From time to time, a story is revealed that is so incredible that it deserves a separate "sensational" science fiction film. Today's plot takes us back to 1959, when the Cold War was in full swing and a scientist named Jack Frost was sweating over a top secret project: a flying saucer. More precisely, we are talking about a real American plane at the level of a UFO, ordered by the American Air Force.
It even had a working name - Avrocar.
It just so happened that the development of the Avrocar device coincided with the Cold War and the all-American epidemic of obsession with unidentified flying objects, which began almost immediately after the Second World War. It has been speculated that the sharp increase in UFO sightings in the sky was due to anxiety in the US military about the Cold War, which could provoke widespread paranoia among the population.
The first UFO sighting occurred in 1947, several years before the existence of Avrocar became known to the general public. Orfeo Angelucci, a Lockheed assembly line worker, said he saw a saucer hovering in the air near the road he took home late at night. He claimed that a certain voice spoke to him, who told him not to be afraid, and then a man and a woman with big eyes, "whose appearance gave the impression of nobility," appeared and began to communicate with him through telepathy.
Between 1952 and 1969, the US government formally instructed the public to report alleged UFO sightings to a specially created US Air Force unit called Project Blue Book, and from 1947 to 1969, citizens reported more than 12,000 such cases.
Declassified form of a special form for sending a report on a UFO sighting.
Before, Americans were struck by paranoia about the war abroad, now about aliens - so seeing Avrocar was like watching an episode from the then science fiction series "The Twilight Zone" for them. In 1955, a strategic leak appeared in Look magazine that the recent wave of UFO sightings was in fact linked to the appearance of Soviet flying saucers in the skies - another reason America spent millions building a subsonic aircraft to transport its troops.
Avrocar spacecraft mounted on variable height struts in a NASA wind tunnel, 1961.
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It was a cult project, like the creation of an army jeep for the heroes of the Jetsons series, which in the blink of an eye developed supersonic speed, and for some time it had priority over other developments.
In Pentagon advertising literature, Avrocars have been portrayed as "flying jeeps."
Anyway, when Bernard Lindenbaum of the US Air Force Aerodynamics Laboratory went to Washington to ask for additional funding to improve the helicopter prototype, he, in his own words, was told that this development would soon become obsolete and unnecessary. The whole world, or at least the military, will be flying Avrocar.
vrocar S / N 58-7055 during the first public demonstration.
The mastermind behind the project, Jack Frost, was a legend. This British engineer was a pioneer in the development of many supersonic aircraft, in particular the vertical takeoff and landing models that can do without a runway. It is noteworthy that he worked on the creation of fighters, whose speed and maneuverability later earned them the nicknames "Hornet" (Hornet) and "Vampire" (Vampire). So if anyone could create a new generation car, it was undoubtedly Frost …
Jack Frost demonstrates the Coanda Effect, 1951.
In the fifties, he worked for Avro Canada, which has become a true Goliath in its industry despite its relatively short history. Avro Canada, founded in 1945, became the third largest in Canada, and the number of its employees was about 50 thousand people, however, already in 1962 its activities were phased out. Frost ran what was arguably the most advanced department known as the Special Projects Group (SPG). Often, SPG projects were so daring and incredible that they were carried out in an experimental secret hangar guarded by special services, and you could only get there with a special pass.
In 1953, Frost impressed the American military with his designs and could not resist demonstrating a secret experimental vehicle, which he then called "Project Y-2". It was a saucer-like plane that even many of his colleagues did not see. US military experts were so impressed that they took over funding for Frost's research. Throughout development, his vehicle went by various names, including the 606A Weapon System, Project Silver Bug, Flying Saucer, and ultimately Avrocar.
Since 1955, the Canadian firm Avro Erkraft began researching a vertical jet take-off vehicle with a circular disc-shaped body and a device for forming an air cushion during takeoff. It was assumed that such a scheme of AVP, with lifting fans driven from a turbojet engine, proposed in 1947 by the English designer John Frost, due to the use of an air cushion, would require less power-to-weight ratio during takeoff than for conventional jet VTOL aircraft.
