Vesco relied upon his own understanding of the subject which was
gained during the war and documented them with facts gleaned from
his research into British intelligence files. His explanation
has been largely vindicated both by reports of sightings within
Austria and through United States military documents obtained
independently through the Freedom Of Information Act. Why then
should not the other explanations given us by Vesco be worthy of
further inquiry? While discussing German saucer development,
Vesco described German research designed to overcome the drag
limitations imposed upon aircraft by boundary layer effects.
Boundary layer effects refer to the flow of air across the wing
of an aircraft in flight. The air forms sheets of air moving
across the wing, the slowest moving sheet being closest to the
wing. At high speeds these slower moving layers collide with
oncoming air molecules of the atmosphere causing areas of
turbulence with translate into atmospheric drag as a practical
matter. Elimination of the boundary layer would mean that the
aircraft could fly faster or expend less energy to fly at any
given speed (1)(2).
Swept wings, a German innovation, represent an aircraft
designer's response toward lessening the effects of drag on high
speed aircraft wings. It was found that air passing over the
wings at an angle retarded boundary layer formation. Therefore,
turbulence was less apt to form. The swept back-wings of the Me163 rocket interceptor may have been the result of this research.
An advanced model of the Me-262 jet fighter was to incorporate
fully swept-back wings. But German aircraft designers of those
times wanted to go further. They wanted to eliminate the
boundary layer completely.
They proposed to do this with suction wings (3). The literature
on German efforts toward elimination of the boundary layer using
suction wings is voluminous, as Vesco has pointed out. Beginning
in the early 1940s German designers cut slots into experimental
aircraft and auxiliary engines were employed to suck in the
boundary layer through the wing itself and redirect this air into
the fuselage and out the rear of the aircraft.(4). This proved to
be more complicated than first anticipated. It was found that
the area of turbulence, eddy currents caused by the boundary
layer, moved across the wing from front to back as air speed
increased. A slot at one position on the wing might work at one
speed but not another. This meant that many, many slots covering
the expanse of the wing would be needed to tot