How Canada almost built a supersonic flying saucer
While the US military has always denied the existence of UFOs, it turns out they planned to build one – and had contracted the work to a Canadian company.
The Avrocar - a UASF-funded saucer - in action.
Recently declassified 1950s material from the Aeronautical Systems Division of the United States Air Force shows the schematics for a saucer-shaped aircraft. According to the documents, the saucer had a potential speed of Mach 3 or 4, or between 3,675 and 4,900 km/h. It was to have a ceiling of 100,000’ (about 30,000m), a range of 1,000 nautical miles (about 1850km) and could take off and land vertically.
It seems that Avro Aircraft Ltd. – the Ontario-based company contracted by USAF to design and build the saucer – appeared to have confidence in their design and said in a summary dated June 1st 1956, “It is concluded that the stabilization and control of the aircraft in the manner proposed – the propulsive jets are used to control the aircraft – is feasible and the aircraft can be designed to have satisfactory handling through the whole flight range from ground cushion take-off to supersonic flight at very high altitude.”
What became of the project – referred to as Project 1794 in the documents – is not clear. Avro did, however, work on another UASF-funded saucer. Called the Avrocar, it flew at only 1m off the ground at speeds of up to 55 km/h – certainly not close to the alleged capabilities of the other saucer. The project was cancelled in 1961, but there is some video footage of the Avrocar in action available:
In the National Archives blog post (see previous link), Michael Rhodes says, “Curiously, these pictures bear a strong resemblance to ‘flying saucers’ in popular science fiction films made during the years these reports were created: 1956 and 1957.” It could, of course, also be said that the pictures bear a strong resemblance to the flying saucers that many people claim to have seen in the sky for decades – fodder for the conspiracy theorists, no doubt!
However, not everybody believes that Project 1794 was ever real. For example, one commenter to the National Archives post had this to say:
This is fanciful balderdash pseudo-science aka Popular Mechanics circa 1955. If in fact it was ever created at that time. I cannot imagine ANY air force pilot or General thinking this was remotely worth our time given the Russians were actively working on a space program. That’s where you would’ve put your energy – in U2 and SR 71s and strategic bombers, nuke submarines and ICBMs around the Iron Curtain, not childish cartoons like this.
This ‘scam-matic’ could never actually fly. There’s absolutely nothing here that is remotely logical. However, if during the 1950s you wanted to provide “evidence” that the govt was working on new fangled craft to explain to a population scared about increasing UFO sightings, this is the type of nonsense you’d foist on the public.
What do you think? Was Project 1794 a dismal failure or did USAF actually go on to build it? Or was it simply a Cold War-era scam intended to worry the Russians? Leave a comment and share your thoughts.
[Source: Wired]
I was doing metallurgical tests for the Avrocar & had clearance to go into the area where it was being built. Was also able to see it being tested in a vacant bay on weekends. I was not aware of Project 1794 as such, but I expect that based on the Avrocar’s performance(so far off the mark)the project would have been cancelled.
You are absolutly correct when you say it was “off the mark”. The Avrocar was originaly thought to be able to fly higher and faster than any aircraft yet produced but failed to even come close to what it was touted to be able to do. This is not new information, it has been arround for years. Modles of the Avrocar were given to the people who worked on it after it was mada public. The above video was taken outside “D1 and D2″ manufacturing bays in full view of anyone in the area, at that point not being Top Secret.
I got a laugh out of this article this morning because my dad used to tell me stories of when he was a kid watching the military test a flying saucer out in Milton Ontario. He said it was tethered to the g round and only govered off the ground a few feet. Guess he was telling the truth.
You can go to the USAF Museum in Dayton, OH and see a real Avrocar, there is also another in storage in Maryland. There were only 2 Avrocars built. There is a replica of one at the Air Museum in Winnipeg. Project 1794 isn’t really new information. It was out there already, just had to dig to find it.
i wanna build a U.F.O to travel other solar systems and galaxies .
first correct,I wanna……….
Theortetically a probe ship can be built and sent to the stars as an initial mission to do starmapping elsewhere outside this solar system and at a min a long term fast probe can do initial checkarounds all over the Solar System. Even a extreme telescope other than hubble on suck a weird trip would do similar actions.
