"Space-Ship Marvel Seen if Gravity
is Outwitted"
NEW YORK HERALD-TRIBUNE:
"FLYING SAUCER OF THE FUTURE? - A reproduction of an oil
painting by Eugene M. Gluhareff, president of Gluhareff Helicopter &
Airplane Corp. of Manhattan Beach, Calif., showing a 'saucer-shaped'
aircraft or space ship for exploring far beyond the earth's atmosphere
and gravity field. Mr. Gluhareff portrays it operating at 'moderate
speed' over the New York - New England area and notes that in the
painting a 'propulsive blast of the electron beams from the rear of
the saucer is visible, giving the saucer a translational force,'"
"SPEEDS OF THOUSANDS OF MILES AN HOUR WITHOUT A JOLT
HELD LIKELY"
This is the second in a series on new pure and applied
research into the mysteries of gravity and efforts to devise ways to
counteract it. written by Ansel E. Talbert, military and Aviation
editor, N.Y.H.T.
"Scientists today regard the earth as a giant magnet.
Many in America's aircraft & electronics industries are excited over
the possibility of using its magnetic and gravitational fields as a
medium of support for amazing
'flying vehicles' which will not depend on the air for lift.
Space ships capable of accelerating in a few seconds to
speeds many thousand of miles an hour and making sudden changes of
course at these speeds without subjecting their passengers to the
so-called 'G-forces' caused by gravity's pull also are envisioned.
These concepts are part of a new program to solve the secret of
gravity and universal gravitation already in progress in many top
scientific laboratories and long-established industrial firms of the
nation.
NUCLEAR RESEARCH AIDS: Although scientists still know
little about gravity and its exact relationship to electromagnetism,
recent nuclear research and experiments with 'high energy machines'
such as the Brookhaven Cosmotron are providing a flood of new evidence
believed to have a bearing on this.
William P. Lear, inventor and chairman of the board of
Lear, Inc., one of the nation's largest electronics firms specializing
in aviation, for months has been going over new developments and
theories relating to gravity with his chief scientists and engineers.
Mr. Lear in 1950 received the Collier Trophy from the
President of the United States 'for the greatest achievement in
aviation in America' through developing a light-weight automatic pilot
and approach control system for jet fighter planes. He is convinced
that it will he possible to create
artificial 'electro-gravitational fields whose huge polarity can be
controlled to cancel out gravity.'
He told this correspondent: 'All the (mass) materials
and human beings within these fields will be part of them. They will
be adjustable so as to increase or decrease the weight of any object
in its surroundings. They won't be affected by the earth's gravity or
that of any celestial body.
'This means that if any person was in an
anti-gravitational airplane or space ship that carried along its own
gravitational field - no matter how fast you accelerated or changed
course - your body wouldn't any more feel it than it now feels the
speed of the earth.'
Scientists and laymen for centuries have been familiar
with the phenomena that 'like' poles of two magnets - the north and
the north poles for example - repel each other while 'unlike' poles
exert an attraction. In ancient times 'lodestones' possessing natural
magnetism were thought to possess magical powers.
FARADAY'S DISCOVERIES: But the nineteenth century
discoveries of England's great scientist, Michael Faraday, paved the
way for construction of artificial 'electro-magnets' - in which
magnetism is produced by means of electric currents. They retain it
only so long as the current is flowing. An electromagnet can be made
by winding around a soft iron 'core' - a coil of insulated wire
carrying electric current. Its strength depends primarily on the
number of turns in the coil rather than the strength of the current.
Even today, America's rapidly expanding electronics
industry is constantly finding new uses for electromagnets. For
example, Jack Fletcher, a young electronics and aeronautical engineer
of Covina, Calif., has just built a 'Twenty-First Century Home'
containing an electronic stove functioning by
magnetic repulsion.
PAN FLOATS IN AIR: In it seven coils of wire on
laminated iron cores are contained inside a plywood cabinet of blond
mahogany. The magnetic field from these coils induces 'eddy currents'
in an aluminum cooking pan nineteen inches in diameter, which interact
and lift the pan into space like a miniature 'flying saucer.'
The cooking pan floats about two inches in the air above
the stove in a stabilized condition; 'eddy currents' generate the heat
that warms it while the stove top itself remains cold. The aluminum
pan will hold additional pots and it can be used as a griddle. It is,
of course, a variation of
several other more familiar magnetic repulsion gadgets including the
'mysterious floating metal ball' of science hall exhibits.
No type of electromagnet known to science or industry
would have any application to the building of a real aircraft or
'flying vehicle'. But one of America's most brilliant young
experimental designers, Eugene M. Gluhareff, president of Gluhareff
Helicopter and Airplane Corp. of Manhattan Beach, Calif., has made
several theoretical design studies of round or saucer-shaped
'vehicles' for travel into outer space, having
atomic generators as their basic 'engines'.
SON OF COPTER DESIGNER: Mr. Gluhareff is the son of
Michael E. Gluhareff, chief designer for Dr. Igor I. Sikorsky,
helicopter and multi-engined aircraft pioneer. Dr. Sikorsky and the
elder Mr. Gluhareff, who has won the Alexander Klemin award, one of
aviation's highest honours, are themselves deeply concerned in the
problem of overcoming gravitation.
The younger Mr. Gluhareff already has been responsible
for several successful advanced designs of less amazing "terrestrial"
aircraft. He envisions the electric power obtained from the atomic
generators operating electronic reactors -'that is, obtaining
propulsion by the acceleration of electrons to a very high velocity
and expelling them into space in the same
manner that hot gases are expelled from jet engines. ' Such an
arrangement would not pollute the atmosphere with radioactive vapors.
COULD CONTROL ACCELERATION: Because of its 'long-lasting
fuel', an atomic-electronic flying disk would be able to control its
acceleration to any speed desired and there would be no need for being
'shot into space' according to Mr. Gluhareff. Radial electronic beams
around the saucer's rim would be operating constantly and would
sustain flight by 'acting against gravity.'
Mr. Gluhareff thinks that control can be achieved by a
slight differentiation of the deflection of electronic beams in either
direction: the beams would act in the same way as an orthodox plane's
ailerons and elevator.
GRAVITATIONAL CHANGES: Mr. Gluhareff agrees with Dr.
Pascual Jordan of Hamburg University, one of Europe's outstanding
authorities on gravitation who proved many parts of the 'Quantum
Theory' of Dr. Max Planck, that it will be possible to induce
substantial changes in the gravitational fields of rotating masses
through electromagnetic research. Dr. Jordan has just signed a
contract to do research for Martin Aircraft Corp. of Baltimore.
Norman V. Peterson guided missiles engineer of the
Sperry-Gyroscope Division of Sperry-Rand Corp. of Great Neck, L.I.,
who as president of the American Astronautical Society attended the
recent 'earth satellite' meeting in Copenhagen corroborates the theory
that 'nuclear powered - or solar powered - ion electron beam
reactors - will give impetus to the conquest of space'.
"FLOATING COOKING PAN - The 'electronic stove'
functioning by magnetic repulsion built by Jack Fletcher, a young
engineer of West Covina, Calif., The aluminum cooking pan, nineteen
inches in diameter, floats two inches above the cabinet like a
miniature 'flying saucer'. It is completely stable while 'hovering'
and can be used as a griddle or as a holder for additional pots and
pans. 'Eddy currents' from a magnetic field
created by an electromagnet inside the cabinet have warmed the pan -
although the stove top remains completely cold."
Monday, November 21, 1955
pp. 1 & 6