8ECRETAKYS REPORT 131 



flight across the North Pole from Bardufoss, Norway, to Fairbanks, 

 Alaslca, 3,260 miles in 10^ hours. 



Another important accession was a German Me 163, known as 

 a rocket interceptor, used by our adversaries in World War 11. 

 The Museum was also fortunate in receiving as a gift from Hiller 

 Helicopters the XH-44, the original Hiller-copter devised by Stanley 

 Hiller in California in 1944, and one of the first successful types to use 

 contrarotating blades. The control stick from a much earlier 

 helicopter, the one designed by Dr. George DeBothezat and Ivan 

 Jerome and constructed by the Engineering Division of the Army Air 

 Service at McCook Field in 1922, was presented by Mr. Jerome, to- 

 gether with photographs, drawings, and other data. 



Many types of aircraft that cannot be represented in the Museum 

 by full-sized examples are illustrated by scale models. Two models 

 received this year are almost as large as some full-sized planes. These 

 were received from the Glenn L. Martin Co., one being the quarter- 

 sized PBM Naval Mariri&r patrol plane and the other a quarter-sized 

 model of the JEM Mars long-range flying boat. The PBM model 

 was made in 1937, as a flyable test unit to determine the characteristics 

 and performance of the large craft which was then only on the draw- 

 ing boards. It proved to be a very valuable and prophetic means of 

 "working out the bugs" at reduced expense. The JEM model was 

 made for testing in the large-scale wind tunnel at the Langley Me- 

 morial Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aero- 

 nautics, and through such testing revealed the probable performance 

 of the type, again saving the time and cost of determining this infor- 

 mation by full-scale experiments. Another acquisition is the original 

 test model of the Northrop Flying Wing, a skillfully made light- 

 weight miniature, about 3 feet in span, which was hand-launched and 

 glided to test the lift and stability of a type from which developed the 

 large B-35 and B-49 bombers of our Air Force. It is exhibited in the 

 Museum beside photographs of its huge descendants. One of the 

 earliest configurations of the delta design was devised by Michael E. 

 Gluhareff of Sikorsky Aircraft in 1939, starting by experiments with 

 light balsa- wood glider models which demonstrated the utility of the 

 dartlike pattern. His tests the next year were even more convincing, 

 and in 1941 he designed a pursuit interceptor for the Air Force of that 

 delta-wing shape. That was before the current era of jet power, 

 and he planned to use contrarotating pusher propellers. Concentra- 

 tion by Sikorsky Aircraft upon the helicopter program prevented 

 continuation of the experiments with this design at that time, but 

 today delta- winged aircraft have been successfully flown in Germany, 

 America, and England, and are recognized as especially adapted to 

 salving the problems encountered at supersonic speeds. 



Other scale models of full-sized aircraft received this year represent 



