Declassified at Last: Air Force’s Supersonic Flying Saucer Schematics

[Christopher O'Brien]

[Proof (?) the USAF was interested in "UFO tech" back in the 1950s -- chris]

Article HERE:
Officially, aliens have never existed but flying saucers very nearly did. The National Archives has recently published never-before-seen schematics and details of a 1950s military venture, called Project 1794, which aimed to build a supersonic flying saucer. The newly declassified materials show the U.S. Air Force had a contract with a now-defunct Canadian company to build an aircraft unlike anything seen before. Project 1794 got as far as the initial rounds of product development and into prototype design. In a memo dating from 1956 the results from pre-prototype testing are summarized and reveal exactly what the developers had hoped to create.

The saucer was supposed to reach a top speed of “between Mach 3 and Mach 4, a ceiling of over 100,000 ft. and a maximum range with allowances of about 1,000 nautical miles,” according to the document.

If the plans had followed through to completion they would have created a saucer, which could spin through the Earth’s stratosphere at an average top speed of about 2,600 miles per hour. Wow. It was also designed to take off and land vertically (VTOL), using propulsion jets to control and stabilize the aircraft. Admittedly the range of 1,000 nautical miles seems limited in comparison to the other specifications – but if you’d hopped on the disk in New York it could’ve had you in Miami within about 24 minutes.

The document also hints that the product development seemed to be going better than planned; “the present design will provide a much superior performance to that estimated at the start of contract negotiations.”

It begs the question – why was the project dropped? Why aren’t wars being fought with flying saucers? The cost of continuing to prototype was estimated at $3,168,000, which roughly translates to about $26.6 million in today’s money and wouldn’t have been an insane price for such advanced technology. The problem with the other flying saucers developed under the same program (see video) is pretty clear. They didn’t get anywhere near 100,000 feet in altitude, more like five or six if you were lucky – so the military finally pulled the plug in 1960.
REST OF ARTICLE HERE:

 

[exo_doc]

Isn't this about the AVRO car? It sounds like it, and there was a vid of the AVRO car with the article, but it doesn't really come right out and say it.

As I understand it, the AVRO car was a flop, not even able to successfully be a hovercraft because of inherent instability and a very weak power plant.

Is this about some other program that might have been successful?

 

[boomerang]

Some here will know details. Seems like Nick Cook discussed this pretty extensively in "The Hunt For Zero Point. " If memory serves, a cadre of top engineers and a Canadian aerospace company was involved in Serious R & D that went beyond the ill-fated Avro car.

 

[Ron Collins]

Some here will know details. Seems like Nick Cook discussed this pretty extensively in "The Hunt For Zero Point. " If memory serves, a cadre of top engineers and a Canadian aerospace company was involved in Serious R & D that went beyond the ill-fated Avro car.

as I recall, the issues involved maneuverability and stabilization along with fuel consumption vs payload in comparison to conventional aircraft design. The ducted fan idea has been tried several times over the years without serious success. The X-22, VZ-4, and more recently the Moller Skycar are the more famous ones.

Given the propulsion direction these designs were headed, I think it is easy to see that they were nowhere near the technical sophistication required to simulate typically reported UFO/UAP flight characteristics.

 

[Randall]

Isn't this about the AVRO car? It sounds like it, and there was a vid of the AVRO car with the article, but it doesn't really come right out and say it.

As I understand it, the AVRO car was a flop, not even able to successfully be a hovercraft because of inherent instability and a very weak power plant.

Is this about some other program that might have been successful?

And Exo-Doc hits the nail on the head ... fwwham!

Through the history of the program, the project was referred to by a number of different names. Avro referred to the efforts as Project Y, with individual vehicles known as Spade and Omega. Project Y-2 was later funded by the US Air Force, who referred to it as WS-606A, Project 1794 and Project Silver Bug. When the US Army joined the efforts it took on its final name "Avrocar", and the designation "VZ-9", part of the US Army's VTOL projects in the VZ series.

 

[boomerang]

Given the propulsion direction these designs were headed, I think it is easy to see that they were nowhere near the technical sophistication required to simulate typically reported UFO/UAP flight characteristics.

No high temperature composite materials.. No computer fly by wire systems that make today's dynamically unstable aircraft possible. It's hard to imagine technology of the day would have been up to the task.