Okay, so it's not a UFO (unidentified flying object). It's one of Geoff's Flying Saucers.
Geoff Hatton, a hovercraft engineer in Peterborough, UK, became interested in creating a craft able to climb, hover, and manoeuvre. He founded the GFS Project (GFS stands for "Geoff's Flying Saucers") to research and develop the concept. The flying saucers he invented use something called the Coanda effect.
The Coanda Effect - Basis for the GFS Flying Saucer.
Blow over the top of a strip of paper and it rises. The air moving over the top tends to stick to the curved surface - laminar flow - and has less pressure - Bernoulli's principle - so the greater pressure of the air under the paper strip causes it to lift.
This is a simple illustration (and simplified explanation) of the Coanda effect, named after Romanian scientist Henri Coanda. Another highly visual demonstration is the way a thin strip of water follows the curve of a spoon, shown in the image below.
Coanda effect hovercraft-like vehicles were made in the 1950s, but Hatton wanted "to use the Coanda effect to make a craft not just float and go round objects but to go over them," as stated on the GFS Project web site.
How the GFS Flying Saucer Works
The amount of lift generated, and hence the flying ability of the craft, depends on several factors, including
- the shape of the curved surface
- the velocity of the air passing over the surface
- the density of the air
- the mass or weight of the vehicle
- the power of the motor
- the efficiency of the airflow
After developing a first working model in 2002, Hatton and his team undertook a three-year series of studies to maximize the lift. The airfoil shape was refined, and the efficiency of the ducted fan was improved. It took many tests and refinements to develop a stable craft that could rise and land vertically, hover in place, and fly under direct control.
Controlling the GFS Flying Saucer
Any flying vehicle has control in three axes, commonly called yaw, pitch, and roll.
- Yaw - this is left-right movement. Sets of steerable vanes on the sides of the 'bowl' allow the GFS flying saucer to turn left and right under control (other fixed vanes prevent it from spinning in counter-rotation to the propeller).
- Pitch - refers to nose-up/nose down movement. Large flaps on the bottom edge of the GFS flying saucer control pitch. With a nose-down attitude, the coanda effect moves the saucer forwards at up to 25 mph.
- Roll - is a sideways tilting movement (think of when a car rolls). Again, flaps on the bottom edge of the GFS control this (and also help prevent the wind from flipping the GFS flying saucer over).
The control is assisted with electronic gyroscopes, making the GFS flying saucer extremely stable and able to hover in place or move in any direction. The craft has a "demonstrated ability of taking off and landing on a marked out two foot square, showing precise directional control."
Advantages of the GFS Flying Saucer Over Helicopters and Other MAVs.
MAVs (Micro Air Vehicles) are currently of interest to the military and police forces as observation platforms. Robots are limited to ground use, while a MAV can peek over a wall or even fly through a doorway or open window.
According to the GFS Project, the GFS flying saucer offers benefits over current MAVs:
- stabilty in winds and cross winds (e.g. found in the "wind canyons" of city streets)
- ease of control
- greater lift for cargo, including surveillance equipment and payload
- longer flight times
- significant cost advantage
The GFS flying saucer is also safer than unmanned helicopters because it has no rotors. This means it can fly extremely close to buildings and poses no danger to people, making it safe to use in city streets.
Applications of the GFS Flying Saucer
- Military applications - a wide spectrum of observation and surveillance tasks including "hover and stare", "perch and stare", mine detection, explosives application. Because the GFS flying saucer is low-cost compared to other MAVs, GFS Projects is touting it as a disposable.
- Agriculture - a range of agricultural uses is possible including crop examination, precision application of pesticides or herbicides, herd management, soil mapping, identification of crop disease.
- Public Safety (Police, Fire) - suggested applications include search and rescue observation, traffic surveillance, listening systems, flood monitoring
- Hobby - the thing just looks like fun, and there are a lot of home-brew imitations. GFS Projects has not moved in this direction, perhaps because they do NOT want their GFS flying saucer to be taken as a toy.
"The GFS FENSTAR is designed to deploy into areas that are not safe or accessible for humans and to assist the authorities in providing a secure...society."
So keep an eye on the sky (especially in Great Britain) for one of these Coanda effect GFS flying saucers. It's not a UFO - it's a GFS.
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