FRANZ PHILIPP FRALI DISCS SONNENSTRAHL FLUGSCHEIBEN
(SOLAR RAY FLIGHT DISCS)
One of the most obscure of the early German disc designers was a World War I wartime comrade of Adolf Hitler himself - Dr. Franz Philipp who kept in touch after the war and whose research into solar powered flight craft granted him special authority at the facilities he used in Berlin once the Second World War started. The Führer himself had issued Philipp a pass giving him sweeping authority over special projects relating to his field of research.
But Dr. Philipp’s story starts well before the war when in the 1930’s he began to envision an alternative to the early rockets being tested by Germany using liquid propellants. His early rocket designs proposed a radical concept that even today has not been achieved - a light conversion power plant. Specifically, Dr. Philipp was determined to develop a rocket propelled by sunlight converted into power. From 1934 forward he concentrated his research efforts into achieving a shot at the moon with a solar powered rocket. A launch was attempted using a rocket resembling an early von Braun A-series rocket but covered in flat solar panels. It is doubtful that the rocket even approached the upper atmosphere.
In September 1938 Dr Philipp proposed a series of radical disc and cylindrical craft powered by what he termed a “Sonnenstrahl Triebwerk” (Solar ray Thrustwork) that could power these strange shaped craft as well as further rocket development. He called his odd craft FRALI and designed a series of at least six of them over a period of time.
FRALI-1 It was football-shaped like a small airship with dart-like nose cone and rounded cockpit on top and rounded lower body below. The craft was covered with round solar panels on each side of the body and the craft ended with a pair of small tailfins, like a fish.
FRALI Designs 2-5 are not known
FRALI-6 was an even stranger cylindrical craft with a layered conical nose, long extended tube-like body that ended with a rather square tailfin. The body of this craft was also covered by flat solar panels.
There were 2 designs not bearing the FRALI name.
Greif (Griffon) and was very similar to the Lenticular Disc designed by Henri Coanda during the war for the SS. However, the Greif was to be powered by four aft solar rockets protruding from the outer rim of the craft, each rocket similar to early A-series rockets but with flat solar panels covering them.
Sonnenflieger (Sun Flyer) - was for a combination Sonnenstrahl Triebwerk and Magnetic Field propulsion system carried by a wide diameter large glass-domed disc with large flat solar panels around the rim of the machine plus a three layered bottom containing Magnetic Field units. The craft sat very high on lunar-lander type telescopic legs.
Philipp could not construct his designs during the war as Hitler had him in Berlin working with the SS on the infamous “death ray’ which in reality turned out to be a very crude form of microwave weapon designed to disable Allied bombers. One prototype was shown to a delegation of Japanese diplomats near the end of the war.
But Dr. Philipp’s story starts well before the war when in the 1930’s he began to envision an alternative to the early rockets being tested by Germany using liquid propellants. His early rocket designs proposed a radical concept that even today has not been achieved - a light conversion power plant. Specifically, Dr. Philipp was determined to develop a rocket propelled by sunlight converted into power. From 1934 forward he concentrated his research efforts into achieving a shot at the moon with a solar powered rocket. A launch was attempted using a rocket resembling an early von Braun A-series rocket but covered in flat solar panels. It is doubtful that the rocket even approached the upper atmosphere.
In September 1938 Dr Philipp proposed a series of radical disc and cylindrical craft powered by what he termed a “Sonnenstrahl Triebwerk” (Solar ray Thrustwork) that could power these strange shaped craft as well as further rocket development. He called his odd craft FRALI and designed a series of at least six of them over a period of time.
FRALI-1 It was football-shaped like a small airship with dart-like nose cone and rounded cockpit on top and rounded lower body below. The craft was covered with round solar panels on each side of the body and the craft ended with a pair of small tailfins, like a fish.
FRALI Designs 2-5 are not known
FRALI-6 was an even stranger cylindrical craft with a layered conical nose, long extended tube-like body that ended with a rather square tailfin. The body of this craft was also covered by flat solar panels.
There were 2 designs not bearing the FRALI name.
Greif (Griffon) and was very similar to the Lenticular Disc designed by Henri Coanda during the war for the SS. However, the Greif was to be powered by four aft solar rockets protruding from the outer rim of the craft, each rocket similar to early A-series rockets but with flat solar panels covering them.
Sonnenflieger (Sun Flyer) - was for a combination Sonnenstrahl Triebwerk and Magnetic Field propulsion system carried by a wide diameter large glass-domed disc with large flat solar panels around the rim of the machine plus a three layered bottom containing Magnetic Field units. The craft sat very high on lunar-lander type telescopic legs.
Philipp could not construct his designs during the war as Hitler had him in Berlin working with the SS on the infamous “death ray’ which in reality turned out to be a very crude form of microwave weapon designed to disable Allied bombers. One prototype was shown to a delegation of Japanese diplomats near the end of the war.