โ PAGE 1 โ
Approved for Release 2026
1200
CLASSIFICATION
CENTRAL. INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
INFORMATION REPORT
COUNTRY
Chile/Gernany
SUBJECT
German Scientist's irticle on "Flying Dises"
PLACE
ACQUIRED
Chile, Santiago
DATE OF
INFO.
Prior to nid-1950
Rolara to LUA Library
GRADING OF SOURCE
COMPLETELY USUALLY
RELI ABLE
FAIRLY
NOT
RE LIABLE RELIABLE
USUALLY
RELIABLE
NOT
RELIABLE
CANNOT
DE
JUDGED
IR.
TRANBUISSIOS On TOE REVELATION
175
UMAUTHORI
PERSON IS PRO
MIDIED ENLAB. PERIN OF THE T A PENNE
SOURCE
REPORT NO.
SO DB-27243
CD NO.
DATE DISTR.
31 July 1950
NO. OF PAGES
1
NO. OF ENCLS. 1
(LISTED BELOW/)
SUPPLEMENT TO
REPORT NO.
COLLECTOR'S PRELIMINARY GRADING OF CONTENT
CONFIRMED
PROBABLY
POSSIBLY
BY OTHER
DOUBTFUL
SOURCES
TRUE
TRUE
PROBABLY
FALSE
1.
2.
s.fff
CANNOT
DE
JUDGEDIA
6.
# Documentary
THIS IS UNEVALUATED INFORMATION
Attached for your infornation is a copy, in translation, of an article
subnitted be Dr. Lquard Induis for publication in Condor, a Geman language
magazine published in Chile.
The articlo is entitled
"The lystery of the
'Flying Dises,' a contribution to its possible explanation".
1, deto
Prathe
Good refinit
The semified concluded dinind ing this
scie.itist.inthissepostanthat.the oldito.decap
tanta reoes haction and is the pactar
the ancess of the flegiseg
Li dit
DISTRIBUTION
STATE
ARMY
ARCHIVAL: RECOND
PLEASE AnTURN YO
232702
โ PAGE 2 โ
RESPRICTED
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGUNCY
-I-
THE LASPBRY OF THE "FLYING DISCS"
A contribution to Its possible explanation.
ะy Dr. Eduard Ludwig, Santiago, Chile.
Av. Cristobal Colon 191
SO DB-27143
Attachment 1
these new aircraft.
haust of a rotary gas-turbine.
bine is used at the same time as a stabilizing top and is therefore fixed
vertically to the level of the other turbine rings, which in the darimess pro-
duces the offect of the "rings of Saturn".
Those obsorvations remind no of a completoly new type of aircraft which was
devoloped during the years I worked in the research plant of Professor Junkers
in Dossau, which was attached to the airplane factories known all over the world.
I do not know how many of my co-workere are still alive today, but I do know that
Dr. Book, Professor at the Technical High School of Berlin, and who was at that
time my chief and friond of many years, has been deported to the Soviet Union.
The name of Professor Bock was never widely known due to his modest character,
but he may have been the greatest genius of Gernan airplane theoretics, and later,
in view of his extraordinary faculties, he was named head constructor of the Ministry
of German Airways and Director of the German Institute of Airways Research in
Berlin-Adlershof.
In order to explain to a wider circle of readers the basic idea of the new air
craft, I should like to submit firet the following explanations:
rectal, showed hestranslated an physist - Auditi
the firstiphraiclamend mothematician who considered the new Science of Aero
dynamics after
the comnencement of purely experimental developments of aircraft
construction was the Russian Professor Jukowski of Moscow.
Before the first World
War and together with my esteemed teacher, Dr. Kutta fron the Technical High School
of stuttgart, Germany, he developed the theory of airplane-wingbean.
Kutta succeeded in establishing the fanous "Differential equation of the boundary
Mauri, stratum unteh for the first bins throws light on tha proceses in current particlos
and which in any case explains for the first time theoretically the reason why a
planewing can bear a load while moving forward through the air.
Since then the
"Kutta-Jukowski. Theory of Airplane-wingbeam" has been the foundation of all sero.
dynamios.
As already mentioned,
the core of this work is the so-called "boundary
thin layer of air in which the transition of
Velocity Zero to the Velocity of the loving Object takes place. If the object is
streamlined then the boundary stratun will endeavor not to sever, no whirlwinds will
occur, and therefore no loss of onergy will take place in that stratum. Since
nature always functions most econonically, it always tries to avoid loss of energy,
and thereforo a planewing would rather bear weight than cause a disruption of the
course of the current and let the wing drop.
The logical conclusions based on these theoretio discoveries were obvious:
already in the yoar 1915 Professor H. C. Bauman, also from the Technical. High School
of stuttgart, recoived a patent on the "Splitwing" through which the arificial
interruption of the course of the current, the tearing of the boundary atratum and
the consoquent braking and diminishing of the landing spood vould be attained. This
PLEASE RETURN TO
ARNCY ARCHIVES, ALDS. A 18 PASTRICEED
โ PAGE 3 โ
โข 4
RESTRIGTID
CENTRAL INTELLIGINCE AGENCY
--2-
SO DB-27143
Attachment 1
under the nane of "dive-brake".
factory landley-Page after World War I, which explains that the name of "landley-
Page Splitwing" is more widely known.
