AGARDograph 313 and gyroscopic drives
From the UAP Encyclopedia, the open encyclopedia of UFO and UAP history · 🗓️ Event
Contents 6
| Type | Event (technical publication) |
|---|---|
| Title | The Anatomy of the Gyroscope, Part III (AGARDograph 313) |
| Published | March 1990 |
| Publisher | Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD), NATO |
| Author | Frank W. Cousins (attributed) |
| Editor | John L. Hollington |
| Length | 299 pages |
| Earlier parts | Parts I and II, 1988 |
| Relevance | Brief survey of claimed "gyroscopic inertial drives" |
| Date | March 1990 |
| Topics | Propulsion & physics (topic) |
| People | Nick Cook |
| Testimony | Shellenberger testimony, p. 107 |
| Year | 1990 in UFO history |
| Timeline | 1990 on the UAP Timeline |
| Sources | 7 |
The Anatomy of the Gyroscope, Part III (AGARDograph 313) is a 299-page technical survey published in March 1990 by NATO's Advisory Group for Aerospace Research and Development (AGARD). It covers the history, types and uses of the gyroscope. Among many topics, it briefly discusses claimed "gyroscopic inertial drives", devices that some inventors have said could produce thrust without propellant. It treats them as claims. Because a NATO body published it, the report has been cited in writing about unconventional propulsion, including Nick Cook's book The Hunt for Zero Point.[1][5]
The series
The three-part survey, the first two parts of which appeared in 1988, was edited by John L. Hollington and is generally attributed to the engineer Frank W. Cousins. Organisations named in the report include Smiths Industries' Aerospace and Defence Systems Company, the Royal Aircraft Establishment and the Franklin Institute. Its stated purpose was to direct students of the gyroscope "to that terra incognita of technical literature that resides primarily in the patent literature of the United Kingdom and the United States of America". The author said he had researched that literature over fourteen years. It was intended both for newcomers and for established practitioners, and aimed to fill gaps in the general literature with a structured, annotated and illustrated compilation.[1][6]
Part III covers the history of gyroscopic principles. It starts with the balancing organs of flies (the order Diptera) and moves on to the discovery of the gyroscope itself. It challenges the usual credit given to Léon Foucault by highlighting Johann Bohnenberger's apparatus of 1817. It then describes types of gyroscope: differentiating, integrating and free gyroscopes, vibrating gyroscopes, and interferometric (laser and maser) designs. A large part deals with applications: gyroscopic gears and transmissions; optical stabilisation of telescopes, gunsights, bombsights, cameras and periscopes; navigation aids; and tests of general relativity. It ends with the use of gyroscopes to stabilise dynamical structures, drawing on mathematical work by I. I. Metelicyn. It cites many patents and papers from Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union.[1]
Inertial drives
The survey's discussion of "inertial drives" deals with devices claimed to produce thrust from spinning or oscillating masses. Such claims typically involve forcing a spinning gyroscope to precess in a way that is supposed to turn internal torques into one-way linear force.[1][3]
The best-known advocate was the British engineer Eric Laithwaite, professor of heavy electrical engineering at Imperial College London and known as the "father of maglev". His interest was sparked when an amateur inventor, Alex Jones, showed him a small wagon with a swinging pendulum that advanced in jerks along a table. Laithwaite became convinced "he had seen something impossible". In his 1974 Royal Institution lecture he argued that gyroscopes weigh less when spinning. He showed that he could lift a spinning gyroscope on the end of a rod with one hand, but not a still one. He suggested that Newton's laws could not account for gyroscopic behaviour and that gyroscopes might give reactionless propulsion. The Royal Institution rejected his ideas and, for the first time, did not publish his lectures. They appeared independently as Engineer Through the Looking-Glass (1980). Laithwaite later acknowledged that gyroscopes obey Newtonian mechanics. Even so, he set up Gyron Ltd with William Dawson and applied in 1993 for a patent titled "Propulsion System", granted in the United States as No. 5,860,317 in 1999.[2][3]
Other inventors patented similar devices. A British application of 1974, GB1479450A, "Thrust producing devices", is classified by the patent office among "alleged perpetua mobilia creating a thrust by violating the principle of momentum conservation". Later patents citing it include one for a "flying saucer in principle comprising segments generating gyroscopic half-thrusts". The inventor Sandy Kidd's 1991 U.S. patent for a "gyroscopic apparatus" described opposed discs spun in different directions and periodically forced together to produce a pulsing upward force. The AGARD report discusses such devices as claims rather than endorsing them.[1][3][4]
Assessment
Mainstream physics holds that such reactionless drives cannot work, because they would violate conservation of momentum and Newton's third law. No working device has ever been demonstrated. In NASA reviews, Marc Millis and Thomas concluded that gyroscopic devices "misinterpret torques as linear thrust". The apparent lift, they said, is a torque acting through the pivots and stops of the mechanism. Reaction wheels can change a spacecraft's orientation but not move its centre of mass. NASA's Breakthrough Propulsion Physics project classed oscillation thrusters and gyroscopic antigravity as non-viable.[7] The BBC's Horizon discussed Laithwaite's demonstration in its 2015–16 episode "Project Greenglow – The Quest for Gravity Control". The writer Nick Cook cited the AGARD report in The Hunt for Zero Point as evidence of official curiosity about unconventional propulsion.[2][3][5]
People and topics
- Nick Cook — Jane's Defence Weekly aviation editor and author of The Hunt for Zero Point.
- The Hunt for Zero Point — Nick Cook's 2001 book on secret anti-gravity research.
On the Timeline
- Naval Research Laboratory parapsychology claim (21 February 1990) — A journalist claims the Naval Research Laboratory had a parapsychology unit.
- Steven Greer's 1990s private meetings (Mid-1990s) — Steven Greer alleges he met wealthy and connected figures at a private San Francisco gathering about UAP.
See every 1990 event on the UAP Timeline →
References
- "AGARDograph 313: The Anatomy of the Gyroscope, Part III" (DTIC), UFO Scans · ufoscans.com · archived copy
- Eric Laithwaite — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- Reactionless drive — Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org · archived copy
- patents.google.com · patents.google.com · archived copy
- archive.org · archive.org · archived copy
- apps.dtic.mil · apps.dtic.mil · archived copy
- Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project – Wikipedia · en.wikipedia.org
Facts in this article are drawn in part from the Wikipedia articles “Eric Laithwaite”, “Reactionless drive”, “Breakthrough Propulsion Physics Project – Wikipedia”, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.
This page was last edited on 29 October 2026. Articles are written in our own words from the sources listed under References; disputed claims are attributed to the people who made them.
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