Paddleplane on Paper

"To ascend vertically. . .

"To descend vertically at any desired speed. . .

"To stand still in mid-air for an indefinite period. . .

"To turn around in mid-air on its vertical axis, or

"To fly backwards. . .

"The only thing it cannot do, according to its inventors, is crash."

Last week the Curtis-Martin newspapers (New York Evening Post, Philadelphia Public Ledger and Inquirer) excitedly front-paged the "invention" of such a revolutionary airplane in Germany. The story, sent from Berlin by Pulitzer-Prize-winning Correspondent Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, reported experiments by Dr. Adolf Rohrbach, head of Rohrbach Metal Airplane Construction Co., on an airplane without propeller or conventional wing. From each side of the fuselage extends an elongated paddle-wheel driven by a 120-h.p. engine. Each paddle-wheel is composed of three blades to provide lift and forward thrust. The angle of each blade shifts as the whole wheel revolves, thus giving thrust in any direction desired by the pilot. Rate of the wheel at cruising speed: 400 r.p.m.

What Reporter Knickerbocker stated, and what his editors seemed to overlook, is that the Rohrbach experiment so far "is only a millennium on paper." Nor is the Rohrbach principle entirely new. Dr. Rohrbach, a builder most famed for his seaplanes (Rohrbach "Rostra." Rohrbach "Romar") has been working on the revolving-wing theory with infinite care for more than two years but has not progressed beyond preliminary wind-tunnel tests.

In the U. S. a Philadelphia engineer named Haviland H. Platt applied for patents on a revolving-wing in 1927. has been quietly developing it ever since. A large model was designed in consultation with Professor Alexander Klemin. director of New York University's Daniel Guggenheim School of Aeronautics. Currently the Government is closely observing the Platt tests.

Since the Knickerbocker story appeared, other U. S. inventors have popped up with rotary-wing schemes. Most conspicuous were Jonathan Caldwell of Orangeburg, N. Y. with a full-sized contrivance which has yet to leave the ground and one Rosemond T. Anderson of Miami with a contraption built "to fly 1,000 m.p.h."

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