Traditional-Propulsion Prototypes
Before we leave advanced and theoretical propulsion, a distinction should be made between those lines of research and speculation, and the real-life “flying saucers” and faux saucers created since circa 1939 to the present. The craft have been noodled with by national militaries, private companies, and individuals.
The most notable, the Avrocar, came from Avro-Canada, under a commission to build saucer prototypes for the U.S. military. Avro-Canada began exploring the saucer concept with aeronautical engineer John Frost in 1953, before American sponsorship. Early “tease” information suggested rapid vertical climb and a flight speed of fifteen hundred miles per hour. A house organ, Avro News, promised that the saucer was “so revolutionary that it would make all other forms of supersonic aircraft obsolete.” Initial prototypes showed a variety of flaws, but despite overheated engines that melted the steel frame, and violent shudder that popped rivets, the project intrigued the U.S. Army, which gave Avro the go-ahead for working prototypes in 1958.
The subsequent, disc-shaped VZ-9A Avrocar measured eighteen feet in diameter and weighed more than 5,600 pounds. Designers sited the cockpit nearer to one edge of the craft (at the “front”) rather than at the center. Motive power came from three turbojets creating 927 pounds of static thrust apiece. A five-foot central fan on the saucer’s underside generated upward thrust, sucking in air and forcefully expelling it around the craft’s perimeter. By this time, estimates of maximum speed had been scaled back to three hundred miles per hour; anticipated ceiling, with a two-thousand-pound payload, was 10,000– 15,000 feet. At landing, the saucer settled onto four hydraulically damped, wheeled legs.
During tests, the Avrocar prototypes (some with a tail fin, others without) struggled to remain level at low hover, and above just five or six feet, the saucer indicated it might like to flip over. But low, reasonably wobble-free flight was achieved in the Avro parking lot, between buildings and in and out of open hangars. During wintertime tests, the considerable thrust blasted great sheets of ice from the pavement and sent them pinwheeling. (For archival, color film footage of Avrocars in flight, see www.youtube.com/watch?v=cmPiZv4q4Ms.) By about 1960 the USAF and the U.S. Army acted as joint sponsors. Although intriguing, the Avrocar had no future other than as a pricey novelty, and in the summer of 1961, the U.S. pulled its sponsorship.
The Avrocar and all other human-made saucer prototypes were motivated by traditional technology that encompassed, variously, two-stroke engines, gas turbines, and centrifugal-flow jet engines that provided power to internal rotors, contra-rotating external rotors, and rotating circumferences (to create compression and gyroscopic stability). A few early examples had rocket- powered trolley takeoff systems. Saucers with multiple-engine setups arrayed the engines radially, usually around a central cabin. Jet-engine models sometimes added ramjets to let the craft transition from hover to level flight.
Lift came from swirled or blasted downward-directed air, though some designs created lift by downward-directed exhaust gases. The small size of these experimental craft created issues of heat buildup and dispersion, particularly when the design incorporated jet engines.
Designs accounted for stability and control with small fins, rudders, and central tails (standard elements of avionics that are noticeably absent on most UFOs); twin rotors (to eliminate torque); annular nozzles (to regulate pitch and roll); trailing-edge exhausts (to control yaw); electromagnetic rotor braking (yaw); louvered shutters; air intakes; and deflector vanes.
Leading-edge windows, wrapped viewing ports, or bubble canopies provided forward and side visibility. Some designs, such as Leroy Crookes’s STOL (Short TakeOff and Landing) saucer, allowed downward visibility through transparent undercarriages. Two or three retractable legs or pods, usually wheeled, allowed smooth touchdowns.
Most prototypes were single-pilot craft, though a few made provision for two occupants. Pilots usually sat, though some lay prone on their stomachs.
Dreams of saucers capable of carrying machine guns, Gatling guns, cannon, rockets, missiles, and bombs shriveled because lift designs could barely raise unadorned aircraft, let alone those carrying burdensome armament. Because of this, notions of using saucers to deliver nuclear payloads came to naught.
Because all Earth-grown saucers struggled with lift, forward motion, and airspeed, possible commercial applications died right alongside the military ones. Saucer work continues, but the fact is that the design is probably not needed for practical use. (Why invent a flying saucer when you have a Beechcraft or an F-15 Eagle?) The novelty factor remains strong, of course, but hardly seems sufficient to justify significant expenditures of time, talent, and money.
At least here on Earth.
