# Funny airplanes **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 6, 2000, 11:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791 "2000-05-06T23:38:43Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/21 "2003-05-22T01:35:51Z")
Not what the OP was asking, but [here](http://www.lassogeier.de/archiv/bv141/fan85.htm) is one of the world’s strangest aircraft- the Blohm & Voss BV141. An experimental WW2 design, it is perhaps the most asymmetrical airplane ever built. It apparently flew well enough, but was just too strange for people to accept. ---
**Author:** ![Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/46a35a/32.png) [@Tim\_T-Bonham.net](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tim_T-Bonham.net)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/22 "2003-05-22T07:14:24Z")
The book “The World’s Worst Aircraft”, by Bill Yenne, Dorset Press, contains photos of many of these early, failed aircraft designs. He also makes the statement "aircraft designers in the years before 1910 _didn’t know what airplanes were supposed to look like!_. You might find this book interesting. There are several photos in there that look similar to your description. Regarding the OP, photography was well developed at this time, and even moving newsreel photography, so it’s quite possible that some of this film _is real_ newsreel footage. So you could contact those companies that a previous poster mentioned. However, I’d guess that the umbrella-cart one and the human-powered flight attempts are probably later re-creations. ---
**Author:** ![commasense](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/commasense/32/3017_2.png) [@commasense](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/commasense)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 8:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/23 "2003-05-22T20:26:55Z")
I wrote to a friend of mine who is an aviation film historian at one of the world’s top air and space museums, and he forwarded the following info: > [@](#): > > As for _Aeronautical Oddities In The News,_ it is indeed a collection of newsreels from just about every newsreel company I have heard of: Pathe, Hearst Metrotone, Fox Movietone, etc. There are several versions in existence but I don’t know if they are all original productions or simply recut versions of earlier versions. Some of them have natural sound. This implies that the earliest of the segments dates from sometime after 1927, earliest sound-on-film technology. > > The basic history is that _Aeronautical Oddities In The News_ was originally assembled by the Army Air Corps as a gag reel. There is a version with the opening title card that reads “Aeronautical oddities. Assembled by the US Army Air Corps. These ideas are solely the property of the inventors. Any similarity to Air Corps products is purely coincidental (don’t blame me).” (The “don’t blame me” is part of the title card.) This version is a sound reel with many of the inventors talking about their inventions. > > I have not managed to identify all of the people in the segments. However, I have managed to find enough to convince myself that they are “loonies with powerful engines.” > > W. P. Kindree made the umbrella-like “Sky Car” helicopter that jumps up and down. > > The rocket glider on a bicycle is from Van Nuys, California. The pilot is mercifully unnamed. > > [The “Venetian Blind” plane] has been identified as the Davis Multiplane but I am unconvinced. I think it is a ringer put together by Universal for their newsreel. Why would any airplane taxi between buildings like that? > > My favorite is Charles Blaine of New London, CT. He’s the guy with the wings strapped to his back running around jumping off rocks and finally jumping off a bridge into the river. I don’t have my reference nearby, but I think he was arrested for that stunt in 1934. > > I. C. Popper’s Spindle Plane is another favorite: instead of wings he has spinning drums about three feet in diameter and maybe 15 feet long. It is clear that Mr. Popper knows about the Magnus Effect (a spinning cylinder will create lift when moved through the air — the same effect controls a spinning curve ball), but he has gotten a little carried away. > > I have watched some of the outtakes from some of these stories: I.C. Popper and W.P. Kindree were both recorded by Movietone and they are insane by today’s standards. They have no rational theory of flight and never had to defend the theory they are demonstrating for the cameras. > > I think, but cannot prove, some of the stories were put-up jobs in collusion with the camera crew. And it is very funny stuff, so these loonies do provide entertainment for the movie-going public. That was what newsreels did after all — provide entertainment. This was especially true in the early 1930s — think about the economic conditions — movies were a much needed escape. I did a little further research of my own on the Sky Car, because as I wrote to my friend, “I had always thought that