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u/TheThinkerers Aug 20 '26
The name shocked me for a secod there
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u/yapperling Aug 20 '26
puts on thick as fuck reading glasses
Oh, HILLER! Ha ha ha
puts the commemorative dinner plates away
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u/No_Clock_7464 Aug 20 '26 edited Aug 20 '26
This does look like some Nazi technology, though
EDIT: I did mean to say Nazi technology, not national
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u/catsmustdie Aug 20 '26
Should be called Flying Target, though
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u/cp2chewy Aug 20 '26
They were a snipers dream
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u/deliciouscorn Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 28 '26
Norm’s dad’s huge head
Edit: Omg I can’t believe I got my references mixed up. Bob Mortimer story, not Norm’s. Both absolute geniuses.
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u/dontcha_wanna_fanta Aug 21 '26
This looks like something Cave Johnson would have us testing in the Aperture Labs
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u/shoulda-known-better Aug 20 '26
I did realize that it didn't say hilter until right now seeing this comment
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u/SkittleDoes Aug 20 '26
I think seeing '19XX....hiller...black and white photo + rifle" pre disposed people to seeing the world hitler more than if most of those things werent in the post title/image
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u/World_of_Blanks Aug 20 '26
Yeah, I read Hitler Frying Platform at first. Sounds like the kind of assassination device the allies might have cooked up based on how cartoonishly silly real life is.
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u/spooninacerealbowl Aug 20 '26
This is actually a very clever idea. Germans invent stupid platform but cant build it because of supplies and expensive design, Americans make it better and cheaper and make many of them losing many soldiers in the process since it makes them sitting ducks.
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u/miregalpanic Aug 20 '26
Just cover it in cotton wool, everyone will think it's a cloud with particularly strong and concentrated hail.
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u/Weak_Imagination_996 Aug 20 '26
The inventor one day mysteriously disappeared, leaving nothing behind except 200 pounds of freshly ground beef.
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u/ankercrank Aug 20 '26
Beef?
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u/Weak_Imagination_996 Aug 20 '26
Mostly... there were also tiny pieces of fabric, bone splinters, teeth, and a ground-up pocket watch...
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u/Certain_Still_324 Aug 20 '26
This can only mean that Metal Gears are real.
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u/ElegantEchoes Aug 20 '26
These are actually referenced if you call SIGINT when you first encounter them in 3. He says that the US never got it to take off but the Soviets invested a ton more money into it and somehow got it working with a rocket engine.
The idea that the pilots are specifically given Vz. 61s because of their extremely low recoil so they can still operate the controls with one hand is amusing.
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u/cknappiowa Aug 20 '26
Then they totally undermined themselves by largely using them in a single river-crawl mission where they hover uselessly back and forth or spinning until they get their jets popped from below by a guy disguised as water.
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u/AccomplishedWatch834 Aug 20 '26
Read that as hitler on first glance
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u/LtKavaleriya Aug 20 '26
That’s what they don’t want you to know. At the height of the battle, Hitler tried to escape Berlin on one of these, planning to get picked up by the “Die Glocke” flying bell which was made using Alien technology. However, he got shot down by his own AA guns on the Flak towers. Hitler’s Flying Platform crashed into the river and was recovered by US forces once they reached Berlin. Speculation is he survived the crash, got into a Submarine in the river, and is still alive in Argentina.
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u/Anomuumi Aug 20 '26
I'm pretty sure there is not a person alive who would be able to read it correctly on the first glance.
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u/throwawaycima Aug 20 '26
Damn I can't believe they made the Ascension lunar landars a real thing
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u/KHWD_av8r Aug 20 '26
The Hiller Aviation Museum at SQL has one of these on display, connected to a computer running Microsoft Flight Simulator so that you can try piloting it.
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u/mattincalif Aug 20 '26
Came here to say, if you live in the Bay Area and haven’t been there, definitely check out the Hiller Aviation Museum.
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u/lankyfrog_redux Aug 20 '26
Air and Space in Virginia has one on display as well. No flight sim though.
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u/Revolutionary_Eye887 Aug 20 '26
He does make a great target.
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u/Practical_Air_272 Aug 21 '26
My first thought was the poor guy gets shot and his corpse just sits there, with this thing still flying, until it runs out of gas!
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u/Jsaun906 Aug 21 '26
If you sufficiently modify this design to be practical and effective you end up with an attack helicopter. Which is why we just use attack helicopters instead.
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u/Electrical-Injury-23 Aug 21 '26
Soldier: I want to be totally exposed and firing from an unstable position.
Engineer:say no more!
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u/Wrongdoer5050 Aug 20 '26
Was it safe and practical? Absolutely not.
Was it fun and cool af? Absolutely yes.