I dunno otherwise.
Slow newsday? This vehicle was portrayed in the 1960′s Jello Aircraft wheels (pogs). I believe it was a study for a proposed mobile infantry platform, which never got past the single unit you see on this page because it was so unstable.
Beam me up Snotty!
Recently declassified?
That may be, but the manufacturing and testing information has been in the public domain since it was built.
And AVRO was never commissioned to build the final product “the saucer had a potential speed of Mach 3 or 4, or between 3,675 and 4,900 km/h. It was to have a ceiling of 100,000’ (about 30,000m), a range of 1,000 nautical miles (about 1850km) and could take off and land vertically.”
Avro was commissioned to merely produce a “proof of concept.” In that sense, the AVRO project was a striking success! They successfully built a working prototype! And were paid for it!
And the purpose of a prototype is to have a working ‘model’ to decide if the concept is worth pursuing. This prototype was living proof that a jet powered ‘saucer’ is a bad idea.
Not all experiments lead to commercial products; some fit Thomas Edisons explanation: “I didn’t fail a thousand times at building a light bulb. I successfully found a thousand ways that don’t work.”
The text highlited is not factual or researched. I am 72 years old and in 1966 I was living in California. The company I worked for insured a military transport company called USAC Transport, that carried all military material, accross the US. When I visited that company HQ, in Texas, the owner, Tony Jacobs, showed me film of a flying saucer, that had been transported to Arizona, for testing. The film showed the aircraft arriving on a low deck trailer and the tarp covering it, stencilled in Bold red letters “TOP SECRET – US GOVERNMENT” … fast forward … the aircraft is untarped before a bunch of military observers, and a suited pilot boards, what looks like a single seat bubble cockpit at the top. … the aircraft, preumably after being started, lifts vertically off the trailer, hovers then circles around at about 20 to 30 feet off the ground, for about 10 minutes, after which, it settles back down vertically onto the trailer bed … THIS IS NO JOKE OR HOLLYWOOD FABRICATION … I saw this film with my own eyes and have never forgotten it. USAC Transport had a couple of publicity posters printed, showing their equipment carrying this aircraft on deck and in flight in relation with their tractor and trailer … So there you go. Incidently, I have never again seen a UFO, over the course of my lifetime, to this date.
Again with Sympaticos lead ins. Canada was going to buils a UFO. By definition you can not build a UFO. Unidentitied!!!!
If only I could type or at least read before I post. Build of course.
You can read all about the AVROCAR in my book Fadinghistory Vol. 1 The project was started by the Liberal Government, dropped half way through then the U.S. Government picked it up. It didn’t fly was an understatement. It got about eight feet off the ground and was very unstable. The pilot was Spud Potocki and the AVROCAR was powered by three Continental J69-T9 turbojet engines producing 927 pounds of thrust.
After the Arrow was scrapped, Avro built the Avrocar. This was actually the forerunner to the hover craft using ducted fans but without a “skirt” around the bottom of the vehicle. Other companies picked up on this design concept and Avro was in litigation with them on this idea until Avro closed.
I worked on the design of the flying controls of the Avrocar for six months in 1958 but unfortunately I did not see it operate. Stability problems would now be cured by the introduction of a black box into the control mix.
It was a concept of John frost who initially sold the idea to the Canadian government. When the Canadian government withdrew its support John Frost went to Washington and sold the idea to the U.S. army and air force. That is why the two existing examples presently reside in the USA.
The Avrocar was a project under way at the same time as a
the Arrow but continued briefly after the Arrow cancellation, I worked on both and was called back onto the Arrow after my time on the Avrocar.
Today’s materials are incomparable with the antiquities of that period. Is it not likely that the US military is doing much more sophisticated experimentation on new flight systems? The flying saucer shape is a perfect re-entry vehicle and I assume a smooth flying machine through atmospheric conditions. Space is another story where there is little resistance. Also, does the shape allow for greater performance when using a planets spin to slingshot past it on its way through space?
I was under the impression that shape had little to do with “flight” once out of the atmosphere since space is a vacume and there is neither lift or resistance. You could zoom a gigantic cube just as quickly through space as you could a streamlined saucer.
