Golden airplane of the Inca.
As for the "golden flying ships", some light on this issue can be shed by the so-calledInca golden bird, stored in the Museo Del Oro, located in the National Bank of Colombia (Bogota). In 1956, this "golden airplane" was exhibited among other exhibits of the "Gold of Pre-Columbian America" exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The deltoid wing of this figurine and the vertical plane of the tail (which birds never have) attracted the attention of American aircraft designers. By agreement with the exhibition management, they were allowed to conduct research on the ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And then it turned out that the golden "Inca bird" behaves best at ... supersonic speeds, the study of which was in full swing. The figure was returned to the museum, and the delta wing and the high vertical plane of the tail unit migrated to the aircraft design bureau of the company
Lockheed, which soon created a supersonic aircraft, which at that time was the best in the world. Few people remember this story today. And yet, we should not forget that modern supersonic jets are ... direct descendants of the "golden bird" of the Incas!
In the “golden airplane” figurine, modern aviation experts saw: a) a model of an aerospace aircraft with a tilting cabin; b) a model of a single-use cargo aircraft for landing on water; c) a model of a "subaquaplane" - an underwater aircraft. A number of other technical versions have also been put forward that can only appear in the minds of narrow specialists. But, in general, the plane in this golden craft was seen much earlier. The story is just fantastic.
In 1956, the "golden airplane" was exhibited among other exhibits of the "Gold of Pre-Columbian America" exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The deltoid wing of this figure and the vertical plane of the tail (which birds never have) attracted the attention of American aircraft designers. By agreement with the exhibition management, they were allowed to conduct research on the ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And then it turned out that the golden “Inca bird” behaves best at ... supersonic speeds, the study of which was in full swing. The figurine was returned to the museum, and the delta wing and the high vertical plane of the tail were transferred to the Lockheed aircraft design bureau, which soon created a supersonic aircraft, which at that time was the best in the world ...
Lockheed (Blackbird). MiG-25
Lockheed SR-71- strategic supersonic reconnaissance aircraft of the US Air Force (Blackbird) was operated from 1964 to 1998. A little later, the MIG-25 was created in the USSR, also based on the "golden Inca airplane". There is a certain similarity between Lockheed and the MIG-25, but it is much more pronounced in the deep modification of the MIG-25 - MIG-31.
MiG-31 Chinese Black Eagle.
For more than a hundred years, archaeologists have been discovering small funny trinkets made of precious metals, usually gold, in the burial places of the Incas thousands of years ago, depicting something not very clear. Since "something" clearly has wings, but does not look like birds, the finds are called "insects". True, insects never had a vertical keel in the tail section, but you never know where their imagination led the ancient masters.
In the end, two German scientists, Algund Ebom and Peter Belting, were seriously hurt a few years ago by the frivolity of the classification of archaeologists and they decided to rigorously analyze how gold jewelry corresponds to the biology and morphology of real insects.
Easy enough to separate jewelry into two groups: real representations of insects, where the wings are attached to the upper part of the body; and "products" with wings attached to the body in the lower part (which insects do not have), which in addition have a vertical keel. A close look at this second group is enough to notice that most of the decorations look like small models of airplanes.
Of course, no one today is able to say where the masters of the ancient Incas drew images for their unusual products. But we can definitely say that the masters in another country of the pyramids had similar images - in Egypt
Modern supersonic aircraft exactly repeat the shape of ancient figurines. These figures, made in the form of aircraft, were created about 1.5 thousand years ago. No one has been able to solve their riddle - what served as models for such works of art.
In the 19th century in Colombia, archaeological excavations several dozen gold figurines of an incomprehensible shape were found. The figurines were transferred to the museum at the State Bank of Colombia, where they were exhibited for many years in a row.
In the catalogs, the figurines were listed as "zoomorphic", that is, in the form of animals. And it was precisely as incomprehensible animals that numerous visitors looked at them.
