Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion (58 page)

Aviation Report
, 19 October 1954

G
RAVITICS
S
TEPS

Specification writers seem to be still rather stumped to know what to ask for in the very hazy science of electro-gravitic propelled vehicles.
They are at present faced with having to plan the first family of things—first of these is the most realistic type of operational test rig, and second the first type of test vehicle.
In turn this would lead to sponsoring of a combat disk.
The preliminary test rigs which gave only feeble propulsion have been somewhat improved, but of course the speeds reached so far are only those more associated with what is attained on the roads rather than in the air.
But propulsion is now known to be possible, so it is a matter of feeding enough KVA into condensers with better k figures.
50,000 is a magic figure for the combat saucer—it is this amount of KVA and this amount of k that can be translated into Mach 3 speeds.

Meanwhile Glenn Martin now feels ready to say in public that they are examining the unified field theory to see what can be done.
It would probably be truer to say that Martin and other companies are now looking for men who can make some kind of sense out of Einstein’s equations.
There’s nobody in the air industry at present with the faintest idea of what it is all about.
Also, just as necessary, companies have somehow to find administrators who know enough of the mathematics to be able to guess what kind of industrial investment is likely to be necessary for the company to secure the most rewarding prime contracts in the new science.
This again is not so easy since much of the mathematics just cannot be translated into words.
You either understand the figures, or you cannot ever have it explained to you.
This is rather new because even things like indeterminacy in quantum mechanics can be more or less put into words.

Perhaps the main thing for management to bear in mind in recruiting men is that essentially electro-gravitics is a branch of wave technology and much of it starts with Planck’s dimensions of action, energy and time, and some of this is among the most firm and least controversial sections of modern atomic physics.

Aviation Report
, 19 November 1954

E
LECTRO
-G
RAVITICS
P
UZZLE

Back in 48 and 49, the public in the U.S.
had a surprisingly clear idea of what a flying saucer should, or could, do.
There has never been any realistic explanation of what propulsion agency could make it do those things, but its ability to move within its own gravitation field was presupposed from its maneuverability.
Yet all this was at least two years before electro-static energy was shown to produce propulsion.
It is curious that the public were so ahead of the empiricists on this occasion, and there are two possible explanations.
One is that optical illusions or atmospheric phenomena offered a preconceived idea of how the ultimate aviation device ought to work.
The other explanation might be that this was a recrudescence of Jung’s theory of the Universal Mind which moves up and down in relation to the capabilities of the highest intellects and this may be a case of it reaching a very high peak of perception.

But for the air industries to realize an electro-gravitic aircraft means a return to basic principles in nuclear physics, and a re-examination of much in wage technology that has hitherto been taken for granted.
Anything that goes any way towards proving the unified field theory will have as great a bearing on electro-gravitics efforts on the furtherance of nuclear power generally.
But the aircraft industry might as well face up to the fact that priorities will in the end be competing with the existing nuclear science commitments.
The fact that electro-gravitics has important applications other than for a weapon will however strengthen the case for governments to get in on the work going on.

Aviation Report
, 28 January 1955

M
ANAGEMENT
N
OTE FOR
E
LECTRO
-G
RAVITICS

The gas turbine engine produced two new companies in the U.S.
engine field and they have, between them, at various times offered the traditional primes rather formidable competition.
Indeed General Electric at this moment has, in the view of some, taken the Number two position.
In Britain no new firms managed to get a footing, but one, Metro-Vick, might have done if it had put its whole energies into the business.
It is on the whole unfortunate for Britain that no bright newcomer has been able to screw up competition in the engine field as English Electric have done in the airframe business.

Unlike the turbine engine, electro-gravitics is not just a new propulsion system, it is a new mode of thought in aviation and communications, and it is something that may become all-embracing.
Theoretical studies of the science unfortunately have to extend right down to the mathematics of the meson and there is no escape from that.
But the relevant facts wrung from the nature of the nuclear structure will have their impact on the propulsion system, the airframe and also its guidance.
The airframe, as such, would not exist, and what is now a complicated stressed structure becomes some convenient form of hard envelope.
New companies therefore who would like to see themselves as major defence prime contractors in ten or fifteen years’ time are the ones most likely to stimulate development.
Several typical companies in Britain and the U.S.
come to mind—outfits like AiResearch, Raytheon, Plessey in England, Rotax and others.
But the companies have to face a decade of costly research into theoretical physics and it means a great deal of trust.
Companies are mostly overloaded already and they cannot afford to, but when they sit down and think about the matter they can scarcely avoid the conclusion that they cannot afford not to be in at the beginning.

