On February 11, 1953, the Canadian newspaper Toronto Star published a sensational report that a fantastic vertical take-off and landing aircraft was being built at the Avro Canada plant in Molton, at the request of the military, with a speed of up to 2400 km / h. Five days later, under public pressure, the Canadian Department of Defense was forced to officially confirm the information, but refused to release the details of the project.
What was this project?
For the US CIA, this became a cold shower - if Canadians are capable of this, then what is up to Stalin's sleeve? Maybe the flying saucers that roam America's skies in schools are actually Uncle Joe's secret intelligence vehicles?
The head of the CIA's Scientific Intelligence Department, Marshall Chadwell, was instructed to urgently investigate the problem from the very top. The suspicion that the Russians had managed to implement unfinished German developments grew into confidence. Moreover, according to the testimony of former Junkers engineer Edward Ludwig, in 1945 Soviet troops removed all the documentation and several prototypes of flying discs from the company's factory. Chadwell brought up archives of German aeronautical engineers about the construction of entire flotillas of unconventional aircraft. Leading experts in aerodynamics and the Germans who settled in the United States and in the West were involved in the examination of these documents.
The sky is bluer over Canada
With German plates, by the way, it's not so simple. Hundreds of technicians and thousands of captured soldiers declared that they actually existed. Some pilots swore that they even flew them. One of the high-ranking officials of the German patent office, Rudolf Lusar, under oath claimed that he personally examined several patent applications, which described the design and operation of disc-shaped machines.
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Thousands of witnesses, drawings, photographs, even filming - and not a single "live" plate, not even a bat. And close to the CIA's side, some Avro Canada is building the weapon of the future! British bespectacled men seriously scared the CIA. Why British? The fact is that at the end of the 1940s, England accumulated a powerful technological potential in the field of aviation, and the crown was very reluctant to finance military development. AV Roe Ltd has had many breakthrough projects in its assets, but it was impossible to implement them at home. It turned out to be easier to negotiate with the Canadian military. In 1947, a troop of the best designers was transferred to Canada, to a subsidiary of Avro Canada, who began to develop several new aircraft and engines at once. One of the brightest members of the British national team was 31-year-old John Frost, whom everyone called Jack.
Overseas, Jack was entrusted with the development of the CF-100 supersonic interceptor, which is essential for AV Roe Ltd, and he coped with the task perfectly. The CF-100 went down in history as the only combat aircraft designed in Canada and mass-produced. In 1950, Frost proposed a new project to the company's management - a supersonic vertical take-off and landing vehicle that did not need runways. To his surprise, the board of directors of AV Roe Ltd approved the proposal almost immediately. Frost was assigned a group of technicians and workers. At the Molton plant, several hangars with a closed area between them were fenced off from the rest of the territory, and Jack set to work.
Under the wing to Uncle Sam
The first version of the apparatus, called Project Y, was by no means a plate. Frost believed that the ideal scheme for such an exotic vessel would be a spearhead. In 1952, a wooden model of the huge Avro Ace deltoid wing was built. The pilot's cockpit with a transparent plexiglass hood was located in the center of the fuselage, and the engine air intakes were on the upper and lower wing surfaces. The car was supposed to start from a vertical position, like a rocket, and after climb, fly like a regular plane. But this design had a lot of disadvantages, the main of which were poor visibility and instability in hovering during landing.
In 1953, Frost brought the project out of the impasse by starting construction of a disc-shaped craft, code-named Avro Canada VZ-9A, with a centrally located jet engine of his own design and controlled nozzles distributed around the perimeter. The takeoff and landing of the car had to be very soft due to the formation of an air cushion near the surface. The climb was supposed to be accelerated using the Coanda effect - the adhesion of the air jet from the engine to the curved surface of the wing when feeding through a narrow channel. The stream flowing around the wing creates a vacuum above it, which carries the apparatus upward. The horizontal flight and maneuvering of the Frost disk ensured that the thrust vector was changed by the nozzles. The theoretical speed limit of the VZ-9A was estimated at 2,400 km / h, and the calculated ceiling reached the lower layers of the stratosphere. The aviation of those times did not know such a thing yet.
The plate was named Project Y-2, and the activities of Frost's group were strictly classified. At the plant, only a few members of the directorate and employees directly involved in the work knew about the disk. The entire group was thoroughly searched before and after the shift, and any verbal mention of Project Y-2 was prohibited. Nevertheless, rumors still leaked out, although few believed in them. For example, Avro Canada staff photographer Verne Morse recalled that he was admitted to the car only after it was built and only then realized that the rumor about the flying saucer was not a hoax.
Suddenly, in 1953, the Canadian Department of Defense stopped funding Project Y-2, considering the $ 400,000 spent in excess. Fortunately, a US Air Force delegation soon arrived at the Molton plant, ostensibly to view the new CF-100 interceptor. This visit was not accidental, and its main goal was that mysterious Canadian plate. Frost, with the approval of the company's management, personally told the Americans about it. The design specifications, drawings and scale model of the disc shocked the guests. The decision to place an order with Avro Canada for the development of a fantastic car was made with lightning speed.
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".
Four years later, the Pentagon actually bought out the promising project, providing Avro Canada with additional funding. At the same time, Project Y-2 was renamed Weapons System 606A. In 1959, the Americans re-baptized Frost's brainchild: until 1961, the disc bore the name Project 1794, but in the history of aviation this machine remained under its factory name, coined by Frost, Avrocar.
Explosive potential
When the Yankees got involved, the development of the cymbal sped up dramatically, but Frost was caught in the middle. The US Air Force demanded a supersonic stealth plane from him, and the army demanded a subsonic landing craft, which they called a flying jeep.