the Sky Car guy must have been a complete idiot: how could he possibly imagine that shaking an umbrella up and down would create lift? Then I saw one of the rarer outtakes (which you’ve no doubt seen) that shows that it’s not a solid-skinned umbrella, but has leaves that (theoretically) allow air to pass through on the upstroke, then close for the downstroke, while the whole magilla rotates. So it’s not completely idiotic; there’s at least a semblance of a concept in there somewhere. Of course, it looks like the centrifugal force of the rotation prevents the leaves from actually opening on the upstroke. And then there’s the weight of that enormous two-ton engine he’s using to drive the thing. And how did he plan to control it in the air? Or prevent counter-rotation?” I found this on an [aviation Web site](http://www.aerofiles.com) : > [@](#): > > Sky Car 1928 = 1pOH; 90hp Curtiss OX-5. > The best thing that could be said about this machine is that it was a nice try. Each blade of the 60-blade rotor had a full-radius vane attached to it that was free to flap about its radial hinge. Rotation caused the drooping vanes to swing out, closing the space between blades and forming a solid rotor disk. The point was that the rotor was forced by the engine to reciprocate up and down. When the rotor suddenly went up the vanes were flung open, allowing the air to pass between the blades; when it then moved downwards, the vanes closed and a good portion of air was thrown downwards, thus supposed to create a lifting force. A motion picture record of a flight attempt appears in film clips of odd flying machines. The invention can be seen to jump up and down heavily, but it is dubious whether this was caused by air downwash — after all, when one heavy part of the machine is forced down some other part must go up, according to the laws of mechanics. This appears to be the first helicopter in which vibration was designed into it. (— Lennart Johnsson 11/15/99). ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/24 "2003-05-22T21:31:19Z")
I’ve seen the film clip referred to… often! It seems to me that it is part of a longer series of short scenes, which include several shots of locomotive engines in head-on crashes. I think it _might_ have been compiled in the 60’s. Trinopus ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [May 22, 2003, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/25 "2003-05-22T23:17:10Z")
Thanks, guys. I’m convinced that the clips are indeed from _Aeronautical Oddities In The News._ I’m intrigued, though, as to why these obvious gags and nutcases are immortalized in otherwise serious studies in the history of aviation. Did the researchers putting documentaries together think they were real, or were they just going along with the gag? ---
**Author:** ![Zunite](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/51bf81/32.png) [@Zunite](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zunite)\ **Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/26 "2003-05-23T01:09:00Z")
Which ones do you think were gags? ---
**Author:** ![Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/earl_snake-hips_tucker/32/3269_2.png) [@Earl\_Snake-Hips\_Tucker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Earl_Snake-Hips_Tucker)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 3:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/27 "2003-07-31T03:06:47Z")
Your question was answered three years ago. Where were you? [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28777](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=28777) _Nyaaa_ And, **Johnny L.A.** , you also replied _then_. :dubious: ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [July 31, 2003, 5:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/28 "2003-07-31T05:21:30Z")
I don’t see why you couldn’t have expected them to fly - more wing area should equal more lift. Perfectly reasonable. I second the recommendation for reading “World’s Worst Aircraft”; I found it very enlightening. Since this thread is back anyhow, I’ll update the [NTSB link](http://www.ntsb.gov/NTSB/brief.asp?ev_id=29045&key=0) for the Heli-Stat. It’s kind of confusing. The report is dated in 1980, but there are pictures of it from 1985 elsewhere on the net; I assume it or another prototype crashed again later. ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [August 1, 2003, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791/29 "2003-08-01T03:21:52Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Earl Snake-Hips Tucker \* > Your question was answered three years ago. Where were you? Yeah, in a _different thread._ It didn’t occur to me that someone would open a new thread to answer one of my questions.:rolleyes: Seriously, though, I appreciate the info you provided in that thread. Maybe someday the History Channel or someone will do a documentary on the stories of the planes in those clips. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/funny-airplanes/18791.md?page=1)