By Patricia Wolff
of The Northwestern
Don’t dismiss all those flying saucer stories you’ve read in the tabloids until you hear what military aerospace historian Michael Schratt has to say.
He addressed a small audience Sunday at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s AirVenture museum to discuss the United States’ long-running classified military aircraft programs.
Schratt of Illinois passed out a postcard depicting a curious-looking U.S. Air Force circular-wing jet aircraft that had supposedly been spotted by a jet pilot and later photographed outside the MacDill AFB salvage yard in 1967. They measured 20, 40, 70 and 116 feet in diameter and all had tricycle landing gear with control surfaces running along the circumference of the disc.