The original Avro PV-704 was powered by a 1.5m center turbo engine powered by six Armstrong Siddeley Viper jet engines. The powerplant was incredibly noisy and vibrated in such a way that it loosened the steel rivets. But most importantly, it warmed up so that the aluminum case of the disc melted. In addition, the engines suffered from chronic oil incontinence. Each launch threatened to turn into fire or explosion. In total, the Avro PV-704 burned three times. The staff began to shy away from his hangar like the plague, even despite the 8 mm thick bulletproof glass screen installed. In 1956, during a test, three engines went out of control and collapsed, and Frost himself and several other technicians nearly died. After that, it was decided to change the configuration of the power plant.
Instead of six hellish burners, three were installed around the turbo motor. The thermal insulation of the power unit was also improved and the supporting triangular frame was reinforced. Vehicle number 58-7055 was built in May 1959, and Frost began testing it in June. The very first launches of the disc at the stand shocked him. Exhaust gases got back into the engine air intakes and drastically reduced their power. In addition, the thrust of the turbo motor was distributed very unevenly under the bottom and over a much smaller area than the calculations showed. As a result, it turned out that the car is capable of hovering only in the area of the air cushion. Avrocar's mass was 1944 kg, and the thrust of the power plant was only 1430.
Spinning top
Meanwhile, the second prototype, numbered 59-4975, piloted by test pilot Wlodzimierz Potocki, nicknamed Spad, made its maiden flight on 29 September 1959 on three safety ropes.
Already 12 seconds after the separation from the site, Spad Pototsky was forced to turn off the engines due to the dangerous rocking of the apparatus. Directly above the ground, the flow of thrust of the machine was evenly distributed under its bottom, but as soon as it rose a little higher, the flow narrowed and supported only the center of the disk. This defect had to be corrected almost on the knee - 52 holes were drilled on the bottom of the disc around the turbo motor, which, in theory, were supposed to improve the flow configuration.
On November 12, 1959, the car made its first free flight. Swaying during hovering decreased, but there were problems with handling - any maneuvers were accompanied by yaw of the hull. And the top speed was depressingly low - only 35 km / h. In addition, the heating of the hull was so strong that after five flights, some of its elements required replacement.
Nevertheless, the management was in a state of euphoria. The advertising department has been tasked with preparing brochures highlighting the limitless possibilities of technology. In the future, it was planned to build several civilian modifications of the Avrocar: the Avrowagon family flying saucer, the Avroangel air ambulance and the Avropelican rescue ship.
On December 5, 1959, testing of 59-4975 was suspended. During this time, Pototsky made five flights and spent 18.5 hours in the air. A new stage of design improvements began. In January 1960, the updated 59-4975 was rolled out of the hangar again. The device behaved much more stable, but at speeds above 60 km / h it became uncontrollable.
The Americans decided to get involved in solving the problems. On the 58-7055 prototype, delivered to Moffett Field, NASA engineers tried several options for additional tail, but tests showed them to be useless. The last factory flight tests of the Avrocar with a T-tail, carried out on June 9, 1961, ended unsuccessfully - Pototsky managed to accelerate the car only to 37 km / h, and the problems with the loss of control at critical altitude became even more serious. Frost, in turn, offered customers two new design options for the car: one with a large vertical rudder, and the other with small side wings. In both cases, the diameter of the turbo motor was increased by 35 cm, and instead of three engines, it was supposed to use two powerful General Electric J85s with a total thrust of 12 kN. But the military began to lose patience. The money ran outand the result was zero. In the summer of 1961, the Pentagon took a break.
A few more details from the history of this interesting development:
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 that the body of the vehicle, due to its difference, tilted in the right direction. 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.
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 a 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.
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 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 with a fan in the center. 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 firm "Avro Erkart" 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 that stability issues are addressed.
| LTH: |
| Modification | VZ-9V |
| Disc diameter, m | 5.50 |
| Height, m | 1.07 |
| Wing area, m2 | 23.60 |
| Weight, kg | |
| empty plane | 1361 |
| normal takeoff | 2522 |
| engine's type | 3 turbojet engines Continental J69-T9 |
| Thrust, kgf | 3 x 420 |
| Maximum speed (calculated), km / h | 480 |
| Real speed, km / h | 56 |
| Practical range (calculated), km | 1061 |
| Range, km | 127 |
| Practical ceiling (calculation), m | 3048 |
| Flight altitude, m | 0.91 |
| Crew, people | 2 + 1 |
The naked king
Six months after the last flight 59-4975, the Americans declared the project closed. Project 1794, part of the Silverbug program, was just one of 35 of its kind. The fate of the rest of the plates from this service is still classified, but probably just as sad. According to one of the test participants of the car, NASA test pilot Fred Drinkwater, Avrocar was very promising, but was simply abandoned halfway.
After the completion of the work, the prototype was taken to America, but in 1968 it again found itself in Canada. For 20 years, the car stood in the open air as an exhibit at the Montreal Man and His World Exhibition. It is currently under restoration at the US Army Air Transport Museum in Fort Eustis, Virginia. The second Avrocar has been roaming various museums and restoration workshops for over 40 years, ending up as one of the most amazing exhibits at the National Air Force Museum in Daytona, Ohio.
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.
Many legends and rumors still circulate around this story. Some believe that the closure of the project was just a smokescreen, but in fact, the plate was brought to mind and classified. Others say that Frost's disk was a mundane doll - a cover for other, more serious research, which was attended by German designers, including the mysterious Richard Mitte. As an argument, they cite information leaks suspicious for that time, which, most likely, were filtered disinformation for Soviet spies.
In our country, research has also been carried out in this direction. Here is a Russian flying saucer:
You can read more about this project here.