In addition, the air flow thrown away by the fan, mixed with the gases of the turbojet engine and used to form an air cushion, will have a significantly lower speed and temperature than that of the turbojet engine, which should simplify the operation of such an AHU. Therefore, the Air Force and the US Army took an interest in the development of the AVVP of the company "Avro Ercraft", which took part in financing the research. BN Yuriev back in 1921, the diagram is given in the section “Russia. Research of screw VTOL aircraft ".
In 1959, under a joint contract between the US Army and the US Air Force, the construction of an experimental AVVP with a disc-shaped body was completed, which received the official designation VZ-9V and the name Avrocar and better known as Flying Saucer (flying saucer). The first tests on a leash AVVP VZ-9V began to take place on December 5, 1959, making short flights, and was soon transferred for testing at the Air Force base named after. Edwards. The first take-off with the transition to horizontal flight took place on May 17, 1961.
Frost decided to use the jet thrust, already familiar for that time, in combination with the so-called. the Coanda effect. The essence of this phenomenon lies in the fact that a stream of liquid or gas, moving next to any object, tends to approach it or even "stick". According to Frost's idea, this behavior of the air was supposed to facilitate the maneuvering of the apparatus. At first, Avro Canada engineers made a small apparatus to demonstrate their ideas. The model with a diameter of only 11 centimeters could rise into the air to a small height, but any maneuvering mechanisms did not fit into it. Nevertheless, the Canadian military department became interested in the idea and allocated about 400 thousand US dollars to continue the work. Shortly thereafter, the project received the Y2 index.
At this stage, the future Avrocar became the target of a spy drama. Beginning in 1952, the CIA tried to find out if any countries had new aircraft designs. In the 53rd, the scouts learned about the existence of the Y2 project and reported this to their superiors. Soon after the transfer of documents "upstairs" gentlemen from the Pentagon contacted the Canadian military and suggested that they continue to create Y2 together. Canada accepted the offer. Among other things, this had pleasant financial implications. The head of the US Air Force Research Division, Lt. Gen. D. Putt, has raised $ 2 million in funding a year. Very bold for a revolutionary new project. However, the money was allocated and Avro continued to research. By the middle of the decade, the VZ-9 project was ready, which, in fact, became the “swan song” of the Y2 program.
The development of the VZ-9V AVVP under the leadership of John Frost and its tests were carried out in an atmosphere of great secrecy, so extremely limited information was published on it. Probably, the extraordinary form of the AHPA and the lack of official information about the tests carried out in 1961 - 1962 caused intensive publications during this period about the flights of unidentified flying objects (UFOs) in the form of "flying saucers".
The fifteen-meter disc with six turbojet engines, which ejected gases through their own nozzles, and also powered a large turbine, could theoretically rise to any height and fly in any direction. The customer, represented by the American and Canadian military, approved the project, but demanded first to test the new technology on a smaller manned vehicle. Because of this, the "plate" was squeezed to a diameter of about six meters. The power plant was also changed accordingly: now only three engines were placed around the central turbine. The flight control system is interesting. For ascent or descent, it was supposed to change the thrust of all engines at once, which affected the speed of the lifting turbine. To tilt in one direction or another, Avrocar had a special system that changed the thrust of individual engines so thatso that the body of the device tilts in the right direction due to its difference. I had to tinker a lot with this system: it was necessary to take into account the throttle response of the engines, the stability of the entire apparatus and a lot of other parameters.
In mid-1959, the first prototype of the Avrocar was ready. The time has come for testing. The first weeks were spent working out the interaction of the engines and their control systems. It was a tough business, but the Canadians and Americans did it. By November of the same year, the VZ-9 was ready for its maiden flight. On November 12, the "flying saucer" took off from the ground and hovered at low altitude. Over time, they began to add traction and take the device to slightly higher altitudes. At a distance of about a meter from the ground, Avrocar hung freely, maneuvered and could move in any direction. But when it came to climbing to a height of at least a few meters, one very unpleasant feature of the project suddenly emerged. The relatively weak power plant of the prototype could provide satisfactory stability and controllability only at a height of up to one and a half meters. With the further rise of "Avrocar" had to rely only on the Coanda effect. The screen effect, in turn, disappeared and the aircraft lost its former stability. After a series of test flights, Avro Canada engineers had to return behind the drawers. In the meantime, the Canadian military, dissatisfied with the results, concluded that the project was useless and refused to continue to issue money.
