1956 Flying Saucer: Clumsy USAF Hover Vehicle

TechNewsDaily Staff

08 October 2012 04:28 PM ET

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Newly declassified designs show the Air Force's attempts to build a flying saucer capable of both hovering and going supersonic. CREDIT: National Archives View full size image

Declassified files about a U.S. Air Force flying saucer sound like a conspiracy theorist's dream come true. But the designs simply reveal more about a known military project from the 1950s that ended up more in the realm of science fiction rather than science fact.

Drawings of the saucerlike vehicle come from "Project 1794, Final Development Summary Report" — a 1956 document recently uncovered by the National Archives that describes a vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft capable of hovering at ground level and reaching supersonic speeds in the sky. But tests at the Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Ohio soon showed that the concept fell far short of its supposed promise.


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