The U.S.A.F. UFO , Project 1794
By: Frank Maradiaga
Some of your conspiracy-theorist friends were right: the U.S. Government was hiding flying saucers.
Newly declassified records show the United States Air Force was working on a disk-shaped craft that resembled the UFOs of movie lore.
USAF Project 1794 created a saucer-like vehicle that would feasibly take off and land vertically plus have “satisfactory handling” while in supersonic flight at very high altitudes.
The project’s Final Development Summary clocked in the top speed potential at Mach 4 with a maximum ceiling of over 100,000ft., and a maximum range of about 1,000 nautical miles. The price tag was estimated at $3,168, 000.
Somewhere Art Bell’s glorious mustache is hiding a smug smile.
The release is accompanied by two snazzy cutaways of the faux spaceship.
The Air Force outsourced the building of it’s Identified Flying Object (see what we did there?) to the Canadian outfit Avro Aircraft. However it was a Canadian project before it was American.
According to records from the National Museum of the United States Air Force, in 1952 the flying saucer became too expensive for the Canadian government and they dropped it. Out of millions, Avro took the idea to the Air Force, and the U.S. Army.
The army wasn’t interested in a supersonic flying machine says the museum’s records. They wanted a troop transport and reconnaissance craft. The Air Force wanted a vertical take off and landing aircraft to hover behind enemy lines then blast off at supersonic speed when their Plan-9-like mission was completed.
Eventually the Canadian designers weren’t able to satisfy either, and it was scrapped in the 60s.
The National Museum of the USAF has such a flying saucer, the Avro Canada VZ-9AV, on display in Dayton, Ohio. So check it out if you can rip yourself away from that hot Toledo nightlife.
