In September 2012, Michael Rhodes, a technician at the US National Classification Center (NDC) was selected to be the public publisher of an important document – “The Final Development Summary Report”. of Project 1794 April 2 – May 30, 1956″.
Rhodes’ job was to read those documents, catalog them, and make them available to historians, journalists, and curious people.
He quickly realized that the document box was very unusual. “I was working on the document when I saw this weird red flying saucer in the corners,” said Rhodes. Inside the box were numerous oddities: a sectional diagram of the disc-shaped aircraft, a graph showing thrust and thrust performance at speeds over Mach 3 (1,029 m/s), a black and white photo of the figure. Frisbee form in a supersonic wind tunnel. A flying saucer on a red arrow – little known insignia in aeronautical design. And what lay before Rhodes’ eyes were the lost files of a flying saucer program developed for the United States Air Force (USAF) in the 1950s.
Neil Carmichael, director of declassification review at the NDC, said: “During the Cold War, the US Army, Air Force and Navy experimented with all sorts of things. When the NDC released the declassified documents, the US Army, Air Force, and Navy tested everything. secret, Project 1794 is arguably the most sensational document ever”.
Accordingly, a Canadian aviation company – Avro Aircraft (Avro Canada) began developing disc-shaped aircraft for the US military in the mid-1950s, this document refers to the “vertical, high-speed” ship. of the Air Force in 1956 and published several photographs in 1960 before the project was officially suspended. In popular culture, flying saucers have always been considered a symbol of extraterrestrials. However, the documents published by Rhodes show that they are indeed from Ontario, Canada. That’s where the visionary aeronautical engineers at Avro Canada actually built the flying saucer – the Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar.
Avro Canada had previously hired John “Jack” Frost in 1947, and harnessed the 32-year-old’s talents for a program to develop a supersonic aircraft called the Avro Arrow. While working on the Arrow program, Frost conducted experiments in the Avro lab on how airflow tends to stick to slightly curved surfaces and produce a phenomenon known as the Coandă effect. The results showed that the engine’s exhaust could be routed through the fuselage to the area just below the disc, where it would form a cushion of air on which the craft could hover.
The Coandă effect is a property of a fluid flow when it is in contact with a convex surface. The property is named after the Romanian inventor Henri Coandă. Coandă was the first to discover the practical application of the effect and was the premise for the development of airplanes and later air conditioners.
After Frost talked about the results of his laboratory research with Omond Solandt, head of the Canadian Defense Research Board, it was followed that, in 1952, the Canadian government provided initial funding but abandoned the project when it became available. so it’s too expensive.
Later, Avro Canada proposed this project to the US government, and the US Army and Air Force took over it in 1958. The purpose of this project, however, was slightly changed: the Army wanted to use it as a reconnaissance and transport of subsonic troops, able to operate in all terrain, but the US Air Force wanted a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft that could hover. under enemy radar then launch to supersonic speed. Avro’s designers believed they could meet both of these requirements, but the two groups of requirements differed greatly.
Accordingly, Frost’s design for a saucer-shaped aircraft was detailed in a 117-page report – the same document that was eventually discovered by the NDC. The proposed vessel has a central turbine, called a turborotor, which is powered by six turbofan engines. The turborotor engine sucks in air that is directed through the fuselage. Exhaust gas is released from the vents located along the perimeter of the aluminum disc; the vanes and shutters direct the exhaust toward the ground for hovering.
Engineers predict that the 20,000 pound (more than 9 tons) thrust generated by the jet’s exhaust could be directed downward around the circumference of the disc. “This jet configuration around the wing creates a powerful take-off cushion so that lift on the plane can be increased to tens of tons,” the report said. Once in the air, the pilot of the flying saucer will navigate the exhaust to the side to move. Frost predicts the disk will travel at Mach 4 and reach a maximum altitude of more than 30 km. With these in mind, the Air Force and Army agreed to fund the prototypes, and Avro asked Frost to set up a secret facility for construction and testing. The Special Projects Group (SPG) is located at the Avro plant in Malton, Ontario, northwest of Toronto.
Initial research data indicated that the circular wing could meet the requirements of both the Army and the Air Force, and Avro built two small test vehicles to demonstrate its design. Tests with scale models at Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio, show that the air cushion beneath the Avrocar becomes unstable only about 1 m above the ground. At the same time, flying saucers are not capable of reaching supersonic speeds, but testing is still underway to determine if a suitable aircraft can be developed for the Army.
The first prototype – Avrocar 58-7055 was then sent to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) Research Center at Moffett Field, California to test in the supersonic wind tunnel whether the saucer had enough control for flight. high speed flight or not. However, the tests showed that the aerodynamic stability control of the flying saucer was very difficult. The hot air of the engine circulates below, causing the frame structure to be easily deformed due to temperature.
In April 1961, test flights resumed after several design improvements. In this test, the flying saucer achieved a maximum speed of about 190 km / h, 3 times faster than the previous speed of only 56 km / h, but the engineers still could not control the aerodynamic stability. of flying saucers, whereby the Pentagon officially stopped funding this project.
According to some sources, the total amount that the US Department of Defense has spent on this project is up to 10 million USD, equivalent to about 80 million USD today. Although Project 1794 failed, this project still paved the way for the development of later air cushion ships. Prototypes of the two later Boeing YC-14 and McDonnell Douglas YC-15 aircraft were based on the project’s studies. In particular, the central lifting fan system of the vertical take-off version of the F-35B is said to have also applied some technologies from the program.
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