Designed in the 1930s, some see the barrel-shaped plane as more like a cask, with a cylindrical body that covered the engine and propeller so the thrust would be more dynamic. The Caproni-Stipa takes the joke about going over Niagara Falls in a barrel and spins it on its head until it gains enough momentum to take off. It was a short-lived dream, however, with just three hover flights in California’s Mojave Desert in 1999 before the company declared bankruptcy in 2001. It was designed to be a single-stage-to-orbit manned spacecraft that would reduce the cost of ferrying supplies to space. Built in the 1990s, the vehicle kind of looks like a badminton shuttlecock. The Rotary Rocket is a more recent entry into this world. (Source: Smithsonian Air and Space Museum ) More tests were ordered before eventually the Navy and NASA’s precursor ruled it practical but not as enticing as high-speed jets. The vehicle had a circular wing measuring 23.3 feet in diameter and, after a 139-hour testing program, it was determined it flew in a weird way, but those bugs could be ironed out. A uniform windflow would allow the craft to take off and land at slower speeds, making it a great fit for the U.S. Charles Zimmerman, the project’s mastermind, reasoned that a circular aircraft would fight with less drag than one with a more conventional look. The Vought V-173, lovingly called the “Flying Pancake” by those who worked on the experimental vehicle in the late 1940s.
Here’s a look at 20 machines that are the aeronautic equivalent of bumblebees: They don’t look like they should be able to fly, but they do:
In those intervening years, there were scores of ideas and dreams and sketches of concepts that would make gravity-trapped people soar. It would take more than 400 additional years until the Wright brothers were successfully, briefly, able to put air between themselves and the ground with a flying machine, the precursor to today’s jets and tomorrow’s jetpacks and interplanetary exploring vehicles. In 1485, Leonardo DaVinci had his weird bicycle-with-wheels flying contraption that never quite took off. A wise-ish man sporting harem pants once said, “I always believe that the sky is the beginning of the limit.” Sure, the prancing philosopher in question is MC Hammer, but his observation might be shared by some of the individuals who are currently trying or have already attempted to get humankind safely airborne in a vehicle that can also deliver us to the grocery store via the traditional method-driving the family car.
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