Flying Saucers: The Small Sporty Models

 

Human beings have always been fascinated with flight, but in 1947, flying saucers gave us something new to think about. UFOs have inspired us to imagine and invent.

Who was the first inventor to attempt to build and fly their own saucer? The Weekly Town Talk, July 19, 1947, featured a photo of Jimmy Webb of Little Rock, Arkansas, and the homemade “Flying Saucer,” he entered in a local model airplane competition.

In 1950, Charles Hoberg of Chicago built a small “jet-powered” saucer “after studying reports of the space ships.”

Sunday News, March 26, 1950

In Sept. 1950, a warning was issued that Detroit, the Plymouth Motor Corporation’s International Model Plane Contest would feature flying saucers, and that they might cause alarm and be reported to authorities by the public.

Mansfield Advertiser Sept. 6, 1950

Plymouth Press release

“Pilot your own Flying Saucer” was the title of an article in Boy’s Life Jan. 1953, that instructed readers how to construct an unpowered flying saucer out of balsa wood.

Boy’s Life Jan. 1953

Boy Scout Ray White built such a saucer and demonstrated it on television for NBC’s Today Show.

Boy’s Life Nov. 1953

The above are just a few examples of the early attempts to copy flying saucers on a small scale, but in the 1960s, a company set out to mass produce them.

 

Cox’s Sky Saucer

The Star-News, (Chula Vista, CA) June 23, 1966

“Would you believe saucer for $9.98? Better yet, would you BUY a flying saucer for $9.98?  That's the million-dollar question as far as C. R. Stuard is concerned… Stuard is the co-owner and marketer of the "X-1 Sky Saucer," a flying saucer toy invented recently by a Solar engineer, [currently in] a test-market] in the Chula Vista Penney store. …

“Idea for the toy came from [Leonard] Mueller’s invention of a flying saucer-type crop duster. | “But it would have cost us $250,000 to produce our first duster,” says Stuard, “so we put our heads together and decided to come out with a model of the crop duster and sell it as a toy ‘flying saucer. We attached a gasoline engine to the saucer… and our model and it took off and flew…’

Does Stuard believe in real-life flying saucers? Like from Mars? “Yes, frankly, I do,” he says. “I have a very good friend who says he saw one. I believe him. He’s not the sort of person who’d make something like this up. Also, too many of the saucer sightings are unexplained. You know, expert scientists have told us that the obvious ‘best design’ for space vehicles of the future is the saucer. It’s shaped perfectly for space travel. If this is true, then maybe it figures that men from other planets would use saucers to investigate things on and about earth.”

 

The saucer’s package stated:

"Your X-1 sky saucer is practically indestructible and made of rugged polyethylene plastic to withstand the shock of Earth reentry...it can take it and fly again immediately!"

“Our X-1 Sky Saucer is powered by world famous special 18,000 RPM Cox .049 engine. Over 16" in diameter. Reaches heights of 300 feet & more.”

The X-1 was marketed in the 1970s as the “Star Cruiser UFO,” but a version was still on sale into the 1990s, and a similar “Nomad” saucer was produced in 1998.

 

Back to the Garage

Mass produced copies like the Cox Sky Saucer have their place, but there’s nothing like the efforts of the early saucer inventors. They took inspiration from flying saucers, thought for themselves, and got to work. Ufology might benefit from getting back to basics, and that’s a good model to follow.