And only in the 20th century, during the development of the aviation industry, it turned out that these incomprehensible figures were made in the form of airplanes! It's just that until there were planes, people had nothing to compare them with.
The jeweler Emmanuel Staub was the first to notice this strange resemblance. He made a copy of one of the figurines and sent it to the zoologist Ivan Sandersson so that he would make his verdict - is it an animal or an airplane.
The zoologist studied the figurine of an incomprehensible shape for a long time and made a conclusion: it is by no means zoomorphic - there are no similar animals in the natural world.
It is interesting that almost all the figurines, despite the fact that they look like airplanes, at the same time have signs of animals - eyes and mouths, which is why they were classified as zoomorphic. But when copies of the figurines were sent to aviation experts, they all agreed that they depicted airplanes! Experts saw in the figurines the cockpit, fuselage, wings, stabilizers, keel...
But where would aircraft come from in such ancient times?
This question, posed by Ivan Sanderson in an article he published about airplanes from the depths of the ages, did not find an answer.
But the publication itself aroused massive interest in the mysterious figurines. AND a large number of people began searching for similar figurines and images in archaeological and historical museums and private collections.
As a result, about thirty golden airplanes were found in various museums around the world. All of them had common origin- V different time figurines were found in the burial places of Indian chiefs. Archaeologists have established that the airplanes, as already mentioned, were made about 1.5 thousand years ago. According to scientists, they were used as breast ornaments and amulets.
Most of these airplanes were found in the places of settlements of the Tolima Indians who lived in Colombia, but there are similar figurines found in Costa Rica and other countries of South America.
In flight!
For a very long time, experts argued about what these mysterious airplanes were. Most scientists were inclined to believe that they had nothing to do with aviation - it seemed too fantastic.
But soon even the most stubborn skeptics were convinced that these were indeed airplanes. This happened after an unusual experiment was carried out in Germany. Algund Enbom and Peter Belting, two enthusiasts of aviation and aeromodelling, have created enlarged copies of unusual Colombian figurines. For this, two figurines most similar to an airplane were chosen - one from the Columbian Gold Museum, and the second from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The copies were sixteen times larger than the originals, but they exactly repeated all their features.
Belting and Enbom supplied the airplanes with motors and equipped with radio control.
A decent crowd gathered to test the airplanes, including scientists - archaeologists, zoologists, and historians.
And everyone was shocked - it turned out that the Indian planes had excellent aerodynamic properties. They performed all the figures with dexterity. aerobatics, such as a dead loop or barrel. The figures maneuvered as if they were created solely for flight - and even with the engine turned off, they freely glide in the air.
After that, many aircraft modelers began to make similar experiments, creating copies of certain golden figures. Once in the German Society for Aviation and Cosmonautics, mass " demonstration performances» similar copies. And all the leading aircraft design engineers unanimously admitted that these figurines could only represent aircraft once created by human hands ... But they also could not answer the question - where could the Indians see samples for their crafts?
Some researchers have speculated about the extraterrestrial origin of the shape of the mysterious amulets: “Of course, we can by no means say anything specific about this. One can only make hypotheses and make assumptions that even then, in full accordance with the myth of Atlantis, there was a highly technically developed culture. But one cannot exclude the assumption that the creation of this culture was played by leading role highly intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin"
Soon, scientists were allowed to conduct research on this ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And it turned out that the golden figurine is designed to fly at ... supersonic speeds. The deltoid wing and the high vertical plane of the tail captured the imagination of engineers and soon a new supersonic aircraft was created on their basis.
Cairo bird.
The same mysterious origin at another antiquity stored in the Cairo Archaeological Museum. In 1898, Egyptian researchers found a strange wooden object in a burial dating back to the 3rd century BC.
He was placed in a box marked "Bird figurines", where he lay. for a long time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the figurine was put on public display, and for a long time no one noticed anything strange in it.
It wasn't until 1972 that a visitor, the doctor Khalil Messikh, who was seriously interested in archeology, noticed that this bird actually looked more like an airplane or a glider.
