Today it is reliably known that in the 30s-40s Germany carried out intensive work on the creation of disc-shaped aircraft using unconventional methods of creating lift. The development was carried out in parallel by several designers. The manufacture of individual units and parts was entrusted to various factories so that no one could guess about their true purpose. What physical principles were used as the basis for the propulsion system of the discs? Where did this data come from? What role did the German secret societies "Ahnenerbe" play in this? Was all information contained in the design documentation? I will talk about this further, And now the main question. Why did the Germans turn to discs? Are there traces of a UFO disaster?
War
There is a struggle to raise the speed of fighters and the carrying capacity of bombers, which requires intensive development in the field of aerodynamics (and the FAU-2 is a lot of trouble - supersonic flight speeds). Aerodynamic studies of that time gave a well-known result - for given specific loads on the wing (at subsonic sound), an elliptical wing, in plan, has the lowest inductive resistance compared to a rectangular wing. The higher the ellipticity, the less this resistance. And this, in turn, is an increase in the speed of the aircraft. Take a look at the airplane wing of those times. It is ellipsoidal. (IL - attack aircraft, for example). And if we go even further? Ellipse - gravitates towards a circle. Got the idea? Helicopters are in their infancy. Their stability is then not a solvable problem. Intensive searches are underway in this area, and round-shaped ekranoliters have already been.(Round ekranolet, I think Gribovsky, early 30s). Known aircraft with a disk wing design of the Russian inventor A. G. Ufimtsev, the so-called "spheroplane", built in 1909. The energy-to-weight ratio of the "saucer" and its stability is where the battle of thought lies ahead, since the lifting force of the "saucer" is not great. However, turbojets already exist. Rocket launchers are also on the FAU-2. The flight gyro systems developed for the V-2 are working. The temptation is great. Naturally, it was the turn for the "plates".turbojet engines already exist. Rocket launchers are also on the FAU-2. The flight gyro systems developed for the V-2 are working. The temptation is great. Naturally, it was the turn for the "plates".turbojet engines already exist. Rocket launchers are also on the FAU-2. The flight gyro systems developed for the V-2 are working. The temptation is great. Naturally, it was the turn for the "plates".
All the variety of devices developed during the war can be conditionally divided into four main types: discoplanes (with both piston and jet engines), disk helicopters (with an external or internal rotor), vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (with a rotary or rotating wing), disks-shells. But the topic of today's article is precisely those vehicles that could be mistaken for UFOs.
The first documented reports of encounters with unknown aircraft in the form of a disk, plate or cigar appeared in 1942. In reports about luminous flying objects, the unpredictability of their behavior was noted: the object could pass through the combat formation of bombers at high speed, without responding to machine gun fire, but could simply suddenly go out during the flight, dissolving into the night sky. In addition, cases of malfunctions and failures in the operation of the navigation and radio equipment of bombers were recorded when unknown aircraft appeared.
In 1950, the United States declassified part of the CIA UFO archives. It followed from them that most of the flying objects recorded after the war were trophy samples studied or the further development of German developments of the war years, i.e. were the work of human hands. However, this archived data turned out to be available only to a very limited circle of people and did not receive wide publicity.
Much more significant resonance was received by an article published on March 25, 1950 in the Italian “II Giornale d'Italia”, where the Italian scientist Giuseppe Ballenzo, argued that the luminous UFOs observed during the war were just disk flying devices, the so-called "Bellonze disks", which in the strictest secrecy have been developed since 1942 in Italy and Germany. To prove that he was right, he presented sketch sketches of some of his designs. After a while, a statement by the German scientist and designer Rudolf Schriever flashed in the Western European press, in which he also claimed that during the war Germany was developing a secret weapon in the form of "flying discs" or "flying saucers",and he was the creator of some of these devices. This is how information about the so-called Bellonza Discs appeared in the media.
Promotional video:
These disks were named after the surname of the chief designer - the Italian specialist in the design of steam turbines Belontse (Giuseppe Ballenzo 25.11.1876 - 21.05.1952), who proposed a scheme of a disk aircraft with ramjet engines.
Work on the discs began in 1942. Initially, these were unmanned disk vehicles with jet engines, developed within the secret programs "Feuerball" and "Kugelblitz". They were intended to strike at far-apart ground targets (analogue of long-range artillery) and to fight against allied bombers (analogue of anti-aircraft artillery). In both cases, a compartment with a warhead, equipment and a fuel tank was located in the center of the disk; ramjet WFDs were used as engines. Jet jets of a ramjet engine of a disk rotating in flight created the illusion of iridescent lights rapidly running along the edge of the disk.
One of the types of discs, designed to fight the armada of allied bombers, had blades at the edges and resembled a disc cutter. Rotating, they had to shred everything that came across in the way. At the same time, if the disc itself lost at least one blade (this is more than likely in a collision of two vehicles), the center of gravity of the disc shifted relative to the axis of rotation and began to be thrown in the most unexpected direction, which caused panic in the combat formation of aircraft. Some variants of the disks were equipped with devices that created electromagnetic interference for radio and navigation equipment of bombers.
The disks were launched from a ground installation as follows. Previously, they spun around their axis using a special launching device or dumped starting boosters. After reaching the required speed, the ramjet engine was launched. The resulting lifting force was created both due to the vertical component of the ramjet thrust and the additional lifting force arising from the suction of the boundary layer by the engines from the upper surface of the disk.
