The flying saucer snapped up by US army

Daily Mail ^

[Lorianne]

[lqclamar]

Fascinating.

[RedCell]

Hmmm... Caractacus Potts of the 21st century?

[tang-soo]

... And that’s Uncle Joe he’s moving kinda slow at the Junction!” WHOO-WHOO!

[Boiler Plate]

Huh. Interesting.

[Professional Engineer]

Ping

[John123]

Farmers in America already use unmanned aerial vehicles to inspect crops.

Aha! I think I found the culprit to all those mysterious crop circles...

[Yossarian]

If you go to the GFS Projects home page, you can see a video of the flying saucer in action.

Good for Mr. Hatton! It's good to see little innovative companies come up with cool stuff. Just make sure the *#!& mainland Chinese don't steal it!

[Nailbiter]

ping

[endthematrix]

"based on an aerodynamic principle that has been around for nearly 100 years. "

Or 15 million years - Our Martian ancestors had it first! /s

[MHGinTN]

We get ‘crop circles’ in East TN, but we have observed them being made by ‘devil tails’, small vortexes formed during windy thunderstorms.

[Dallas59]

This is deliberate theft! Bush knows about UFOs!

[endthematrix]

http://jlnlabs.imars.com/gfsuav/n02.htm

[endthematrix]

Aliens that is...

[B-Chan]

Ah, the Coanda Effect. The fan draws air over the dome-shaped body, which acts as a circular wing. As wth any wing, airflow over the circular wing surface produces a differential in air pressure over the wing surface, with the air pressure on top of the dome becoming less than the air pressure below it, generating lift. Directional control is created by spoling the lift with flaps, thus lessening the lift on the side of the dome where the flap is located; the dome dips in that direction, the thrust vector becomes unbalanced, and the craft moves in the direction of the spoled lift.

Couple two of these together, rig throttles to allow steering by differential thrust = flying car.

[endthematrix]

[Grizzled Bear]

Couple two of these together, rig throttles to allow steering by differential thrust = flying car.

---

But can it fold up and be put in your pocket like on “The Jetsons?”

[Pontiac]

What provides the counter rotation to the rotor?

[John123]

We get ‘crop circles’ in East TN, but we have observed them being made by ‘devil tails’, small vortexes formed during windy thunderstorms.

You are too late. I already made my tin foil hat...

[B-Chan]

I’m not sure. From the look of the thing, I’d guess the thrust is vectored in a direction counter to that of the impeller’s spin. Or maybe there’s a flywheel we can’t see. I’d need to examine it close up to have any real idea.