The length of this strange object is 14.2 cm, the wingspan is 18.3 cm. The nose of the figurine resembles a beak, but the tail is the keel of an aircraft. The wings and body are also similar not to birds, but to airplanes. True, this figure does not have stabilizers.
Khalil Messikh claims that the missing parts simply broke off in time immemorial, and this figure had them before. He made exactly the same "bird" out of wood, added the missing parts to it and equipped it with a motor and a propeller.
In flight, the figure showed miracles - it flew at a speed of 95 kilometers per hour and planned remarkably.
After testing the “bird”, an urgent search began for similar figurines in Egyptian museums. And there were many of them, moreover, they all had the missing details from the figure found by Messikh!
famous images aircraft on the wall of the Egyptian pyramid.
True, Egyptian archaeologists also failed to answer the same question: where could the planes that served as the prototype of these figures come from in the third millennium BC?
And then sensational news sounded - archaeologist William Deutsch, conducting research, said that Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun died 3,300 years ago... in a plane crash. This is evidenced by the nature of the injuries that resulted in his death. This news further fueled interest in the mysteries of ancient aircraft construction.
"Colombian Golden Airplane" - this is the name given to an elegant four-centimeter object, probably used as an amulet or jewelry pendant and made no later than the middle of the first millennium BC. In total, 33 such objects have been discovered to date, and they have been found not only in Colombia, but also in Peru, Costa Rica, and Venezuela. Their appearance different, but common is the fundamental design of the aircraft with horizontal and vertical fins of the keel. Artists gave their products the appearance of living creatures with eyes, toothy mouths, some were covered with a notch in the form of scales. So, maybe this is the prototype of some long-extinct animal?
However, experts fully agree with the conclusion of the US biologist Ivan
Sanderson: they can in no way be identified with any of the known
science of representatives of both the fossil and modern fauna of the planet.
In the “golden airplane” figurine, modern aviation experts saw: a) a model of an aerospace aircraft with a tilting cabin; b) a model of a single-use cargo aircraft for landing on water; c) a model of a "subaquaplane" - an underwater aircraft. A number of other technical versions have also been put forward that can only appear in the minds of narrow specialists. But, in general, the plane in this golden craft was seen much earlier. The story is just fantastic.
In 1956, the "golden airplane" was exhibited among other exhibits of the "Gold of Pre-Columbian America" exhibition held at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. The deltoid wing of this figure and the vertical plane of the tail (which birds never have) attracted the attention of American aircraft designers. By agreement with the exhibition management, they were allowed to conduct research on the ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And then it turned out that the golden “Inca bird” behaves best at ... supersonic speeds, the study of which was in full swing. The figurine was returned to the museum, and the delta wing and the high vertical plane of the tail were transferred to the Lockheed aircraft design bureau, which soon created a supersonic aircraft, which at that time was the best in the world ...
For a very long time, experts argued about what these mysterious airplanes were. Most scientists were inclined to believe that they had nothing to do with aviation - it seemed too fantastic.
But soon even the most stubborn skeptics were convinced that these were indeed airplanes. This happened after an unusual experiment was carried out in Germany. Algund Enbom and Peter Belting, two enthusiasts of aviation and aeromodelling, have created enlarged copies of unusual Colombian figurines. For this, two figurines most similar to an airplane were chosen - one from the Columbian Gold Museum, and the second from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The copies were sixteen times larger than the originals, but they exactly repeated all their features.
Belting and Enbom supplied the airplanes with motors and equipped with radio control.
A decent crowd gathered to test the airplanes, including scientists - archaeologists, zoologists, and historians.
And everyone was shocked - it turned out that the Indian planes had excellent aerodynamic properties. They performed all aerobatics with dexterity, such as a dead loop or a barrel roll. The figures maneuvered as if they were created solely for flight - and even with the engine turned off, they freely glide in the air.
