Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion (11 page)

G
RAVITICS
S
TEPS

Specification writers seem to be still rather stumped to know what to ask for in the very hazy science of electrogravitic 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 disc.
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 [kilovolt-amperes] 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.

Aviation Report
, November 19, 1954
²⁹

The term “KVA,” which stands for kilovolt-amperes, is used exclusively in referring to power consumption in which the power source is AC.
Its use in the above passage suggests that the disc being discussed was to use high-K capacitors powered with AC, rather than DC.
³⁰
If the disc’s capacitors were instead powered exclusively with DC, then it would have been more proper to refer to kilowatts of power, or KW.
^*5
Also, this same report later states, “Perhaps the main thing for management to bear in mind in recruiting men is that essentially electrogravitics 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.”
So here is further acknowledgment that researchers were actively investigating the use of
time-varying
electric fields for electrogravitic propulsion.

Although Brown’s early demonstration discs were powered with high-voltage DC power, later demonstrations, such as the one given in a gymnasium at Pearl Harbor, appear to have instead used rectified AC.
Also, in one of his patents, Brown briefly alludes to energizing high-K dielectrics with high-frequency AC, but he kept fairly quiet about this part of his work.
How an AC-energized capacitor might be used to produce an amplified electrogravitic thrust is described in the next chapter.

During a January 25, 1955, meeting of aviation leaders held in New York, George S.
Trimble, vice president of advanced design for Glenn Martin Aircraft in Baltimore, was quoted by the Associated Press as saying, “Unlimited power, freedom from gravitational attraction, and infinitely short travel time are now becoming feasible.”
³¹
He then added that eventually all commercial air transportation would be in vehicles operating on these fantastic principles.
Recall that Brown had briefly worked at the Baltimore Glenn Martin plant sixteen years earlier, before the beginning of World War II.
Undoubtedly, he had planted the seeds about electrogravitics at that early date.

At the same meeting, Dr.
Walter R.
Dornberger, a guided missile consultant for the Bell Aircraft Corporation, predicted that airliners would eventually travel at 10,000 miles per hour (Mach 13).
This would make possible a trip from New York to Sidney, Australia, in approximately one hour.
Two weeks later, Aviation Studies issued a report disclosing that many aircraft companies were aware of the existence of this antigravity technology:

M
ANAGEMENT
N
OTE FOR
E
LECTRO-GRAVITICS

New companies .
.
.
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 it, 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
, February 8, 1955
³²

In July 1955,
Aviation Report
quoted Lawrence D.
Bell, founder of Bell Aircraft, as saying that the tempo of development leading to the use of antigravitational vehicles would accelerate and that breakthroughs that had become feasible at that time would advance the introduction of such vehicles ahead of the time it had taken to develop the turbojet.
³³
That same issue predicted that government procurement would open up “because the capabilities of such aircraft are immeasurably greater than those envisaged with any known form of engine.”

On October 15, 1955, the Department of Defense issued a news release informing the public that some government aircraft under development could resemble flying saucers.
Secretary of the Air Force Donald A.
Quarles stated:

.
.
.
we are now entering a period of aviation technology in which aircraft of unusual configuration and flight characteristics will begin to appear .
.
.
The Air Force and other Armed Services have under development several vertical-rising, high performance aircraft .
.
.
Vertical-rising aircraft capable of transition to supersonic horizontal flight will be a new phenomenon in our skies, and under certain conditions could give the illusion of the so-called flying saucer.
³⁴

Although Quarles did not refer to any unconventional propulsion technology, it may be no coincidence that just one year earlier the Pentagon had begun plans to fund the development of Brown’s electrogravitics technology.
To camouflage the truly exotic nature of the project, the news release called attention to the disc-shaped AVRO car, developed by AVRO Ltd.
of Canada.
The AVRO car was an ill-conceived vehicle that used a conventional air turbine that was ducted to provide vertical lift.
Unfortunately, its design was inherently unstable; it had the persistent tendency to flip over after rising just a few feet off the ground.

The November 1955 issue of
Aviation Report
acknowledges the key role that the Aviation Studies newsletter played in catalyzing the development of the electrogravitics industry:

E
LECTROGRAVITICS
F
EASIBILITY

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 [feet per second].
But, and this is important, they have attained a working velocity using a very inefficient (even by to-day’s knowledge) form of condenser complex .
.
.

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
, November 15, 1955
³⁵

Later that month, Ansel Talbert, military and aviation editor for the
New York Herald Tribune
, published a series of articles on the aviation industry’s interest in gravity control.
On November 20, he wrote:

A number of major, long-established companies in the United States aircrafts and electronics industries also are involved in gravity research.
Scientists in general, bracket gravity with life itself as the greatest unsolved mystery in the Universe.
But there are increasing numbers who feel that there must be a physical mechanism for its propagation which can be discovered and controlled.
Should this mystery be solved it would bring about a greater revolution in power, transportation, and many other fields than even the discovery of atomic power.
The influence of such a discovery would be of tremendous import in the field of aircraft design where the problem of fighting gravity’s effects has always been basic.
³⁶

Talbert’s article displayed a photo of two General Dynamics Convair Division scientists conducting a research experiment aimed at controlling gravity.
It showed them facing an apparatus supported on pillars that was wired with electrical connections.
In an article dated November 21, Talbert named six other firms that were involved in such studies:

Aircraft industry firms now participating or actively interested in gravity include the Glenn L.
Martin Co.
of Baltimore, builders of the nation’s first giant jet-powered flying boat; Convair of San Diego, designers and builders of the giant B-36 intercontinental bomber and the world’s first successful vertical take-off fighter; Bell Aircraft of Buffalo, builders of the first piloted airplane to fly faster than sound and a current jet “vertical takeoff and landing” airplane, and Sikorsky division of United Aircraft, pioneer helicopter builders.
Lear, Inc., of Santa Monica, one of the world’s largest builders of automatic pilots for airplanes; Clarke Electronics of Palm Springs, California, a pioneer in its field, and the Sperry Gyroscope Division of Sperry-Rand Corp., of Great Neck, L.I., which is doing important work on guided missiles and earth satellites, also have scientists investigating the gravity problem.
³⁷

Talbert also named several physicists who were interested in pursuing gravity control research:

.
.
.
current efforts to understand gravity and universal gravitation both at the sub-atomic level and at the level of the Universe have the positive backing to day of many of America’s outstanding physicists.
These include Dr.
Edward Teller of the University of California, who received prime credit for developing the hydrogen bomb; Dr.
J.
Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton; Dr.
Freeman J.
Dyson, theoretical physicist at the institute, and Dr.
John A.
Wheeler, professor of physics at Princeton University, who made important contributions to America’s first nuclear fission project.
³⁸

Others mentioned to be working on understanding gravity included Dr.
Vaclav Hlavaty of the University of Indiana and Drs.
Stanley Deser and Richard Arnowitt of Princeton’s Institute for Advanced Study.
Unlike his colleague Albert Einstein, Hlavaty believed gravity simply to be one aspect of electromagnetism.

In his November 21 article, Talbert further acknowledged the existence of a widespread industry program geared toward gravity control research:

Many in America’s aircraft and 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 thousands 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.

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 be possible to create artificial “electro-gravitational fields whose 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.”
³⁹