German Scientist's Article on 'Flying Discs'

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CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

SO DB-27143

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with a positive starting angle in connection with the enormously high starting speed. The attaching of speedily rotating tops assures side stability. There is also the possibility of attaching horizontal auxiliary propellers of the helicopter type. And what about the question of the starting force? The safety of such an aircraft stands and falls on the starting force of the cylinders, and only too well do I remember the casualties inflicted by the lack of it. As 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 more question to be answered: could such an aircraft carry enough fuel for world-wide journeys? This question is easily answered in the affirmative. In the first place such an aircraft has a tremendous carrying capacity, as we have already seen; and in the second place chemical research has made astounding developments in this respect. We know today--quite apart from atomic energy--carriers of energy of unsuspected power and duration. [It should be remembered that the missiles of German anti-tank weapons were coated with chemical substances which melted up to 20 omts. of steel plates within fractions of a second.] Energy carriers of this type, if applicable to a gas-turbine, should make an action-radius possible which far surpasses that of gasoline engines.

The future will show whether the "Flying Discs" are only the products of imagination or whether they are the results of a far-advanced German science which, possibly, as well as the nearly finished atomic bombs, may have fallen into the hands of the Russians.

MIN
FILM ARCHIVE, A-18

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