wings & Hover Cars
With the recent discussions regarding Nazi Saucer-shaped craft,
the AVRO Aerocar and Triangular UFOs on many Lists, Sites and
news.groups, the following written by Charles McGrew in 1992 and
posted by John Stepkowski in '94 may provide more information.
Downloaded O4-27-94 from Dave Gullick's Sirius Rising BBS in
Toronto.
ebk
----------------------
Date: 04-26-94 (23:16)
To: ALL
From: JOHN POWELL
Subj: Flying Wing
Conf: F-BAMA (955)
Courtesy of: John Stepkowski
(scicom!werple.apana.org.au!legion)
(legion@werple.apana.org.au)
By Charles McGrew
Copyright 1992 by Charles McGrew
This file may be freely distributed, so long as the authorship
and copyright notice remain intact.
Known "Disk-shaped" ("Triangular"/"Flying-wing") aircraft
We all know about B-2's and F-117's, and could see how they
might be described as "disk-shaped" if viewed from the
appropriate angle. Here's some other information about some
similar aircraft from the past. They are presented here merely
to show that disk-shaped flying craft are not only possible, but
have been built.
XB-35 - In response to the possibility of Britain falling in
the early stages of WWII, the US Army Air Force began taking
designs for extremely long-ranged, heavy-bomb-load aircraft that
could fly from North America to Germany and back, carrying
10,000 pounds of bombs. Northrop proposed the XB-35. The XB-35
had 4 engines, each driving two counterrotating pusher
propellers along the same shaft (!). Pictures of the XB-35 look
like each shaft has a six-bladed propeller, but its actually two
three-bladed propellers -- for a total of 8 propellers.
Jack Northrop had been experimenting with flying-wing designs
since the early 1920's. In Germany, the Horton brothers (see
below) were working on a flying wing as well -- the final
designs look surprisingly like the XB-35 (though it had only two
propellers).
Northrop's first prototype was the N-1M (nicknamed "the
Jeep"), which was tested in the Roseman Dry Lake in the Mohave
Desert from July 1940-early 1942. It had two pusher propellers,
and space for one pilot. Wingspan was 38 feet, and the plane
weighed 4,000 pounds. First "public" flight made the newsreels.
The wings were altered significantly as testing went on; for
instance the "drooping wingtips" were discarded early on. The
(only) N-1M stills exists, and has been restored, it is now
sitting in a Smithsonian storage hangar, painted its original
brilliant yellow.
Northrop was contracted by the US Army Air Force Materiel
Division to build one XB-35 (wingspan 172'). The N-9M was the
first product from the contract, a 1/3 scale (working, though
wood-structured, not metal) model with two engines with a 60'
wingspan as a testbed/trainer. It first flew successfully on
Dec. 27, 1942. Three other N-9M's were built, and the N-9M test
program was completed in Oct. 1944. [The last surviving N-9M is
being painstakingly rebuilt by the "Planes of Fame" Museum, in
Chino, CA] One of the N-9M's crashed during testing.
On June 25th 1946, the XB-35 was at last ready to fly (after
a number of difficulties with the propellers) at Hawthorne
Field, CA -- the Northrop company field. The '35 was now in
competetion with what became the Consolodated B-36 as the
postwar strategic bomber (interestingly, both planes were
pushers.) Its first flight was from Hawthorne to Muroc Dry Lake
(later named Edwards AFB) for additional testing.
Attempts to make the propeller system less complex were
generally unsuccessful. Northrop decided to replace the props
with 8 jet engines, and continue work on the plane, renamed the
YB-49. Only 2 XB-35's were ever completed, the second one first
flying on June 26, 1947. The Martin Corporation worked on the
YB-35 (same basic plane, just built at Martin), and the only
YB-35 first flew on May 15, 1948.
YB-49 - The power problems of the XB-35 completely
disappeared with the jet engines, but unfortunately they reduced
the range of the plane such that it could not be thought of as a
strategic bomber (mid-air refueling not then being feasible).
The second YB-49 produced was the first to fly, flown by Maj.