After that, many aircraft modelers began to make similar experiments, creating copies of certain golden figures. Once in the German Society for Aviation and Astronautics, mass "demonstration performances" of such copies took place. And all the leading aircraft design engineers unanimously admitted that these figurines could only represent aircraft once created by human hands ... But they also could not answer the question - where could the Indians see samples for their crafts?
Some researchers have speculated about the extraterrestrial origin of the shape of the mysterious amulets: “Of course, we can by no means say anything specific about this. One can only make hypotheses and make assumptions that even then, in full accordance with the myth of Atlantis, there was a highly technically developed culture. But the assumption cannot be ruled out that highly intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin played a major role in the creation of this culture.
Soon, scientists were allowed to conduct research on this ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And it turned out that the golden figurine is designed to fly at ... supersonic speeds. The deltoid wing and the high vertical plane of the tail captured the imagination of engineers and soon a new supersonic aircraft was created on their basis.
The so-called "Colombian golden airplanes" are known much more than Egyptian models. The name is very arbitrary, since they were found not only in Colombia, but also in Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru. And they are not made of gold, but of tombac - an alloy of gold and copper, in which there is about 30% copper, which gives them beautiful color shades.
However, this name still has some grounds, since the first of these models were discovered during one of the archaeological expeditions in the 19th century precisely on the territory of Colombia. These finds were transferred to the State Colombian Bank, where they appeared in the catalogs as "zoomorphic figurines". However, it is understandable - at that time there were no airplanes yet, and the models themselves looked like living creatures with eyes, teeth, scales carved on the body and other attributes of living creatures, so they were all associated with outlandish animals that could die out a few more hundreds of years ago, but not with airplanes.
Archaeologists attribute the origin of these products to the local culture of Kimbaya, which arose around the 1st century AD, flourished in the 4th-7th centuries, and completely disappeared around the 10th century for unknown reasons. Although there is a version that these finds were created by representatives of another local culture- Tolima culture, which existed at about the same time.
More than three dozen such "zoomorphic figurines" are now known. most of of which is stored in the Museum of Gold in Bogotá, the capital of Colombia. All "figures" are very small in size - only from 4 to 8 centimeters.
It is believed that they were worn on laces and used as amulets or pendants, but this is highly debatable. The fact is that, for example, most Kimbay gold items were found in ancient "sarcophagi" made of hollow tree trunks, that is, they are the so-called funeral utensils and have a "cult" character. And in general, gold items here (as, indeed, in all South America) were practically not used in everyday life or as decorations, since gold was considered the metal of the gods, not people, and was primarily a kind of “pass” to the afterlife.
Rice. 12.Golden "zoomorphic figurines"
The fate of the "zoomorphic figurines" is similar to the fate of the Egyptian "bird" - they were also not noticed for a long time. Neither those who viewed them at the Museum of Gold in Bogota, nor the visitors traveling exhibitions"Treasures of Colombia", where these finds were exhibited, although such exhibitions were held in various countries peace.
And only in 1969, the American jeweler Emanuel Staub drew attention to the fact that one of the winged figurines, a copy of which he had, somehow looked very much like an airplane. He made a cast of his figurine and sent it to his friend, the famous zoologist Ivan Sanderson, head of the Society for the Study of the Unexplained, with a request to determine if it looked like any known animal. The zoologist carefully studied the cast and confidently declared that there is nothing like it in the animal world. Then similar casts were sent to aircraft designers and engineers of that time. All as one they claimed that these were not animals, but reduced copies of aircraft.
At the end of the same 1969, Ivan Sanderson published an article in Argosy magazine that caused a sensation, since it indicated that aviation experts were able to discern the fuselage, cockpit, wings and stabilizers on ancient figures. It was after this article that the search for similar figures in museums began. different countries world, and it turned out that their number exceeded three dozen. And Staub's "airplane" gained such popularity that it even became the emblem of the Ancient Astronauts Society (AAS), an organization of paleocontact researchers Erich von Daniken.
