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Op vrijdag 30 september 2011 11:47 schreef Maurice76 het volgende:Gezien de spanwijdte van de vleugels en het schijnbaar massieve centrale gedeelte lijkt het me sterk dat dit ding in staat is te vliegen. N.B.: gooien is niet hetzelfde als vliegen. Heb je een linkje of iets dergelijks waaruit blijkt dat het wel zo is?
Precolombian Airplane Models
Is the concept of an airplane limited to Egypt? That doesn't seem to be the case. Gold trinkets were found in an area covering Central America and coastal areas of South America, estimated to belong to a period between 500 and 800 CE, but since they are made from gold, accurate dating is impossible and based essentially on stratigraphy which may be deceptive. However, we can safely say that these gold objects are more than 1000 years old.
Whatever this object is supposed to be or represent,
its remarkable resemblance to a modern aircraft or spacecraft is uncanny.
As seen from the pictures, the shape of the sample object is rather ambiguous. The archaeologists labelled these objects as zoomorphic, meaning, animal shaped objects. The question is, what animal do they represent? When we compare these with other objects from the same cultures depicting animals, a curious facet of the comparison would be obvious: the other objects are recognizable, rendered usually with a great accuracy and attention to realistic detail.
There are several types of animals which fly—birds, insects, and several mammals, such as bats and some gliders, for instance flying squirrels, oppossums, and then there are some lizards; there are also some fish which for brief periods glide through the air. There are water animals which seem to fly through the water, such as rays, skates and some selachians. But how does the depicted object compare with these choices? All its features taken into a consideration, we have no match. Seen from above, the object obviously has no fish features, but seems to show rather explicitly mechanistic ones.
The structures just in front of the tail are strongly reminiscent of elevons (a combination of ailerons and elevators) with a slight forward curve, but they are attached to the fuselage, rather than the wings. In any case, they look more like airplane parts than like the claspers of a fish. If the two prominent spirals on the wings are supposed to be a stylized version of the eyes of a ray, then what are the two globular objects positioned on the head supposed to represent? To complicate the identification even more, the spirals on the wings have their copies positioned on the nose of the object, in the opposite direction. When the object is viewed in profile, the didsimilarity to anything from the animal kingdom is even more pronounced. If the zoomorphic explanation is supposed to hold, then why did the artist cut the head off almost three quarters from the body? And why is the nose is practically rectangular and the cut tilted forward, with eyes positioned at either side, when fish eyes are usually more near the center of bodyline and far forward on the head?
What we can make of the semicircular grooves on the inside of the cut? What is it supposed to be—fishwise? And what about the scoop, forward and under the cut? It is a scoop, not just a ridge for drilling a hole through to place the object on a necklace chain. Then there is another rectangular feature, positioned further back at the approximate center of gravity under the fuselage. The wings when viewed from the side are perfetly horizontal, but when seen from the front, they curve slightly downward. The elevators, which are right behind the wings, are positioned on a slightly higher horizontal level and are square-ended, thus a definite geometric shape. Above them is another rectangular shape, with a relief which may be reminiscent of knobs. The tail is equally intriguing. No fish has only a single, upright and perpendicular flange. But this tail fin has an exact shape of fins on modern airplanes. There are also some markings on the tail which are hard to identify, but it does not seem to be anything related to animals, either.
When all the features are taken into an account, the object does not look like a representation of any known animal at all, but does look astonishingly like an airplane. The photos and enlarged outline of the object has been submitted for an analysis to several people from the field of aerodynamics. One of them was Arthur Young, a designer of Bell helicopters and other aircraft. His analysis confirmed that the object contains many features which would fit the airplane hypothesis, but there were several ones which would not fit that scenario. Wings do seem to be in the wrong place—they should be further forward so that their 1/4-chord coincides with the center of gravity. The nose is not like anything on airplanes, as well. So, while the object is suggesting an airplane, some features would not seem to support this hypothesis.
But let's entertain several possibilities. If we imagine that the separation after the windshield is not a cockpit and that the pilot and the cargo were located somewhere in the main fuselage body, then we can envision the nose as something else. Let's assume that the nose is actually a jet. If the machine needs to slow down, the jet flow directed against the path of flight would accomplish just that. But how to redirect the jet into the opposite direction? If we envision the nose as a movable part of the plane, turning around the point located where the nose and fuselage meet, thus pivoting the nose downward to tuck it under the fuselage, that would enable the desired effect. What's more, it will re-adjust the center of gravity and the wings would be just in the right place for a high powered flight. Another problem, though, will appear and that is the drag which would be created by the back of the nose now positioned in front. But that can be attributed to artistic license. That seems to be the case, because several other similar planes feature the back part of the nose tilted more forward, so the angle of the back of the nose when pivoted is more corresponding to aerodynamic principles.
All things considered, the object seems to represent a convertible type of craft, with two possible configurations—one for ascent when the nose is facing backwards, and the other for descent with the nose facing forward. One unsolved item remains—the spirals on the both wings and the nose. According to Amerindian iconography, these spirals have discernable meaning—they represent ascending and descending, depending on whether they are right-oriented or left-oriented, respectively. As the spirals are not only on wings but also on the nose, the meaning is fairly obvious—the wings and the nose (as much) were the features which were directly involved in ascent and descent.