The world of aircraft of course has its own experts, its own buffs, and aircraft on the fringes represent their own world of mystery. When an aircraft of unknown design is sighted, it’s like the shiver that goes down the spine of the ornithologist spotting a bird thought to be long extinct.
So when a small propeller driven plane, looking a bit unlike anything anyone has ever seen before, is photographed on the tarmac of a small California airport, curious aviation minds want to know.
A bullet shaped plane.
Clear capacity or potential for some alternative, futuristic power source.
Unusual aerodynamics.
And the single small propeller, like what mariners might call a screw, in the back, giving the aircraft the look of a large flying torpedo.
Numbering on the tail led the aviation sleuths to a company which owns the plane. Questions posed to the company—Otto Aviation Group, LLC, led them absolutely nowhere. No comment. We have nothing to share with you in regard to that aircraft.
Questions without answers are the fertile soil in which speculation grows, and unusual phenomena are the fertilizer which grows it faster. The plane, in and of itself, is nothing spectacular. We’ve all seen planes with wings, and propellers. And yet, not exactly like this, not with this bulgy yet aerodynamic shape, not with a single propeller of that size and shape, not one that raises these questions.
A Sherlock of aviation will take a careful look at the craft and want to know:
- Is the plane primarily an aerodynamic experiment?
- Does it have some future military implications that aren’t immediately obvious?
- Is it built a test hydrogen or electricity or some other alternative fuel.
- Yes we’ve all seen airplanes with propellers before, but just what’s this one all about?
Usually the aviation mystery buffs chase the legend of photographs smuggled from a secret air base, or plans bootlegged from a classified source. Radar defeating planes, or aircraft that might fly at Mach 7. Now they’ll be checking for patents on something much simpler, but still very secret. When something is secret we all want to know why.