Serious controversy unfolded around the "Colombian Airplanes", which was fueled by the fact that far from all figurines of this type show such a striking resemblance to an airplane as the specimen examined by Sanderson. Moreover, the makers of the figurines clearly portrayed some kind of living creature, as evidenced by the eyes and mouth. Naturally, the classification of these objects by specialists in the ancient cultures of America has a biological connotation. Winged amulets are often associated, for example, with the "cult of insects". A similar exhibit from the Museum natural history in Chicago is signed "flying fish", and his colleague from the Museum primitive art in New York it is served to the public as a "winged crocodile".
And yet, despite the difference in forms, almost all gold winged figurines have clearly aerodynamic forms and the concept of an aircraft, which does not have exact matches in nature. It is easy to find the cockpit, fuselage, horizontal wings, stabilizers and vertical keel on the figures. And the stylization of animals most likely only indicates that the manufacturers of these masterpieces no longer knew what kind of designs they were, and made their own “additions” (in accordance with their simplified perception), which eventually distorted the original appearance prototype...
Rice. 13.What is stylized - a plane or a fish? ..
Disputes, which were more purely speculative in nature, could continue indefinitely if those who prefer not to theorize, but to check everything with the help of an experiment, did not get down to business. Two avid German aeromodellers from the small town of Leer, medic Algund Enbom and Air Force officer Peter Belting, decided to build scaled-up winged figures and test them in flight.
To create copies, they chose two figurines that most resembled an airplane - the one that became famous thanks to Sanderson's publications, and a gold amulet kept at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. The models created by Enbom and Belting were 16 times larger than the miniature originals, but retained all their proportions and basic shape features. Although the models were not exact copies, they had to remove the strange cutouts on the wings, make them curved according to the rules of aerodynamics, and not flat, smooth and straighten the fuselage, get rid of interfering protrusions and the like, which could be attributed to the distortions introduced by the manufacturers of the figures .
The models were made from styrofoam and balsa wood, a very light wood used in aeromodelling. For greater similarity, the copies were covered with golden paint. And since by the appearance of the Colombian "airplanes" it was impossible to determine what kind of engine they could stand on, radio-controlled models were created in two versions - with a propeller and with a jet engine.
Rice. 14.Enlarged copies of the Colombian "airplanes"
The first tests of the models took place in 1996. These tests were watched by a huge number of people, among whom were both scientists from various fields of science, and many skeptics who did not believe that copies of the figures could fly.
The result was stunning. Radio-controlled models were able to perform even such aerobatics as a roll and a loop. They confidently maneuvered in the air and came in to land, despite the wind rising from time to time. During the tests, the models revealed absolutely no aerodynamic flaws. Even with the engine off, they planned admirably.
After this experiment, many aircraft modelers began to create aircraft models of various golden figures. And in April 1998, demonstration flights of models were watched by hundreds of participants in the annual congress of the German Society for Aviation and Astronautics. The scientists, aircraft designers, pilots and engineers present at the speech, after seeing the flights, had no doubts that the golden "airplanes" were copies of flying machines. And all of them were unanimous in their opinion - the design of these aircraft is perfect! ..
However, no tests helped answer the question of where the ancient Indians saw the planes...
Experts in the archeology of pre-Columbian civilizations, far from knowledge in technical fields, did not react to the results of testing models in any way and remained unconvinced. A sign in the Museum of Gold still says that the display case contains "stylized birds, lizards, amphibians, fish and insects typical of the region."
The "Golden Bird" is a small four-centimeter-sized object found in Colombia in the 19th century and dated to the middle of the first millennium AD. Most likely, this item was used as an amulet or pendant. Today in the world there are several dozen such items that were found not only in Colombia, but also not in the territory of Venezuela, Costa Rica and Peru. In appearance, they are slightly different from each other, but the fundamental design of the aircraft with horizontal and vertical fins of the keel unites all these artifacts.
