Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion (7 page)

Presumably, Cady was unable to see the discs perform at higher voltages because of the limitations of the power supply that Brown chose for the occasion.
That is, the ONR data indicate that the output voltage progressively leveled off to 47 kilovolts as the control panel voltage dial was turned up to increasingly higher settings.
This indicates that the 0.7 milliamp that the test rig was drawing was more current than the high-voltage power supply was designed to provide.
^*2
For his own research, Brown probably used a transformer that had a slightly higher current rating, perhaps 2 milliamps.
Cady conducted a test in which he removed one of the saucers from its carousel and suspended it from the ceiling to measure its static propelling thrust at various applied voltages.
At 47 kilovolts, he observed that the discs delivered only 8 grams of thrust.

Cady concluded that the technology was impractical for aviation because the discs were propelled with an efficiency over an order of magnitude less than the efficiency of a jet engine.
He had failed to realize that the trends in his own data showed that the speed and propulsion efficiency of the discs increased exponentially with increasing voltage and that he had been observing their behavior in a very unfavorable voltage range.
A logarithmic plot of the ONR data (see figure 2.4) reveals that above 38 kilovolts, the velocity of the discs increased according to the 5.5 power of voltage and that their propulsion efficiency increased according to the 4.5 power of voltage.
⁹
These projections may be somewhat optimistic, as most of Brown’s writings state that thrust increases according to the second or third power of voltage.
Nevertheless, enormous speeds and efficiencies would undoubtedly have been attained at higher voltages.

Cady maintained that it was unnecessary to introduce exotic ideas such as electrically induced gravity fields because the behavior of the discs could be explained entirely in terms of the conventional ion-wind effect.
That is, he believed that the discs obtained their thrust because ionized particles impacting the disc electrodes imparted more of their momentum in the forward direction than the reverse direction.
On the contrary, although ion-wind forces would have been present, such forces would have been too small to account for the thrust.
Furthermore, vacuum chamber tests that Brown later carried out on electrostatically charged rotors and saucers showed that thrust persisted even in the absence of ion discharge.

Cady also suggested that the discs may have been propelled forward by unbalanced electrostatic forces operating between the discharged ions and the disc that was discharging them.
This is a more likely possibility than ion wind.
For example, positive ions emitted by the leading wire electrode would move toward the negatively charged disc body, setting up a positive-ion space charge behind the wire and ahead of the disc (see figure 2.3).
These charges would repel forward the positively charged wire and attract forward the negatively charged disc body.
As the saucer’s speed increases, the airflow would assist in displacing the positive ions behind the wire, thereby improving the forward propulsive force.
Also, the positive-ion wind and the airflow passing the disc would blow the negative ions toward the rear of the disc, and as a result, their space charge would electrostatically repel forward the negatively charged rear wire and disc body.
As a result, both the negative and positive ions would work together to create a forward thrust on the saucer.

Figure 2.4.
A logarithmic plot showing how the velocity (right line) and efficiency (left line) of Thomas Townsend Brown’s electrogravitic discs increased with voltage.
Empty squares and circles indicate the ONR measurements of the 1.5-foot-diameter discs, while solid squares and circles indicate the performance of an improved 2-foot-diameter model.
(P.
LaViolette, © 1997)

Brown referred to a mass effect (gravitational force effect) operating in the electrokinetic movement of massive high-K dielectrics but did not similarly report a mass effect operating in the case of his electrokinetic disc experiments.
Thus it is not clear how much of the thrust he was attributing to gravitic forces and how much to electrostatic forces.
Nevertheless, his research colleagues did seem to think that a new electrogravitic principle was needed to account for the propulsion.
In his 1952 write-up, Rose stated that “anyone wanting to understand electrogravitation and its application to astronautics must dismiss the principles of electromagnetics in order to grasp the essentially different principles of electrogravitation.
.
.
.
Electrogravitation must be understood as an entirely new field of scientific investigation and technical development.”
¹⁰

As we can see from entries he made in 1943 in one of his laboratory notebooks, Brown was exploring an “ether” theory interpretation of the electrogravitic phenomenon, one that has many similarities to sub-quantum kinetics.
More will be said about this in chapter 4.