Robert Cardinas, the US Army Air Force test pilot assigned to
the Northrop program (i.e. Northrop retained control, but had
military test pilots mixed in with their own.) On April 26th
1948, the YB-49 flew 4,000 miles with a 10,000 pound payload, on
circuitous route that took it as far east as Phoenix, and as far
north as San Francisco.
In June, 1948 a YB-49 on a routine test flight crashed (Capt.
Glen Edwards, for whom Edwards AFB is named, died in this crash,
along with four others); specific cause of the crash was never
determined; structural failure was the most likely reason.
The military had expressed an interest in a reconaissance
version (with two extra jets) of the YB-49, called the YRB-49,
and placed an order for 30. In January 1949, though, this order
was cancelled.
In Feb. 1949 the remaining YB-49 flew from (now) Edwards AFB
to Andrews AFB in record time (just over 4 hours - the record
was broken the next day by the XB-47, its medium-bomber
compeditor, which flew almost 100mph faster). The famous
YB-49-over-the-Capitol photos are from this flight. President
Truman toured the plane's interior on the ground, and then '49
headed back to Edwards. During the flight, 6 of the 8 engines
failed due to an oil failure which has a slightly mysterious
history (apparently the oil reservoir had not been filled
properly before the flight -- there are hints of sabotage). The
YB-49 made an emergency landing at Winslow AZ. Later on in 1949
the last flying YB-49 was destroyed during high-speed taxi
tests, when the undercarriage collapsed.
In November 1949, the Air Force (the US Army Air Force became
the US Air Force on July 26, 1947 -- it changed from the US Army
Air Corps to the US Army Air Force on June 29, 1941) cancelled
the last part of the YB-49 contract, that of converting the
remaining partially-completed XB-35's to jet power. The last 11
XB-35 hulls (in varying states of completeness) were rolled out
onto the flight ramp outside of the factory, lined up,
photographed (a very impressive aerial photograph of them lined
up survives) and broken up for scrap. Northrop employees made a
last-ditch request to finish the planes in their spare time,
which Jack Northrop had to turn down, for fear of jeopardizing
further military contracts (political shenanigans for government
contracts were just as silly back then as they are now, and
Northrop was concerned that Stuart Symington, secretary of the
Air Force, would look unkindly on Northrop in general if the
planes were not destroyed -- Symington was very specific that
the YB-49 program not continue. Northrop partisans say that
Symington wanted to force Northrop to merge with Convair, for
reasons of his own, and was hoping to damage Northrop enough to
force the merger. Others say that the expected costs of the
YB-49 were sufficiently higher that the XB-57 to warrant the
choice of the latter.)
(Other WWII-flying-wing ideas from Jack Northrop included the
turbojet-powered XP-79 "Flying Ram", a rocket-powered
interceptor that was designed to literally slice the tail off of
enemy aircraft with its heavily-reinforced wing to knock them
down. The XP-79 actually flew (once -- it crashed), along with
at least one similar prototype, the (rocket powered) MX-324,
which first flew (powered) on July 5, 1944. Another was the
JB-1, an unmanned rocket-assisted, turbojet-propelled missle,
and the XP-56, another pusher-flying-wing; this time a fighter,
with two counter-rotating propellers along the same shaft, which
also made several test flights, in 1943 and 1944 one of the two
XP-56's crashed in a landing, the other wound up at the National
Air and Space Museum.)
Jack Northrop resigned from the company he had built after
the YB-49 was cancelled, and left the aircraft industry
entirely. In the mid-1970's, NASA sent him a letter that they
were re-examining the flying wing idea (also, the YB-49's small
radar signature was being taken more seriously by then.) In
April 1980, he (suffering now from Parkinson's disease) was
given a security clearance, taken to Northrop, and shown a model
of the B-2. Makes a nice ending to the story, eh? The B-2 has
exactly the same wingspan as the YB-49 (172').
(An interesting sidelight: in the late 1940's Northrop had also
made a slick promotional-film campaign to drum up support for
the flying wing; this included a film describing a proposed 80
passenger flying-wing commercial jet.)
Also, here are some other (lesser-known) planes that appear
"disk-shaped" when viewed from one angle or another. (Note that
both these aircraft did *not* become operational, for technical
reasons.)