For a long time, many people looked at the gold figurines exhibited at the Gold Museum at the State Bank of Colombia, as well as during various Treasures of Colombia exhibitions held in different parts of our planet, but no one suggested that they could be models of flying machines. And this is not surprising, because all these artifacts were listed in the catalog as “zoomorphic”, since they looked like living creatures with eyes, teeth, scales carved on the body and other attributes of living creatures, therefore, they were all associated with outlandish animals that could die out a few hundred years ago, but not with airplanes.
The first to notice the surprising resemblance of the Inca golden bird to an aircraft was the American jeweler Emanuel Staub. To eliminate the possibility that the figurine is a copy of some animal, Staub sent an exact copy of the "Columbia Golden Airplane" to his friend, the famous zoologist Ivan Sanderson. After a detailed inspection of the artifact, Sanderson realized that he did not know a single living creature similar to the figurine sent to him, and in order to test the theory about the aircraft, he handed it over to several aviation experts for analysis, who confirmed that the figurine could well be a model aircraft.
Mass interest in mysterious artifacts arose in late 1969, after Sanders' publication of an ancient aircraft in Argosy magazine. Article produced real sensation and caused a lot of controversy around the mysterious figures of gold. But in 1996, German aircraft modellers from the small town of Lehr, Algund Enbom and Peter Belting, proved in practice that the hypothesis of models of aircraft in the form of figures of mysterious animals has the right to life. These two aircraft modellers created almost exact, proportionate, 16 times enlarged replicas of the Columbian Golden Airplane and another gold figurine, which, in their opinion, most resembled an airplane. To launch into the air, the models were equipped with motors and radio control systems.
The first test of the airplanes was watched by a huge number of people, among whom were scientists from various fields of science and many skeptics who did not believe that copies of the figures could fly. But what was their surprise when two models were not only able to take off, but also perfectly performed aerobatics (barrel, dead loop), and also perfectly planned even with the engines turned off.
After this experiment, many aircraft modelers began to create aircraft models of various golden figures, and in April 1996, the German Society for Aviation and Cosmonautics held mass demonstration performances of the assembled aircraft. The scientists, aircraft designers, pilots and engineers present at the speech, after seeing the flights, had no doubt that the "golden airplanes of the Incas" were copies of flying machines.
Of course, no one today is able to answer the question of where exactly the ancient Incas took images for their unusual products, but one thing is for sure that not only the Incas made figurines similar to flying machines, there are a huge number of such artifacts and they were all found in different parts of our planet. Take, for example, the Saqqara bird found in Egypt, which is also surprisingly similar to an airplane model. Whatever it was, these artifacts suggest a completely different story of our ancestors, a story that is still so hard for us to believe.
Animals with wings
In the 19th century, during archaeological excavations in Colombia, several dozen gold figurines of an incomprehensible shape were found. They were transferred to the museum at the State Bank of Colombia, where they were exhibited for many years in a row. In the catalogs, the figurines were listed as "zoomorphic", that is, made in the form of animals. And it was precisely as incomprehensible animals that numerous visitors looked at them over the course of a century ...
And only in the 20th century, after the development of the aviation industry, it turned out that these incomprehensible figures were made in the form of modern aircraft! It’s just that until they were invented, people had nothing to compare with ...
The jeweler Emmanuel Staub was the first to notice this extremely strange resemblance. He made a copy of one of the figurines and sent it to zoologist Ivan Sanderson, so that he would make his verdict - is it an animal or an airplane.
The zoologist studied the figurine of an incomprehensible shape for a long time and made a conclusion: it is by no means zoomorphic - there are no similar animals in the natural world. It is interesting that almost all the figurines, despite the resemblance to aircraft, at the same time have the signs of animals - eyes and mouths, which is why they were classified as zoomorphic.
But when copies of the figurines were sent to aviation experts, they all agreed that they depicted airplanes! Experts saw the cockpit, fuselage, wings, stabilizers, keel... But where could aircraft come from in such ancient times?
This question, posed by Ivan Sanderson in his published article on airplanes, has never been answered.
However, this publication aroused massive interest in the enigmatic figurines. And a large number of people began to search for similar figures and images in museums and private collections.
