posted 04-27-2006 07:36 PM              

Source: MISSILES AND ROCKETS (February, 13 1961)

An Engineer on Wernher von Braun’s staff has obtained a patent on a vehicle called the “Rocopter,” which combines a rocket booster and a compartment with rotary wings for re-entry.

Friedrich G. von Saurma, of the Saturn Systems Office at the Huntsville, Ala., center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, invented the vehicle, which has wind-rotatable blades that gradually open as it travels along a ballistic trajectory in space, after separation from the booster. The air-foils’ pitch could be changed to vary the rate of deceleration.

The Rocopter’s gliding angle and azimuth would be regulated by ground radio control or, if men were aboard, by manual steering. Von Saurma suggested that the vehicle might be used by the armed services for rapid reinforcement and supply of isolated troops or scientific units. A civilian application, he added, might be very fast transport of mail, freight or passengers over long distances.

Von Saurma, who was technical director of the test and training center for V-1 missiles at Peenemunde from 1943 until the end of World War II, came to the United States in 1953 and has been a citizen since 1959.

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Scott Schneeweis