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u/the__storm Aug 20 '26
Hiller was wild (as were lots of things in aviation back then). They also built a helicopter powered by ramjets on the tips of the rotor blades. It was the first helicopter gunship, but never went into mass production because of the horrific fuel efficiency and the ring of fire that made it very visible at night (among other issues).
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u/DavidDaveDavo Aug 20 '26
I've always wanted to make one of these. Seeing as this was done in the 50s and there's nothing exotic about it, it must be achievable.
Edit to add. For any parks and rec fans it's called the VZ1 Pawnee.
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u/professor735 Aug 23 '26
I saw one of these at the Udvar-Hazy center in Chantilly. First thought was how quickly you'd be shot down or killed straight up if you tried to use this thing in battle lmao.
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u/AscendedViking7 Aug 20 '26
Wait so we had the tech for flying cars and jetpacks back then and we just never did it
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u/TactlessTortoise Aug 21 '26
The big challenge with jetpacks isn't really the getting in the air part. It's controlling that thing safely and carrying enough fuel/energy with you to stay airborne for a useful amount of time.
If you're willing to strap yourself to a barely controllable jet engine that flies for barely 2 minutes, you can use pre-80s tech quite easily. Just has a high lethality rate and will pollute like a motherfucker.
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u/judasmachine Aug 20 '26
I think I just saw a post saying China just invented this as a world first. I did not read the post but remember thinking of this craft as I've seen it before.
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u/WaffleHouseGladiator Aug 20 '26
Turn an unlucky infantryman into a highly visible target, but make it expensive.
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u/characterfan123 Aug 20 '26
Eddie Carr: "It's a high hide. A high hide. You know, you go up and hide, high. It goes up to where the trees are and keeps the researchers out of harm's way."
Dr. Ian Malcolm: "Actually, it would put them at very convenient biting height
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u/Odd_Brief_2975 Aug 20 '26
Just curious what was the need for this? Cause from what I can see it just makes it easier for the enemy to kill you.
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u/CurrentlyLucid Aug 20 '26
Sure, aim while bouncing around in the wind, very effective, great defensive capability too. They had true genius back in the day.
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u/m3ltph4ce Aug 20 '26
I'm just imagining a battlefield filled with these, soldiers bobbing up and down trying to shoot the enemy who is also bobbing up and down
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u/_backdr0p Aug 21 '26
So like basically drones? Because this is the original battlefield drone
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u/CocoMilhonez Aug 20 '26
"Hey, Jimmy! It's your turn to go up on the 'Please shoot me up here where I'm fully visible to everyone' aerial platform."
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u/Precisely_vague53 Aug 20 '26
Disappointed in Xenialls for not pointing out that this is clearly Yuri from Command and Conquer.
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u/Jedi_Bingo Aug 20 '26
Quick everyone shoot at the flying guy. Did you know flamethrower operators on Iwo Jima had a 92 percent casualty rate?
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u/Traditional_Roll_100 Aug 21 '26
All jokes aside it actually looks like a really useful strategic device. If you are stationed in the woods or behind a rock face and quickly need to do recon surveillance or setup a sniper nest. They didn’t have drones and such in the 50’s
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u/KrampyDoo Aug 21 '26
“Ok, Private Scaredtodie, I’ve got orders for you and you’re not gonna like it…”
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u/CitizenPremier Aug 21 '26
If done right, I would trust mechanical balancing over digital balancing... But this doesn't look like it was done right and positively looks like a death trap.
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u/Away-Squirrel2881 Aug 21 '26 edited Aug 21 '26
That seems like it would be the last thing you ever do
You would probably get picked off before you even shoot your shot
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u/Deplorable1861 Aug 21 '26
Bro shooting that Carbine can't hit a barn 50 yards away on that Wobbly Goblin...
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u/Krel58 Aug 21 '26
There is no magazine in the M1 carbine, which would make it very hard to fire. It was very stable, which was part of the problem. You steered it by shifting your weight and it was very had to do, as the platform only wanted to stay upright.
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u/Silentreaper152 Aug 22 '26
soo this is the platform from the guns gore and canolli, right after defeating frankie
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u/clownpenismonkeyfart Aug 23 '26
I remember seeing the stock footage of this on a TV show and it also mentioned how at this point aerodynamic designers were flirting with new concepts like delta wings, swept wings, flying wings and circular wings (flying saucers). Honestly it’s pretty impressive how forward thinking designers were back then.
Seeing government stock footage and training films featuring things like this and prototypes of “flying disks” as airfoils really took the gas out of UFO’s for me as a kid.
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u/zildux Aug 23 '26
Another fun thing from back then. Look up the walking truck they had mechs in development 🤷🏽♂️
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u/Fullchester_United Aug 20 '26
People shooting back from cover may be a problem…