Unless something has changed or my knowledge is inaccurate. I have not studied this stuff in quite some time!
and no, I didnt speel chek :)
As it turns out, the saucer concept was long “in development” during the 50′s, at Canada’s Malton, Ontario (now part of City of Mississauga and adjacent to Toronto International Airport). The project was relatively maintained as a secret from the GENERAL PUBLIC for some time. This was a little surprising when considering that an estimated 14,000 workers (plus many thousands of sub-contractors) were workin in and with the same major plant complex of A.V. Roe. Obviously most of the media and public attention was being focussed on the somewhat adjacent and highly significant progress of the supersonic Arrow aircraft, plus the nearby development of it’s more advanced engines and firepower systems.
Although direct workers was sworn to confidentiality (including some close family members who were management types), an occasional rumour did arise…but understandably…still with no official public confirmation. This was especially true after the U.S. Army began their financial involvement. Apparently, a professional P.R. film was produced, for U.S. political fundraising purposes. After many informal/unofficial inquiries, this writer just happened upon a somewhat rare copy of this U.S. film which was in possesion of a long-retired employee, and many years after the project ended and the Canadian manufacturing complex was closed.
The film essentially confirmed the sketchy rumours but it was simply a professional political dressup of a work obviously still in progress. You can see the saucer in a very limited outdoor flight but it was still so unstable, it was tethered to the ground and hardly gained low altitude compared to the nearby building height. Aside from political funding reasons (and possibly other U.S. aerospace progress), the saucer project ended in Canada. Unfortunately, the highly acclaimed Arrow jet had already suffered an earlier political demise during 1959. Some good news resulted when many of the highly talented workers were picked up by the huge U.S. NASA program and the British aerospace industry.
There are pics of the Avrocar flying ‘free’ within ground effect
THIS WAS OVER 50 YEARS AGO, WITH ALL OF THE ADVANCEMENT
IN TECNOLOGY, WHO IS TO KNOW ALL THAT THE MILITARY HAS
OUT THERE THAT IF AND ONLY IF THEY ALLOW, WE GET TO KNOW
ABOUT IT 30 YEARS AFTER THE FACT.
I always figured UFOs were a hoax and now this proves it. I suppose the ufologists will cry foul and claim this is a government scam to steal their thunder but those of us with common sense will know better now.
How does one failed human attempt at building a jet-powered saucer negate the possibility that some of the thousands and thousands – perhaps millions – of people, including many air force and commercial airline pilots, who claim to have seen flying saucers have actually seen flying saucers? I mean no disrespect, but there is no sense to this, let alone sense of the “common” variety.
YOU ARE SO SO WRONG DO YOU THINK WE ARE ALONE IN THIS UNIVERSE NOOOOOOOOO WE ARE NOT ALONE AND THERE ARE REAL EVADENCE THAT THERE IS PLANETS WELL AHEAD OF OURS AND i HAVE FOR ONE SEEN A SAUCER RIGHT OVER MY HEAD BACK IN THE EARLY 50S , AND YOU KNOW I NEVER THOUGHT OF IT FOR YEARS LATER , WHEN I SAW IT , SEEMS THAT , I LOST MY MEMORY EVER SEEN THIS SAUCER , THE MEMORY CAME BACK TO ME YEARS LATER . TRUST ME WE ARE NOT ALONE
Doesn’t look like there’s a whole lot of room in one of those to give somebody from the trailer park a decent anal probe. I guess it musta been the real aliens that took me. Rats! I can’t sue the government.
The thing is that USA or many other countries already have “real UFO”. Alot of people knows that already. There will be a disclosure video about UFO and Illuminati and al of their secrets revealed by Dr. Steven Greer dec 20th 2012. The Illuminati have all these UFOs ( alot of them crashed on earth for the past 50 years or more ) and are using them as we speak. But the problem is this, they kept the secret so long and so well that they thought no one would ever know the truth. The fact that Canada had tried to build UFO for USA is just a joke. ” They” already had them for a long time. It’s just a matter of time now until the whole world knows the truth. For more info, go on youtube and search for “DR. STEVEN GREER”. Thanks.