User Reviews

In the early days of aviation, people were designing all kinds of ridiculous flying machines so that humanity could take to the skies. Maybe the word ridiculous is the wrong word to use here, as there was no standard yet when it came to designing planes and other aircraft that might be able to sustain themselves in flight. Pioneers had no choice but to take risks and do experiments, and modern pilots stand on the shoulders of their efforts. Without the admittedly awkward attempts at flying shown in this short, modern day wonders like stealth jets wouldn't exist. The film is essentially just a brief collection of newsreel footage showing various contraptions devised to try and achieve flight. Planes have always been one of my primary interests, so it did surprise me that most of the things shown here are aircraft I've never heard of before. Probably the most well known plane featured is the Caproni Stipa; an Italian aircraft which looks more like a flying barrel with a propeller stuck in the middle (and yes it does fly). People also dabbled with the idea of removing a plane's tail assembly, which is in large part the section that allows the plane to turn. A design is shown possessing no tail, and instead has a pusher propeller aft of the pilot's cabin. It kind of looks like the aerial equivalent to a Smart Car. A man is then shown demonstrating what looks to be the ancestor of current day portable drones used by militaries for reconnaissance. The device looks like a pair of fabric wings attached to a metallic pivot that rapidly moves up and down. This causes the wings to flap and generate lift. Remarkably advanced for something so old. In a similar vein to the previous machine, we see Willard Blain try out his ornithopter, a machine that flies by moving its wings, in Connecticut. He is shown leaping from a bridge in order to give him a bit of a boost, but he can't move his arms fast enough and he falls into the water. Without a doubt the oddest vehicle on here belongs to WP Kindree of Detroit, who has designed what he calls the Sky Car. Basically a primitive form of helicopter, the design consists of a wheeled chassis with a chain and pulley system above it. Attached to this is an overhanging circular array of numerous, long and thin strips of fabric. It kind of looks like an umbrella. When the machine starts up, this assembly rotates and bounces up and down quite fast, violently jerking the car up and down like an angry bull. I don't know what they were thinking. These are just a few of the things shown in this film, but there's quite a few more. Even though many of the designs shown never accomplished much in the way of flying, you can't proceed in your understanding of a subject unless you make mistakes. The main difference between a master and a novice is the master has failed more times at something than the beginner has even tried. Of course, in the coming years, you would have people like Howard Hughes, who had a helicopter company at a time when they were mostly new and unproven. He also made the H4 Hercules, an enormous seaplane which only flew once and had the largest wingspan of any plane all the way until 2019, when it was surpassed by an aircraft intended to launch rockets containing satellites into orbit. Sadly, the H4 was only airborne for less than 30 seconds and never flew again, so its gargantuan cargo capabilities were never tested. Overall, this was a nice little short film and should be seen by anyone who is interested in aviation, since it seems like there's always new things to find out.

It's a two-reel compilation film from the United States and Europe, showing inventors and their proposed inventions, ranging from stuff that worked -- like the aeroplane with a circular wing -- to stuff that doesn't work -- like the flappy ornithopter that plummets, to stuff that doesn't work, but eventually leads to things that do, like the precursor of the ''flying wing' or the autopilot.

They're still working out new configurations for aircraft, so it's hardly surprising that they were working on ideas eighty years ago, with the usual number of absolutely crackpot stuff that simply looks silly -- and sometimes even worked.