I can't resist posting this just for fun. Here are some "real" UFOs - or rather Real "Flying Saucers."
The French "Couzinet RC 360" was conceived from an engineering point of view as a "multiple wing aircraft" in that the "wings" are implicit aerodynamically in every direction of travel from 360 degrees. In other words, a flying saucer. The designer was hoping for an eventual VTOL capability as well. This is a preliminary 3/5 scaled jet powrered prototype in the Couzinet factory at Levallois-Perret. The project funding was cancelled by the French government before the first test flight.


Avro in Canada built this saucer which flew and hovered at low level. It was inherently unstable, which is not always a bad thing in a fighter plane (which it was not.) Here it is on the ground:

There are plenty of websites about it here.

The British "Skyship" was intended as a cargo carrier, and also could have had applications in lifting objects at construction sites.

It is essentially a saucer airship. Kind of cool. Might be a handful in a strong gust of wind.

Germany experimented with a saucer aircraft in WWII, unlike other very advanced German designs, it was rather crude and flew poorly.

Some “UFO” websites claim that the saucer plane could fly at supersonic speeds, achieve escape velocity, and “fly” in space. They avoid this picture of the actual plane in favor of an artist's conception. (But judging from the wooden propeller, fixed undercarriage, and fabric covered ailerons, the real plane would be difficult to reach supersonic speeds in.)

The U.S. Navy had an advanced saucer fighter plane many years ago. It did not enter service however.
There are other actual flying disc designs, but they all have one thing in common. They don’t fly well. Purely from a engineering point of view. If the objective is to fly well within Earth’s atmosphere, <a href="http://usaaf.com/aircraft/classes/images/PT13.jpg”>this is a much better design</a> than a saucer. Maybe not as glamorous as the saucer, but much better in the air.
Within the last 20 years however, many UFO observations have evolved over the “flying saucer” days – and the sightings by people today are now overwhelmingly in the mysterious lights category (often out of focus video images) rather than clearly seen shapes. Perhaps its easier to explain how they can move so quickly without a sonic boom or aerodynamic problems if they're a blur to begin with! [img]/phpBB/images/smiles/icon_wink.gif[/img]


<font size=-1>[ This Message was edited by: Chip on 2002-06-06 20:03 ]</font>