he further identifies the very same industrial firms which
supported Schriever-Habermohl as supporting this project (12).
In reality, both should be viewed as one project with different
aspects.
The designs envisioned by Dr. Miethe and Professor Belluzzo were
quite different from those of Schriever and Habermohl. Designs
of this project consisted of a discus-shaped craft whose outer
periphery did not rotate. Two designs have positively been
nttributed to Miethe and Belluzzo although three designs exist as
part of their legacy.
The first design is made known to us from Georg Klein's article
in the October 16, 1954 edition of the Swiss newspaper, TagesAnzeiger fuer Stadt und Kanton Zuerich, mentioned above. The
same design is reproduced in the book by J. Andreas Epp. This
saucer was not intended to take-off vertically but at an angle as
does a conventional airplane. In this design twelve jet engines
are shown to be mounted "outboard" to power the craft. The
cockpit was mounted at the rear of the vehicle and a periscope
used to monitor directions visually impaired. Notably, a large
gyroscope mounted internally at the center of the craft provided
stability. This and other Miethe-Belluzzo designs were said to
be 42 meters or 138 feet in diameter.
Aeronautical writer Hans Justus Meier has challenged this design
on a number of grounds (13). It is certainly possible, if not
probable, that the outboard jet-turbine arrangement is incorrect,
one might ask, if this was an outboard jet-turbine design, then
what purpose did the bloated central body serve? In reality the
twelve jets may simply have been jet nozzles of one engine.
Certainly the large central body had a function, it must have
housed the engine.
But how could the authenticity of this design come under question
when Georg Klein is vouching for it in his article? The answer
may be that Klein never saw this design himself and he simply is
relying on the descriptions of those that did. If one reads the
works of Klein carefully, he never claims to have seen this model
in flight. As a matter of fact, he never claims to have actually
seen this design at all. We will return to the flaws with
Klein's description momentarily.
The second Miethe design seems to have originated with a 1975
German magazine article (14). This version shows a cockpit above
nnd below the center of the craft. Four jet engines lying behind
the cockpits are shown as the powerplants. No real detail is
supplied in this article. This design is not ever discussed in
the text which deals primarily with the Schriever-Habermohl
Project. Some writers have speculate d on this particular design,
supplying detail (15). For now, however, no named source seems
to be able to link this design with the Miethe-Belluzzo Project.
Therefore, at least for the time being, we must put this design
in suspense and focus on the first and next design in discussing
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