The Horten Brothers' Wings - in the 1930's and 1940's in
Germany, the Horten Brothers, Walter and Reimar, built a
succession of flying wing designs which were quite advanced, and
on the cutting edge for their day. Their "Ho" series is as
follows:
Ho I - 1931 - a flying-wing sailplane.
Ho II - 1934 - initially a glider, it fitted with a
pusher propeller in 1935. Looked very like Northrop's flying
wings.
Ho III - 1938 - a metal-frame glider, later fitted with
a folding-blade (folded while gliding) propeller for powered
flight.
Ho IV - 1941 - a high-aspect-ratio glider (looking very
like a modern sailplane, but without a long tail or nose).
Ho V - 1937-42 - first Horten plane designed to be
powered, built partially from plastics, and powered by two
pusher propellers.
Ho VI "flying parabola" - an extremely-high-aspect-ratio
test- only glider. (After the war, the Ho VI was shipped to
Northrop for analysis.)
Ho VII - 1945 - considered the most flyable of the powered
Ho series by the Horten Brothers, it was built as a flying-wing
trainer. (Only one was built and tested, and 18 more were
ordered, but the war ended before more than one additional Ho
VII could be even partially completed.
Ho VIII - 1945 - a 158-food wingspan, 6-engine plane built
as a transport. Never built. However, this design was "reborn"
in the 1950's when Reimar Horten built a flying-wing plane for
Argentina's Institute Aerotecnico, which flew on December 9,
1960 -- the project was shelved thereafter due to technical
problems.
Ho IX - 1944 - the first combat-intended Horten design, it
was jet powered (Junkers Jumo 004B's), with metal frame and
plywood exterior (due to wartime shortages). First flew in
January 1945, but never in combat. When the Allies overran the
factory, the almost-completed Ho IX V3 (third in the series -
this plane was also known as the "Gotha Go 229") was shipped
back to the Air and Space Museum.
[Interestingly, the Horten brothers were helped in their bid for
German government support when Northrop patents for the N-1M
appeared in US Patent Office's "Official Gazette" on May 13,
1941, and then in the International Aeronautical journal
"Interavia" on November 18, 1941.]
[Of course, one other "Flying-Wing-type" plane existed in the
German Luftwaffe - Alexander Lippisch's-inspired Me-163
rocket-powered interceptor, and its intended successor, the
Messerschmitt P.1111, a turbojet-powered fighter. At the end of
the war, Lippisch was engaged in supersonic-fighter research,
models of his "P12" were shipped back to the US for analysis.
The "Zimmer Skimmer" (aka "The Flying Pancake") - in an
attempt to develop a high-speed interceptor (fast enough to
overtake diving enemy planes) to deal with Japanese kamikaze
attacks, the Navy asked for bids for such an aircraft in early
1944. (The Chance-Vought F4U Corsair - and the Grummann F4F and
F6F - eventually filled this bill more or less, but were hard to
land on carriers, for weight and pilot-visibility reasons).
Minimum speed desired was 450mph, then-available planes would do
only about 400mph.
Charles Zimmerman, a research engineer for NACA, had come up
with a disk-shaped, two-propeller aircraft idea before the war,
which promised to be fast, and have short-take-off-and-landing
ability (which included the ability to hover), which would be
useful on aircraft carriers. (Imagine an oblong disk, with a
canopy on top near the front, twin rudders and two small
aerolons in the rear, and twin booms extending forward from the
left and right sides of the disk with a huge counterrotating
propeller on each. The undercarriage was a spindly-looking
tricycle arrangement that had the "Skimmer" taxying at about a
40 degree angle. The fuselage was the "wing", but was much
thinner and wider than later "lifting body" experiments.
Hovering was accomplished by going nose-verticle and, well, just
hanging there - such was the power of the propellers. Wingspan
approximately 30-40 feet [by my eye].)