Over the next months, a team of designers led by J. Frost tried to find a solution to the discovered problem and ensure proper stability. At this stage of the work, several more models were collected, on which new ideas were worked out. However, none of the models was able to climb to a tolerable height and not roll over. Among the reasons for this behavior of the vehicles were the lack of additional air support (the same ground effect), and the design requirements for accurate and accurate balancing, and the need to synchronize the operation of the engines.
All this could be corrected only with the help of a radical design change. At the end of 1960, Frost began redesigning the project in accordance with the collected experience. Since 1959, the Y2 project has been funded only by the United States. Over time, the American officials responsible for the program began to doubt its expediency. Therefore, shortly after the start of a radical modernization, funding for Avrokar stopped. The Pentagon staff were tough and laconic. The termination document indicated the futility of the project, as well as the absence of any satisfactory result at a cost of about twelve million dollars.
In 1962, the development of the VZ-9V AVVP was discontinued.
The latest tests carried out by the AVVP VZ-9V "Avrokar" showed that it does not have sufficient stability, in addition, the constant malfunctions in the operation of its power plant and control system caused the termination of its tests, despite the advertised prospects of its use.
The fundamental difference between the experimental AVVP VZ-9V "Avrokar" was that it could not only fly like an airplane at high altitude, but also move near the ground on an air cushion. The device had a round disc-shaped case, in the center of which a fan was installed. The air sucked in by it was directed through a system of channels to a single-circuit annular nozzle passing along the periphery of the apparatus.
The lifting force during hovering or movement of the VZ-9V AHU near the ground was created, firstly, due to the air cushion formed when air outflow from the annular nozzle, and secondly, as a result of the so-called Coanda effect, which usually manifests itself when air outflows from nozzles above a profiled surface: the vacuum generated creates a lift. In AVVP VZ-9V, when air flowed through the nozzle, due to ejection, air was sucked from the upper surface of the apparatus body, which led to a vacuum on it and the creation of an additional lifting force.
Air was ejected through an annular slot on the upper surface of the apparatus body. The central fan with a diameter of 1.52 m was driven by a low-speed turbine driven by a gas flow flowing out of the nozzles of three Continental J69-T9 turbojet engines with a thrust of 420 kgf or an equivalent power of 1000 ehp. To create a horizontal thrust force, the annular air curtain can be deflected using the rotary rudders in the annular nozzle.
The transition of the air cushion from movement on an air cushion above the ground to free flight occurred as follows: the air cushion accelerated above the ground on an air cushion to such a speed that its disk-shaped body created a lift sufficient to maintain it in the air, and then to lift it. In this case, the annular jet, curling up, turned into a flat blanket, and the air flowing out of the annular nozzle created a horizontal thrust.
The built experimental AVVP VZ-9V "Avrokar" was intended for flights at subsonic speed, so it had a rounded toe of a round wing and an annular air intake along the perimeter of the wing to enter the ejected air flow. The circular disc-shaped body with a diameter of 5.5 m had an elliptical profile with a relative thickness of 20% and a curvature of 2%. The characteristics of the AVVP VZ-9V were not published, although it was indicated that it could have a maximum speed of 480 km / h.
The Avro Erkart company also designed a supersonic version of the AVVP of this type, in which the wing had to have a sharp edge and a modified system of intake of ejected air. Such a device was distinguished by its structural compactness and could have a relatively small mass; its circular wing configuration has been touted as optimal for low-altitude, high-speed flight, provided the stability issue is addressed.
Both built prototypes of Avrocar, which are kept in the aviation museums of the USA, have survived to this day. About ten years ago, a number of Canadian historians advocated the transfer of one of the Avrokars into the hands of Canada. They motivated this by the need to recognize the merits of their country in the creation of the project. At the same time, the topic of financing shares was somehow bypassed, although the United States spent more than ten times more money on the Y2 program than their northern neighbor. In particular, and therefore, the conversations of the beginning of the 2000s have remained conversations, and both built VZ-9s are still in American museums.
Avrocar may not have become a supersonic saucer, but it certainly paved the way for the hovercraft technologies that are widely used today. One of the devices is on display at the National Museum of the United States Air Force, while the other is reportedly held by the military at one of their facilities. Who knows, maybe someone is tinkering with it right now, and one day the "flying saucer" will come back to life.