Aviation Report
, 8 February 1955

E
LECTRO
-G
RAVITICS
B
REAKTHROUGHS

Lawrence Bell said last week he though that the tempo of development leading to the use of nuclear fuels and antigravitational vehicles (he meant presumably ones that create their own gravitational field independently of the earth’s) would accelerate.
He added that the breakthroughs now feasible will advance their introduction ahead of the time it has taken to develop the turbojet to its present pitch.
Beyond the thermal barrier was a radiation barrier, and he might have added ozone poisoning and meteorite hazards, and beyond that again a time barrier.
Time however is not a single calculable entity and Einstein has taught that an absolute barrier to aviation is the environmental barrier in which there are physical limits to any kind of movement from one point in space-time continuum to another.
Bell (the company not the man) have a reputation as experimentalists and are not so earthy as some of the other U.S.
companies; so while this first judgment on progress with electrogravitics is interesting, further word is awaited from the other major elements of the air business.
Most of the companies are now studying several forms of propulsion without heat engines though it is early days yet to determine which method will see the light of day first.
Procurement will open out because the capabilities of such aircraft are immeasurably greater than those envisaged with any known form of engine.

Aviation Report
, 15 July 1955

T
HERMONUCLEAR
-E
LECTROGRAVITICS
I
NTERACTION

The point has been made that the most likely way of achieving the comparatively low fusion heat needed—1,000,000 degrees provided it can be sustained (which it cannot be in fission for more than a microsecond or two of time)—is by use of a linear accelerator.
The concentration of energy that may be obtained when accelerators are rigged in certain ways make the production of very high temperatures feasible but whether they could be concentrated enough to avoid a thermal heat problem remains to be seen.
It has also been suggested that linear accelerators would be the way to develop the high electrical energies needed for creation of local gravitational systems.
It is possible therefore to imagine that the central core of a future air vehicle might be a linear accelerator which would create a local weightless state by use of electrostatic processes and turn heat into energy without chemical processes for propulsion.
Eventually—towards the end of this century—the linear accelerator itself would not be required and a ground generating plant would transmit the necessary energy for both purposes by wave propagation.

Aviation Report
, 30 August 1955

P
OINT ABOUT
T
HERMONUCLEAR
R
EACTION
R
EACTORS

The 20-year estimate by the AEC last week that lies between present research frontiers and the fusion reactor probably refers to the time it will take to tap fusion heat.
But it may be thought that rather than use the molecular and chemical processes of twisting heat into thrust it would be more appropriate to use the new heat source in conjunction with some form of nuclear thrust producer which would be in the form of electrostatic energy.
The first two Boeing nuclearjet prototypes now under way are being designed to take either molecular jets, or nuclear jets in case the latter are held up for one reason, or another.
But the change from molecular to direct nuclear thrust production in conjunction with the thermonuclear reactor is likely to make the aircraft designed around the latter a totally different breed of cat.
It is also expected to take longer than two decades, though younger executives in trade might expect to live to see a prototype.

Aviation Report
, 14 October 1955

E
LECTROGRAVITICS
F
EASIBILITY

Opinion on the prospects of using electrostatic energy for propulsion, and eventually for creation of a local gravitational field isolated from the earth’s has naturally polarized into the two opposite extremes.
There are those who say it is nonsense from start to finish, and those who are satisfied from performance already physically manifest that it is possible and will produce air vehicles with absolute capabilities and no moving parts.
The feasibility of a mach 3 fighter (the present aim in studies) is dependent on a rather large k extrapolation, considering the pair of saucers that have physically demonstrated the principle only achieved a speed of some 30 fps.
But, and this is very important, they have attained a working velocity using a very inefficient (even by to-day’s knowledge) form of condenser complex.
These humble beginnings are surely as hopeful as Whittle’s early postulations.

It was, by the way, largely due to the early references in Aviation Report that work is gathering momentum in the U.S.
Similar studies are beginning in France, and in England, some men are on the job full time.

Aviation Report
, 15 November 1955

E
LECTRO
-G
RAVITICS
E
FFORT
W
IDENING

Companies studying the implications of gravitics are said, in a new statement, to include Glenn Martin, Convair, Sperry-Rand, Sikorsky, Bell, Lear Inc.
and Clark Electronics.
Other companies who have previously evinced interest include Lockheed Douglas and Hiller.
The remainder are not disinterested, but have not given public support to the new science—which is widening all the time.
The approach in the U.S.
is in a sense more ambitious than might have been expected.
The logical approach, which has been suggested by Aviation Studies, is to concentrate on improving the output of electrostatic rigs in existence that are known to be able to produce thrust.
The aim would be to concentrate on electrostatics for propulsion first and widen the practical engineering to include establishment of local gravity forcelines, independent of those of the earth’s to provide unfettered vertical movement as and when the mathematics develops.

However, the U.S.
approach is rather to put money into fundamental theoretical physics of gravitation in an effort first to create the local gravitational field.
Working rigs would follow in the wake of the basic discoveries.
Probably the correct course would be to sponsor both approaches, and it is now time that the military stepped in with big funds.
The trouble about the idealistic approach to gravity is that the aircraft companies do not have the men to conduct such work.
There is every expectation in any case that the companies likely to find the answers lie outside the aviation field.
These would emerge as the masters of aviation in its broadest sense.