However, devolopments procoeded. It was principally the Aerodynanic Ex-
perimental Institute of the Gottingen University, directed by the renowned
Professors Prandtl and Betz, and Constructor Flettner, which drew its conclusion:
from the theory of the airplane-wing-bean.
Flettner proved that the conditions
of a rotating object are similar to those which appear in a "translatorischen"
movement. Thus evolved the "F'lettner Rotor".
Professor Junkers, head of the well known airplane works in Dessau, who in
the year 1915 received his pathbreaking patent on the one-piece metal wing without
junctures, ordered a research group, which was headed by Professor Di. Bock, and
to which I had the honor to belong, to investigate to what extent the uplift of a
wing could be increased through the attachment of a Flettner Rotor in the shape of
a cylinder turning at great speed.
The cylinder was two-thirds of the length of
the wing and was installed in the nose of the wing, where it could best be adapted
to the wing's profile.
To assist us with aerodynamic problems, the Gottingen
University sent us Professor Prandtl.
The experiments turned out to be extremely
difficult and involved many casualties.
The purely technical question of the
speedy uplift of a long cylinder of light construction could not be solved at that
Inexplicable vibrations and axle breakages occurred time after time which
Professor Junkers ordered us to investigate, and with which we were occupied for months
Not less than four en, all experienced and tried pilots of the first World jar and
outstanding engineers, died in these experiments. It was clear to us that only a
gas-turbine could produce the diroct uplift of the cylinder.
However, since mean-
while more prossing problems awaited solution, experiments with this type of air
craft were interrupted.
leanwhile the lerodynamic Ixperimental Institute of Gottingen made new and
onlightening discoveries.
Professor Beta found that supersonic speeds, such as
are produced by quickly rotating propellors, created entirely new conditions.
This investigation, however, neoded the furnishing of a wind tunnel for supersonic
speeds which could only be built many years later, and which after the war was
forwarded to tho United States where it greatly amazed all scientiste.
Now light was shed on many things. It was found that the tearing of the
boundary stratum at supersonio speeds involved much greater resistance, so that
an object with full atnospheric pressure practically "hangs" fron the upper layer
of air, and theoretically experiences there the sane uplift as an object of the
same surface in the water.
The converting of the revelations found in research
into reality, however, needed the solution of the starting force through a gas-
turbine or another equivalent machine or instrument.
it had often been observed that the range of quickly rotating missiles ("Drall-
wirkung) was much greater than could be explained according to the laus of
ballisties.
Paradoxical explanations were sought for this auch as that the air
resistance
decreases with growing speeds.
Today we know that these quickly rotating
nissiles "swim" in the surrounding layors of air and therefore lose part of their
weight.
Full glarification was brought about only with supersonic speeds, which
obtained in the experiments with rockets (V-2) and were arrived at by flights
of rany hundreds and thousands of kilometers, and which can only be explained by
the way in which these missiles literally "hang" in the air.
The surprise of the
specialized scientists the world over at the astounding regults of the German V-2
was not less than that which is produced today by the appearance of the mysterious
"Flying Disas"
In the same way in which the ingenious discernment of Professor Junkers
pointed the way for airplane construction for the whole world, thus also may his
idea of attaching Flettner Rotors have a revolutionary effect.
Airplanes of this
type must havo such an enormous carrying capacity as to be practically comparable
to amphibious planes of the same size.
The lack of uplift produced by the Flettner
Rotors can easily be achieved through the oblique position of the entire airplane
All':
PLEASE LOTURI! TO
AFIENOX ATCHNES, RENC. A 18
โ PAGE 4 โ
REGTRIOTED
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY
-3-
SO Di 27143
Attachment 1
with a positive atarting angle in connection with the enormously high starting
The attaching of spoedily rotating tops assures side stability.
is also the possibility of attaching horizontal auxiliary propellers of the
helicopter type.
And what about the question of the starting forco? The safoty
only too well do I remember the casualties inflicted by the lack of it.
of such an airoraft atands and falls on the starting force of the sylinder?' I
mentioned before, only the development of a gas-turbine can bring the solution,
since it consists only of rotating parts and works with the dependability of a
steam engine.
There is only one nore question to be anewered: could such an aircraft
carry enough fuel for worldwide journeye? This question is easily answered in
the affirmative.
In the first placo such an aircraft has a tremendous carrying
capacity, as we have already seen; and in the second place chemical research has
nade astounding developments in this respect.
We lnou today-quite apart from
atomic energy sarriers of energy of unsuspected power and duration. lIt should be
ramembered that the missiles of Gernan anti-tanks weapons were coated with chenical
substances which melted up to 20 onts. of steel plates within fractions of a
econd. energy carriers of this type, if applicable to a gas-turbine, should mal
n action-radius possible wich far surpasses that of gasoline engines
The future will show wether the "Flying Dises" are only the produots of
imagination or whether they are the resulte of a far-advanced German science which,
possibly,
as well as the nearly finishod atomic bombs, may have fallen into the
hands of the Russiano.
*ANCY ATICACEVA, RULE, A-18
RESPRIOTED