The most interesting was the variant of the design proposed by Sonderburo-13 (supervised by the SS) … Richard Miethe was responsible for the creation of the corps. Another of the leading designers - Rudolf Schriever was the designer of the previous models of discs
It was a manned spacecraft with combined thrust. The original vortex engine by V. Schauberger was used as the main engine, which deserves a separate discussion. The hull was ringed with 12 tilt jet engines (Jumo-004B). They cooled the Schauberger engine with their jets and, sucking in air, created a rarefaction area on top of the apparatus, which contributed to its lifting with less effort (Coanda Effect).
The disk was built at the plant in Breslau (Wroclaw), had a diameter of 68 m (a model with a diameter of 38 m was also created); rate of climb 302 km / h; horizontal speed 2200 km / h. On February 19, 1945, this device made its only experimental flight. In 3 minutes, the test pilots reached an altitude of 15,000 m and a speed of 2,200 km / h in horizontal motion. He could hover in the air and fly back and forth almost without turns, for landing he had folding racks. But the war ended and a few months later the device was destroyed by order of V. Keitel.
Mikhail Kovalenko's comment:
I don't think that the aerodynamics of that time would have taken seriously the implementation of the Coanda effect in order to create the lift of the apparatus. Germany had aerodynamic luminaries and outstanding mathematicians. The point is different. This effect is not the effect of lift, but the effect of adhesion of the jet to its streamlined surface. Directly on this, you cannot take off. You need a thrust (or wing). In addition, if the surface is curved (to deflect the jet downward and obtain thrust), the effect "works" only in the case of a laminar jet. The jet of a gas turbine engine is not suitable for this. It needs to be laminated. This is a huge energy loss. Here's an example. The An-72 was conceived using the Coanda effect (I had the privilege of researching how Coand works on this aircraft) and what? It turned out that it practically does not work due to the strong turbulence of the engine exhaust jet. But the thrust reserve of the An-72 engines was such that put it on the "priest" and fly. Here, and flies without "Coanda". By the way, the American YC-14, the prototype of the AN-72, never rolled out of the hangar. They know how to count money).
Therefore, an attempt to create a "plate" was a very real task for that time. But to bring it to "condition", then it was too early. But the legends associated with it are rather a sign that it was a truly revolutionary decision much ahead of its time.
By the way, the larger the plate, the higher the Reynolds number and, therefore, the closer the laminar flow regime. I would increase the size of the plate:-).
About the complementarity of the engines on Disk Belonets to some hypothetical one?
I will say this. Then it was, perhaps, fashionable, to put the rocket engines that appeared as accelerators. They also stood on the Messerschmitts. And Schauberger, nothing to do with it. If they believed him, then only in one thing - the promised opportunity to get a flat engine, maybe even under the "plate"). The perfect layout is obtained. But he did not have an operating, even a layout, but an engine. Most likely, conjectures were intertwined with facts and a monster was born that defies any description. And the ground for this was, since during the war and after it, all the trophies, literally to the nut, passed through the NKVD. And there, the level of "specialists" was known. Found German captured engines were so unusual for mere mortals that under their impression any spinning "piece of iron" in the casing could fall into the category of a mysterious engine. Yes and allieswere in exactly the same position."
But back to German discs. After all, as I said earlier, the development was carried out in parallel in several directions.
Disks Schriever - Habermol (Schriever, Habermol)
This device is considered the world's first vertical take-off aircraft. The first prototype - "wheel with wing" It was tested near Prague in February 1941. It had piston engines and a Walter liquid-propellant rocket engine.
The design resembled a bicycle wheel. A wide ring rotated around the cabin, the role of spokes of which was played by adjustable blades. They could be installed in the required positions for both horizontal and vertical flight. The pilot was positioned as in a regular plane, then his position was changed to almost recumbent. The main disadvantage of the apparatus was the significant vibration caused by the rotor imbalance. An attempt to make the outer rim heavier did not bring the desired results and this concept was abandoned in favor of a "vertical aircraft" or FAU-7 (V-7), developed as part of the "Weapons of Vengeance" program, VergeltungsWaffen.
For this model, a steering mechanism similar to an aircraft (vertical tail) was used for stabilization and the engine power was increased. The model, tested in May 1944 near Prague, had a diameter of 21 m; the rate of climb is 288 km / h (for example, the Me-163, the fastest aircraft of World War II, is 360 km / h); horizontal flight speed 200 km / h;
This concept was further developed in a disc, assembled in 1945 at the Cesko Morava plant. It was similar to the previous models, had a diameter of 42 m. The rotor was driven into rotation by means of nozzles located at the ends of the blades. The engine was a Walter reactive plant that decomposes hydrogen peroxide.
A wide flat ring rotated around the domed cockpit, powered by controlled nozzles. On February 14, 1945, the vehicle reached an altitude of 12,400 m, horizontal flight speed was about 200 km / h. According to other sources, this machine (or one of them) at the end of 1944 was tested in the Spitsbergen area, where it was lost … The most interesting thing is that in 1952 a disc-shaped apparatus was actually found there. More details
The post-war fate of the designers is not exactly known. Otto Habermohl, as his German colleague, the designer Andreas Epp, later claimed, came to the USSR. Schriever, who died in a car accident in 1953, escaped Soviet captivity and was seen in the United States.