The plane has stubby wings resembling half barrels flanking its fuselage. It resembles nothing you have ever seen in the air before--but it flies.

"Simply stated," the Popular Mechanics magazine article says, "an ordinary wing is fashioned so that air pressure--or lift--is built up beneath it and decreased above it, until the difference between the two makes the plane fly."

In contrast to the conventional airfoil, the Custer Channel Wing is shaped like the lower half of a Venturi tube and has an adjustable pitch propellor [sic] at the rear. The propellor's tips sweep almost the entire trailing edge.

Since atmospheric pressure on all sides of the wing is a constant 14.7 pounds per square inch or one ton per square foot sea level. "Custer's method is to reduce the pressure above the wing by the propellor's sucking action at the rear of the channel, and let the undisturbed pressure of nearly a ton per square foot below the wing lift the plane off the ground," the article says.

"Instead of moving the plane to achieve lift he gains it by moving air masses through the channel. To better control the lower pressure thus created within the wing, he has built up its sides above the propellor's center and slightly constricted the forward portion."

"This funnels more air to the propellor, increasing its efficiency so much that the pitch has to be adjusted to absorb unused horsepower," Custer says. "In contrast to this concentrated lift, a conventional wing's efficiency varies along its entire length. Since the channel will lift 75 percent of the plane's weight without forward motion, very little movement is needed to make the craft airborne."

Custer stresses safety features of the plane which he believes will further popularize flying. "With it," he points out, "planes can sink slowly to earth through the worst weather, onto deep snow or any other kind of unprepared ground, at landing speeds slower than a man runs. The crash hazards of blind approaches and landings at high speeds are eliminated. Another important aspect is that all the controls of the channel wing ship are conventional and it is easy to fly."

Custer states that while most of the experiments with the wing have been in wind tunnels and laboratories, a test ship flew more than 100 hours over a government field at Beltsville, Md., using 75 horsepower engines.

Popular Mechanics says that "during these first tests the plane, weighing 1785 pounds with pilot, was held to a top speed of 60 miles per hour. Take-offs and landings were made under 100 feet, upwind, downwind, and crosswind."

Custer says two series of tests were made by the Air Materiel Command at Wright Field and tests show that the plane has a vertical lift comparable to helicopter with "a zero degree of attack."

Another fact established at Wright Field was that the wing's lift increased even when its chord, the distance from front to the rear of the channel was reduced to half.

In 1940 Custer organized the National Aircraft Corporation with offices in Hagerstown, and the board of directors at that time was composed of: Willard R. Custer, president; Andrew J. Milalik, Albert M. Davis, Robert E. Gunnell, Raymond M. Hudson, Jr.

In 1946 when it became necessary to expand two new board members, Edward S. Summers, and Frank D. Kelley, were added, the latter being elected president, replacing Custer, who became chairman of the board and general manager of operations.

A number of patents on the new type wing have been granted to Custer who assigned them to the National Aircraft Corporation.

Custer says the corporation is supported by citizens of Hagerstown and the immediate vicinity. The corporation has no connection with any other firm. It is an experimental corporation and was organized to develop the theories of Custer.

The first full scale ship (since dismantled) was built in 1942-43, and Custer says the new flying model will be ready for test here in the fall.

During the early years of experimentation Custer says, "a well known Detroit manufacturer spent much time and money in aiding the corporation's experimental work."

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