Wings Are for the Birds

Since the arrival of jet engines, hangars all over the country have been full of odd model aircraft, designed to take advantage of the jet's enormous thrust. Most of them are freaks that will never fly. Last week designers were studying a novel wingless aircraft that is not in the same class. Its originator, Dr. Alexander Martin Lippisch, 61, a top German airplane designer in World War II, was largely responsible for the delta wing and Nazi Germany's ME-163 rocket plane. His new "aerodyne," however odd-looking, cannot be laughed off as a crazy inventor's dream.

Dr. Lippisch escaped from Vienna just ahead of the invading Russians. He now works for the Collins Radio Co. of Cedar Rapids, Iowa, which has an embryo aeronautical division. His aerodyne* (he refuses to have it called an airplane), which has flown only in the form of small electrically powered models, is truly wingless. It looks like a fuselage with no wings, and it gets its lift from a blast of air blown out through a big hole in its belly. The air comes in through the nose, is compressed and speeded up by a jet engine driving internal propellers. Then part of the air strikes deflectors that look a little like a Venetian blind. Turned downward, the air gives lift that supports the aerodyne. Part of the air, plus gas from the engine, can be shot toward the rear to give horizontal thrust and propel the aerodyne forward.

Control Jets. According to Lippisch, there is no doubt that the internal lift will be sufficient to keep the ship in the air. The big problem is control, which is accomplished by deflecting jets of air and gas in the desired directions. His electric models, which simulate the control problem of a full-scale aerodyne, fly very well. Attached to an electric cable, to supply power and control signals, they rise on an even keel, circle around a hangar, hover indefinitely and land without a jolt.

"The Wrights' pioneer airplane," says Dr. Lippisch, "was a glider and an auto engine and a windmill. Airplanes are still powered gliders." Working with gliders, delta wings and rocket planes, he has long dreamed of an aircraft that would fly without supporting wings. "Wings are for the birds," he says. "They heat up, and they increase drag. In supersonic flight they create sound and shock waves. Energy is lost. For economy, you have to have an internal flow process. You can reflect and extinguish these shock waves on the opposite walls of the channel that you put them through."

Slow Marvels. This is what the aerodyne does, says Dr. Lippisch. He thinks that the design will be more suited to large aircraft than small. So far, his aerodyne is strictly experimental, and he does not want to predict when it will come into flying use. "I developed the delta-wing aircraft back in the '30s," he says, "and look at the time it took to develop them. I ran into the same trouble that I am running into now. Everyone marvels, but the development away from conventional, conservative systems is hard to get started."

Support for Dr. Lippisch's work has come from the Office of Naval Research and Collins Radio. The Air Force has shown little interest. Dr. Lippisch hopes to have a piloted, 2,500-lb. aerodyne flying in 1956. Then, he dreams, the Air Force generals may look his way.

*Literally, any type of heavier-than-air aircraft that derives its lift in flight from aerodynamic forces.

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