Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1948-08-09
Channel Wing Plane
Not So Freakish as
Inventions Of Past
BY james J. Strebie
Associated Press Aviotion Reporter

All pOlG fiSlGoiS az I1dSCISIOWll,
Nd, are startled by a scrawny frame
sporting two half cylinders which
runs down the runway, hops into
the air and lands.
The machine, called a channel
wing" was devised by Willard r.
Custer, an automobile mechanic who
took up aeronautics after seeing a
barn unroofed in storm. Mr.
Custer wanted to know how the wind
PXerted such force. Twenty years,
lot of work and some s200, 900 have
been invested in the answer.
Mr.. Clusters plane is the oldest
one of the season but is not partic-
ul9rly freakish when seen against a
background of 5000 or so ideas
which reach the National Advisory
Committee for Aeronautics in an
average year. Many of the ideas
appear to have resulted from being
hit by barn roof.
Won't Be Discouraged.
There was, for example, the per-
siStent person who proposed that
q powerful magnet hung in front
of the airplane to draw it forward.
Just asking what's going to move
the magnet, mister?" doesn't dis
courage such people.
One of the strangest of all air
craft was the "cygnet," the brain
child of Alexander Graham Bell.
inventor OF the telephone. This
was "tetrahedral kite" resem-
bling billboard in size and shape.
You can make tetrahedron by
folding a square of paper with two
opposite points together. Bell
mounted 1898 such double TRAN
giles made of silk over wood frames
IN the cygnet.
The 42-foot kite few in 1907
while being towed behind the little
steamer Blue Hill on the Bras
Dor Lakes near Baddeck, Nova
Scotia, the Bell summer home.
With 1t. Thomas Selfridge at the
controls, the kite rose about ITO
feet. However, smoke from the
Blue Hill hid the plane and it was
dragged apart when 1t. Selfridge
landed unknown to the steamer
captain.
Built Larger Kite.
Mr.. Bell, who assembled and
financed a small group known as
Aerial Experiment Association
built a still larger kite in which an
~ no
project was not completed.
MANY ideas, such as the magnet
attractor, are completely false con-
Ceptions. One such was the pro-
posal to have an electrical dis
charge from the tail, propelling the
plane by electric repulsion." Many
proposals are for the use of electric
power. Where to get this power
usually is left to the next guy to
figure out.
A sample Of the fantastic ideas
for defying the law of gravity is a
proposal for plan with holes IN the
cabin floor through which compress
sed air would be expelled while a
large belt with corresponding holes
revolved about the cabin. BY doing
everything Just right, the inventor
said, the plane would ride on the
node Of a standing sound wave.
You take it from there.
Other Suggestions.
Parachutes which pop out in en-
ergencies and lower the aircraft
gently: retractable helicopter blades
for authorization instead of a para
chute, and rocket motors pointed
downward are among the more COM
mon suggestions for getting down
to earth.
Some very unusual ideas come
from highly regarded engineers.
The National Advisory Committee
for AeronauticS has experimental
with a wing set aSkew on the fuse
lage instead of meeting it at right
angles. It has worked also on pro-
pellers with tiny Jet engines on the
tips.
One, plane being developed today
has movable wing for control
doing away with the rudder and
elevator. Not so long ago consid-
cradle work was being done with a
design in which the wing rotated
like a helicopter blade for takeof1
and landing, but was made rigid
for cruising.
Serious work is under way also
toward combining the automobile
and the airplane.