The V173 (the first prototype version) was built by
Chance-Vought. Boon T. Guiten was its first test pilot. Its
first flight (November 23, 1942) lasted only 13 minutes, but was
entirely successful, and testing continued. One of the later-on
test pilots was Charles Lindberg, who was an enthusiastic
supporter. In July 1944, the Navy ordered two more "Skimmers"
built for further testing, each equipped with significantly more
powerful engines (1350hp Pratt and Whitneys -- the V173 was
judged underpowered, since its top speed was not up-to-spec).
The two new planes were built from "metalite", a composite
material made from sandwiching layers of aluminum and balsa
wood. These planes were designated F5U's.
The F5U's were actually overpowered, and had a clutched
gearing system to vary propeller speed in flight. In addition, a
geared propeller-synchronizer was also installed. The first F5U
was ready for flight in August, 1945 (but was delayed by a
lengthy redesign of the propellers). By 1948, an F5U was finally
ready to fly, but technology had passed the plane by (jets were
already doing 600mph). The F5U taxi'd up and down the runway a
couple of times, but never flew. Total pricetag on the project
was about $9M. Both 5FUs were scrapped. (The F5U's were intended
to be sent to Edwards AFB for testing -- shipped via the Panama
Canal; apparently the skimmer's unusual shape would have made
ground transport difficult.) [In the mid-1930's the Arup S1, S2,
S3 and S4 - looking very like what became the Zimmer Skimmer,
but with a single centerline "puller" propeller - were flown as
flying billboards and test aircraft.]
The Avro (Canada) "Avrocar" was an outright flying saucer. It
used three Continental turbojets, turning a central impeller
("turbo rotor") to keep it airborne with downward thrust, with a
vane/shutter system to propell the craft in pretty much any
direction by venting thrust in any direction desired. It was
built to hold two human crewmen in separate cockpits on either
side, facing front - total width of the Avrocar was 18 feet,
with tricycle landing pads or wheels for undercarriage. It was
first proposed in the early 1950's by the Avro company to the
Canadian government.
The maximum expected airspeed was originally about 700mph. As
Avro worked on the design, expected airspeed dropped to 300mph.
By the mid-50's, a very-secret project (unknown to even most
Avro employees) was in full swing to build the Avrocar. The
blades of the Avrocar turbo-rotor were hollow with internal
re-enforcing, and brazed to cement the parts. The first
turbo-rotor was tested for 150 hours without mishap.
By 1955, the costs of the project had escalated beyond the
resources of the Canadian government. The project after that was
underwritten by the US DoD (the USAF and Army were both
interested.) The Avrocar first flew with a pilot on Dec. 5, 1959
(prior to that, it was tested unmanned). Two were built - one
Avrocar was tested out at the Ames research center in
California, the other remained with Avro for testing. Although
the aircraft did fly, its ability to rise and top speed was
extremely disappointing, mostly due to thrust dissipation in the
impeller. The Avrocar was able to clear (small) obstacles
without difficulty, but maximum altitude was never more than
about 6 feet! The project was quietly closed down.
Both Avrocars are still intact, and survive in US museums (not
sure which, though).
... curiously, the Avrocar's technology was within a hair's
breadth of being successful. Using almost exactly the same
propulsion setup, the British developed hovercraft (the first
being the British SRN-1) in the early 1960's -- basically an
Avrocar propulsion system with a rubber skirt, which greatly
improved the use of downward thrust.
... in recent years, a one-person "homebrew" version of an
Avrocar has appeared (alas, I cannot remember the fellow who
built it's name, but he has built a lot of neat flying vehicles,
and I've seen film of the avrocar-like vehicle flying).
Edmund Doak also was contracted by the USAF to develop
disk-shaped airfoil aircraft in the 1950's and 1960's. His last
and most promising, the Doak-16, was canceled by the USAF.
[Sources: Documentary "The Wing will Fly", a 'Wings' documentary
on "Strange Planes", and "Winged Wonders", by E.T. Wooldridge,
published by the National Air and Space Museum, 1983, "In Search
Of" episode "UFO Coverups".]
-----------------------------
--- Blue Wave/QBBS v2.12 OS/2 [NR]
* Origin: Absence of Evidence is not Evidence of Absence BBS (1:2617/408.0)
<<<>>>
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