Mechanix Illustrated, March 1956

The Article

The March 1956 issue of Mechanix Illustrated, billed as “The How-To-Do Magazine”, ran a four-page feature by Walter A. Musciano titled “Martian Invader.” The subheading read: “Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s MI’s interplanetary space traveler.” The article provided full construction plans for a control-line model airplane shaped like a flying saucer, powered by a small glow-plug engine.

The model was designed around a disc-shaped airfoil with a 12-inch wingspan, twin bubble canopies housing a carved Martian pilot and robot passenger, and swept fins at the rear. Weighing six ounces, it could be powered by any .039 to .074 cubic-inch displacement glow-plug or diesel engine, the article specified an O.K. Cub .049A as the standard powerplant. The symmetrical airfoil made it capable of aerobatic stunts on control lines.

Construction used balsa wood sheet and plywood, covered in Silkspan or Skysail tissue. The bubble canopies were off-the-shelf Berkeley “Minnow” transparent plastic domes, and the Martian pilot could be carved from wood or adapted from a plastic toy figure. The article ran across pages 128 to 131, with a full-page composite photograph, step-by-step construction text, and two pages of detailed blueprints printed in white-on-blue.

The Photographs

The opening page featured composite photographs by F. Honig that placed the completed model into real cityscapes. The main image showed the saucer cruising between Manhattan skyscrapers, its propeller visible at the nose. Below it, two smaller photographs were captioned “The craft is ready to leave Mars for Earth” and “After successful trip, a landing in New York”, showing the model posed on rocky terrain and against the city skyline respectively. The composites were playful rather than deceptive, framing the project as lighthearted science fiction rather than serious aerospace engineering.

The Blueprints

Two full pages of blueprints accompanied the article, printed in the white-on-blue style standard for technical plans of the era. The drawings provided top view, side view, and cross-section details with numbered parts keyed to the construction text. Components included a plywood bulkhead, bellcrank assembly for control-line steering, fabric-hinged elevator, and music-wire landing gear. A second blueprint page provided full-size cutting templates for all balsa and plywood parts.

Walter A. Musciano

Walter A. Musciano (1920-2012) was one of the most prolific model aviation designers and writers of the twentieth century. A naval architect by profession, he authored 24 books on aviation and model building and contributed articles to Mechanix Illustrated, Air Trails, American Aircraft Modeler, and other publications across seven decades. He was chief product designer for the Scientific Model Airplane Company and was inducted into the Academy of Model Aeronautics Hall of Fame. The “Martian Invader” was one of dozens of original designs he published in Mechanix Illustrated during the 1950s.

Mechanix Illustrated

Mechanix Illustrated was published by Fawcett Publications from 1928 to 2001 (later as Home Mechanix and then Today’s Homeowner). At its peak in the 1950s it was one of America’s largest-circulation how-to magazines, running alongside competitors Popular Mechanics and Popular Science. Its content mixed practical home improvement and automotive repair with speculative technology features, hobby projects, and the occasional foray into science fiction territory, as with the “Martian Invader.”

Context: Saucers in the Workshop

By March 1956, the flying saucer had been part of American popular culture for nearly a decade. Kenneth Arnold’s June 1947 sighting had coined the term; the Roswell incident followed weeks later. By the mid-1950s, saucers had appeared in Hollywood films (The Day the Earth Stood Still, Earth vs. the Flying Saucers), pulp fiction, comic books, advertising, and children’s toys. The Air Force’s Project Blue Book was actively investigating sighting reports.

The “Martian Invader” represents another vector of that cultural penetration: the hobbyist workshop. A mainstream how-to magazine publishing detailed plans for readers to build their own flying saucer, complete with alien pilot, treated the phenomenon not as a threat or a mystery but as raw material for a weekend project. The article assumed its readers were already familiar enough with flying saucer imagery that no explanation of the shape was necessary.

See also: Pop Culture • Australasian Post (December 1953)

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