JERRY PERSON -- A LOOK BACK

I can remember when I was a kid going to the movies and watching the

screen as men from Mars landed on Earth in their flying saucers in the

1950s.

Little did I realize then that what local people may have seen was

Huntington Beach inventor William E. Horton’s own flying saucer.

Horton and his wife, Marion, lived at 16805-1/4 Roosevelt Lane, which was

at the entrance to Meadowlark Airport.

Horton, 36, was an aircraft designer for companies like Aero-Jet,

Consolidate, North American Aviation and Vaultee. He also designed cars

for both Chrysler and General Motors.

But it was in 1952 that Horton designed a flying saucer that he called

the Horton Wingless plane. The circular yellow and green craft was 26

feet wide and 40 feet long. From the ground, the craft appeared to look

like Hollywood’s idea of an alien spaceship.

The wingless craft was powered by two 225-horsepower Jacobs engines and

was housed at what was then Orange County Airport (now called John Wayne

Airport). Horton’s saucer had a tubular steel framework and was covered

in fabric, with flaps on either side that Horton called “sealers.”

Horton tested five small models before he built his full-size model. The

first four models crashed.

On Nov. 13, 1952, Horton taxied the plane down Orange County Airport’s

runway for its first test flight. The $50,000 experimental plane lifted

off the ground with Horton at the controls and rose 50 feet into the air.

But a minute later, the strange craft landed in a nearby bean field after

one of the engines acted up.

After towing the craft back to the airport, Horton replaced the Jacobs

engines with two 450-horsepower Wasp Junior engines. Now known as the

Horton Wingless HWX 28-54, Horton invited two California congressmen to

witness the craft’s next flight in September 1953. On hand at that

memorable occasion were Congressmen James Utt of Santa Ana and Robert

Wilson of Long Beach.

This time, the plane rose 30 feet. After a couple of successful takeoffs

and landings, Horton brought the craft down. Wilson was so pleased by

what he had seen that he asked Horton if he would take him up for a ride.

Horton took Wilson, who was also a member of the Armed Services

Committee, up for two test rides that day. Wilson was impressed with the

flight.

Television personality and fellow pilot Spade Cooley was so impressed

when he saw the saucer that he wanted to hire a troop of midgets, outfit

them in alien looking clothing, put antennas on their heads and land the

strange looking saucer at Los Angeles International Airport for a joke,

but Horton didn’t like the idea.

So if you were one of those who thought you saw a flying saucer back

then, I’m sorry to report that all you may have seen was the dream of

Huntington Beach’s William Horton. The last I heard of the saucer was

that it may be heading for some small town in New Mexico called Roswell.

* JERRY PERSON is a local historian and longtime Huntington Beach

resident. If you have ideas for future columns, write him at P.O. Box

7182, Huntington Beach 92615.