The REALL News - June 1995

<body> <div id="main-title"><img src="/images/main-title.gif" width="329" height="81" alt=""></div> <div id="global-navbar"> <ul> <li><a href="/">Home</a></li> <li><a href="/about/">About Us</a></li> <li><a href="/newsletter/">Newsletter</a></li> <li><a href="/letters/">Letters</a></li> <li><a href="/calendar.html">Calendar</a></li> <li><a href="/links.html">Links</a></li> <li><a href="/search.html">Search</a></li> <li><a href="/email.html">E-Mail</a></li> </ul> </div>  <p align="center"><i>(<a href="index.html">Toggle Frames</a>)</i></p> <h1 align="center"><img src="/images/anthony/std_news.gif" alt="*" align="middle" WIDTH="64" HEIGHT="54">The REALL News<img src="/images/anthony/std_news.gif" alt="*" align="middle" WIDTH="64" HEIGHT="54"></h1> <i> <p align="center">"It's a very dangerous thing to believe in nonsense." -- James Randi</i></p> <hr> <table border="0" width="100%"> <tr> <td width="50%"><b>Volume 3 Issue 6</b></td> <td align="right" width="50%"><b>June 1995</b></td> </tr> </table> <hr> <h2 align="center">In This Issue</h2> <div align="center"><center> <table border="0" width="80%"> <tr> <th align="left">Features</th> <th align="left">Departments</th> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" width="50%"><ul> <li><a href="sociocultural-genesis-of-the-flying-saucer.html">The Sociocultural Genesis of the Flying Saucer (Swedenborg Hybrid Ornithopter of 1714)</a>, by Wesley R. Smith, Ph.D.</li> <li><a href="cold-truth-about-psychics.html">The Cold Truth about Psychics</a>, by Bob Smet</li> </ul> </td> <td valign="top" width="50%"><ul> <li><a href="chairman.html">From the Chairman</a> - David Bloomberg</li> <li><a href="editor.html">From the Editor</a> - Bob Ladendorf</li> <li><a href="masthead.html">Masthead</a></li> </ul> </td> </tr> </table> </center></div> <p> </p> <div align="center"><center> <table border="1" width="80%"> <tr> <td width="100%"><h2 align="center">The Sociocultural Genesis of the Flying Saucer<br> (Swedenborg Hybrid Ornithopter of 1714)</h2> <p align="center"><b>by Wesley R. Smith, Ph.D.</b></p> <p>Among the most badly handled, most interesting, most distorted, and most eclectic of aerospace history subjects is the origin of the use of the circular, elliptical and annular wing planforms (shapes) in aircraft design.</p> <p>A quick review of the writer's memory and library reveal that more than 50 aircraft have been designed, and/or built, using an ellipse or circle as a wing configuration. However, this listing is by no means a complete survey, only a brief overview of what can be located at hand. In fact, there is an entire U.S. Patent subclass (Class 244, Aeronautics; Subclass 21.2 Airplane, circular) dealing with aircraft using a circular wing planform. Likewise, a number of lighter-than-air or hybrid designs have appeared in the course of aeronautical history which also use the disc shape as a basis for the gas envelope. <a href="sociocultural-genesis-of-the-flying-saucer.html"><img align="top" alt="More" border="0" hspace="1" src="/images/anthony/hpoint_right.gif" WIDTH="33" HEIGHT="14">More</a></td> </tr> </table> </center></div>   </body>