Revealed - Britain’s 1950s Flying Saucer
Source: BRITAIN ©
Light years ahead of its time: the British prototype of
the experimental plane known as Project Y was designed to take off and
land vertically.
Saucerful of secrets: the disc-shaped Avro plane was
intended to fly at 2,500mph.
It is the nearest the RAF got to a UFO. Recently
discovered photographs taken at a secret laboratory in the 1950s
reveal for the first time how close Britain came to developing a
saucer-shaped stealth fighter after the second world war.
The pictures, taken at a research centre in Canada, show
a revolutionary ultra-high-speed jet fighter designed by the British
engineer John Frost. Aviation experts who studied the pictures last
week said the jet incorporated
some of the features on America’s stealth fighter plane.
Work on the aircraft in the 1950s was codenamed Project
Y. Frost and his team initially set out to build a disc-shaped machine
with vertical takeoff, but ended with a sleek, arch-shaped aircraft.
"The pictures are a wonderful find," said David Windle,
who has researched the history of Project Y. "It is technology that
Britain just lost and it is a pity the project was abandoned. Who
knows what would have happened if they
had pursued it."
The photographs were taken at a laboratory in Malton,
near Toronto, where Frost was working with Avro-Canada, a subsidiary
of the British firm Avro, to develop a jet fighter for the Canadian
government. He wanted to create an aircraft which could fly at
2,500mph and take off and land on its tail.
The existence of Project Y has been known about for
years, but no pictures of the aircraft have ever been found. An
aviation researcher accidentally discovered the photographs in a file
at the Public Records Office in Kew.
An elongated saucer shape was used because of the
revolutionary "radial flow" jets designed to power it. The engines
were designed to emit the exhaust gases from several small nozzles,
increasing the thrust of the jet.
Aviation experts said last week that the prototype
vehicle would have been almost invisible to radar because of its slim
cross-section. It would also have been more likely to evade enemy
missiles because of the lower heat output through the numerous jet
outlets.
It is not known why the revolutionary jet never went
into production, but the project was abandoned before the plane had
its first test flight.
Reach for the sky: despite its sleek look, the Avro
never flew Alex Raeburn, then assistant superintendent of
manufacturing at Avro, described the life of secrecy for those on the
base. "The security was very tight," he says. "Armed guards were
stationed on the doors and drawings were taken away as soon as we’d
made the component. In fact, we never knew exactly what it was we were
making."
Verne Morse, one of the team who worked on the secret
project, said he was amazed any pictures had survived because of the
total secrecy surrounding the project. He described how he saw a
subsequent model designed by the team.
"When I saw it [the plane] for the first time I was
stunned," he said. "I’d heard rumours we were working on a flying
saucer, but I dismissed them. Now, here I was looking at it, and I was
speechless."
In 1954, the Canadian government decided to end the
development of the aircraft. The American air force took over the
project and later a scaled-down version of the plane became an "air
jeep", which was nicknamed the Avrocar.
Raeburn said he witnessed test pilot Spud Potocki flying
the saucer-shaped craft. "I remember him flying up to the hangar
windows and looking in like a humming bird might do. When he flew in
cold weather the engines sucked pieces of ice off the puddles. They’d
float around in the air, shining in the
sunlight."
Professor Michael Graham, professor of aerodynamics at
Imperial College, said: "In the 1950s there was a lot of interest in
different aircraft shapes. This is built like a kind of flying wing.
Its ability to hover is useful for
landing in rough places."
While Frost worked on Project Y, American engineers were
developing their own ultra-high-speed jets at desert bases in
California and Nevada, which led to the development of spy planes such
as the U2.
In 1961, however, despite the successful flights of the
Avrocar, the American air force halted all funding for the company’s
researchers. There were no more British-designed flying saucers and
Frost left Avro and moved to New Zealand, where he died.
Last week Tony, his son, said: "Dad was a brilliant
artist who was always designing things, but he combined that skill
with being a very capable mathematician and great lateral thinker."
by Jonathan Leake
Science Editor
March 26 2000