In total, about thirty golden airplanes were found in various museums around the world. All of them had a common origin - they were found in the burials of the Indians. Archaeologists have established that the airplanes were made about 1.5 thousand years ago. According to scientists, they were used as chest decorations and amulets.
Most of these airplanes were found in the places of settlements of the Tolima Indians who lived in Colombia, but there are similar figurines found in Costa Rica and other countries of South America.
demonstration performances
For a very long time, experts argued about what these mysterious airplanes were. Most scientists were inclined to believe that they had nothing to do with aviation - it seemed too fantastic. But even the most stubborn skeptics were convinced that these were indeed airplanes. This happened after an unusual experiment was carried out in Germany.
Two lovers of aviation and aeromodelling, Algumnd Enbom and Peter Belting, have created enlarged copies of unusual Colombian figurines. To do this, two figurines were chosen that most of all resemble an airplane - one from the Columbian Gold Museum, and the second from the Smithsonian Institution in Washington. Copies exceeded the originals by 16 times, but exactly repeated all their features. Belting and Enbom supplied the airplanes with motors and equipped with radio control.
A decent crowd gathered to test the airplanes, including scientists - archaeologists, zoologists, historians ... And everyone was shocked - it turned out that the airplanes have excellent aerodynamic properties. They performed all aerobatics with dexterity, such as a dead loop or a barrel roll.
The figurines maneuvered as if they were made solely for flight - and even with the engine off, they glide smoothly in the air. After that, many aircraft modelers began to make similar experiments, creating copies of certain golden figures.
Once, in the German Society for Aviation and Astronautics, mass “demonstration performances” of copies of golden airplanes took place. And all the leading aircraft design engineers unanimously admitted that these figures were exclusively aircraft, once created by human hands ...
But even they could not answer the question - where the ancient Indians could see such aircraft ... And then scientists were allowed to conduct research on this ancient "airplane" in a wind tunnel. And it turned out that the golden figurine is designed to fly at ... supersonic speeds. The deltoid wing and the high vertical plane of the tail captured the imagination of engineers and soon a new supersonic aircraft was created on their basis ...
(Interestingly, after reading this article on our website, one of the fans of flight simulators became interested in the question - what will happen if you construct an airplane in the flight simulator with the same parameters as the ancient figures - will it fly or not? And the ancient Colombian plane took off and showed its great flying qualities! Look how it looks!)
Cairo bird
The same mysterious origin of another archaeological antiquity, stored in the Cairo Archaeological Museum. In 1898, Egyptian researchers found a strange wooden object in a burial dating back to the 3rd century BC. He was placed in a box labeled "Bird figurines", in which he lay for a long time.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the figurine was put on public display, and for a long time no one noticed anything strange in it. It wasn't until 1972 that a visitor, the doctor Khalil Messih, who was seriously interested in archeology, noticed that this bird actually looked more like an airplane or a glider.
The length of this strange object is 14.2 cm, the wingspan is 18.3 cm. The nose of the figurine resembles a beak, but the tail is the keel of an aircraft. The wings and body are also similar not to birds, but to airplanes. True, this figure does not have stabilizers.
Khalil Messikh claims that the missing parts simply broke off in time immemorial. He made exactly the same "bird" out of wood, added the missing parts to it and equipped it with a motor and a propeller. In flight, the figurine showed miracles - it flew at a tremendous speed of 95 kilometers per hour and planned remarkably.
After testing the "bird", an urgent search began for similar figurines in Egyptian museums. And there were many of them, moreover, they all had the missing details from the figure found by Messikh! True, Egyptian archaeologists also could not answer the question - where could the planes that served as the prototype of these figures come from in the third millennium BC ...
And then sensational news sounded - archaeologist William Deutsch, conducting research, said that the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamen died 3300 years ago ... in a plane crash. This is evidenced by the nature of the injuries that resulted in his death. This news further fueled interest in the mysteries of ancient aircraft construction ...