The ONR researcher’s skeptical reaction was typical of individuals who were used to thinking in conventional scientific terms.
In one of his articles on Brown, the journalist Gaston Burridge wrote that many scientists and engineers had watched the discs fly and most of them concluded that the discs were propelled by the well-known “electric wind” phenomenon and not by some new principle of physics.
One engineer blurted out to him, “The whole thing is so screwball I don’t want to even talk about it!”
Other engineers reportedly objected to the lack of mathematical substantiation.
Burridge explained, “To engineers and scientists one equation is worth a thousand words!”
But even an equation is of little use unless it has values assigned to at least some of its main parts.
When these were not forthcoming, from a technical point of view, it appeared Brown was walking on straw legs.
¹¹

2.2 • THE SECOND PEARL HARBOR DISC DEMONSTRATION

Some years later, around 1953 or 1954, in the hope of renewing the Navy’s interest, Brown again staged a demonstration at Pearl Harbor for a number of admirals.
This time his demonstration was on a much larger scale.
From a gymnasium ceiling, at a height of 50 feet, he suspended a revolving horizontal beam that tethered a pair of 3-foot-diameter discs (see figure 2.5).
Powered by a potential of 150 kilovolts, the discs flew around a 50-foot-diameter course at such an impressive speed that the subject became highly classified.
The speed may have been in excess of 100 miles per hour, because the May 1956 issue of the Swiss aeronautics magazine Interavia stated that the discs were capable of attaining speeds of several hundred miles per hour when charged with several hundred kilovolts!
¹²
Such high velocities are not surprising considering that the ONR test data show that the speed of the discs increased exponentially with voltage.

Figure 2.5.
Sketch made by Thomas Townsend Brown showing the test setup used for demonstrating his 3-foot-diameter flying discs.
(From Brown’s November 1, 1971, letter to T.
Turman; see
appendix A
)

Brown used a different disc design for this later demonstration.
During a telephone conversation he had in the early 1970s with electrical engineer Tom Turman, Brown disclosed that the airfoil disc design depicted in his 1960 patent (no.
2,949,550) was an inferior one.
The cross-sectional view presented in that patent shows the spun aluminum discs having a knife-thin edge at their periphery (as shown in figure 2.3).
The discs used in the 1952 ONR test were of a similar design.
On the other hand, the discs that Brown flew in his gymnasium demonstration had a blunt profile, as shown in figures 2.6 and 2.7.
This design consisted of two spun aluminum discs cupped on either side of a Plexiglas sheet, but the upper disc had a “triarcuate” cross-sectional profile—a convex central bulge that turned concave farther out and that finally terminated in a convexly curved rim with a radius of curvature of ½ inch or more.
The outer rim of the lower half of the disc had a flat profile, but its outer edge was curved to make a smooth transition to the edge of the upper disc.

Also, the leading-edge electrode used in the disc flown in Brown’s gymnasium demonstration was of much smaller diameter.
In a letter he wrote to Turman in 1971, Brown noted in a sketch that he used an electrode that had a diameter of only 1 mil (0.001 inch).
This is five times smaller in diameter than the wire he used on the discs flown in his ONR test in Los Angeles.
Moreover, it is far smaller than the diameter he had specified in his 1960 patent.
His patent states that saucers designed to be energized at voltages greater than 125 kilovolts would preferably have leading-edge electrodes of large cross-section made of rods or hollow pipes having diameters measuring from ¼ to ½ inch (e.g., 250 to 500 mils) to ensure that their surface potential gradient was below the threshold required to produce a visible corona.
He maintained that energy losses associated with coronal ionization reduced the achievable thrust, but, as he acknowledged in his 1971 letter, the design specified in the patent was inferior to what he used in his Pearl Harbor gymnasium demonstration.
The leading-edge electrodes of the discs he flew in that demonstration would have had a much steeper field gradient at their surface, which would have allowed them to emit ions more effectively.

Figure 2.6.
Sketch made by Thomas Townsend Brown showing the design of the 3-foot-diameter disc airfoils he demonstrated to the military.
(From Brown’s November 1, 1971, letter to T.
Turman)

Burridge has commented that the discs emanated a slight humming sound as they flew.
¹³
This implies that Brown may have been applying a nonreversing high-voltage AC potential across his disc that, on average, established a DC potential across its electrodes.
He may have used a rectifier bridge circuit to convert the 60-cycle AC output from stration because he flew his discs at much higher voltages than used in flying his earlier model.
The asymmetrical profile of his saucer, with its curved upper surface and flat lower surface, would also have been beneficial since airflow over the surfaces would have given the saucer aerodynamic lift during flight.

Figure 2.7.
Thomas Townsend Brown holding one of his 3-foot-diameter discs, which he referred to as an experimental triarcuate ballistic electrode.
(Courtesy of the Townsend Brown Family and Qualight, L.L.C.)

After his Pearl Harbor demonstration, Brown traveled to the mainland.
Upon returning to Hawaii, he found that his room had been broken into and that some government agency had confiscated his models and notebooks and sealed his laboratory.
¹⁴
A day later, the Navy informed him that they had his notebooks and that he could have them back.
A few days after that, they said that they were not interested in his work.
They claimed that the discs must be powered by ion wind and, hence, that they would not work in outer space.
¹⁵
So here we find that the Navy had the opportunity to make changes, in the interest of national security, to any of Brown’s laboratory notebooks, including his Vega notebook.