Avrocar (aircraft)
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The Avrocar was a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War with the Canadian division of Avro Aircraft. The Avrocar utilized (or at least was intended to utilize) the Coandă effect to create a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. It had a disc shape, and used turbine engines to create thrust that was supposed to lift the craft high off the ground. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer. Thrust from the engines was also diverted out the rim of the saucer to provide stability and helicopter-like performance.
History
The designer was John "Jack" Frost who had joined Avro Canada in June 1947 after working for several British firms. He had been with de Havilland since 1942 and had worked on the de Havilland Vampire jet fighter and most recently the D.H.108 Swallow supersonic aircraft. At Avro he had worked on the Avro CF-100 before starting on a flying disc design.
The first free-flight test occurred on November 12, 1959. Additional tests were made in January 1960 and between July 1960 and June 1961 for a total of 75 hours. The results of the testing revealed a stability problem and insufficient performance due to turbo-rotor mechanical tolerances.
Before modifications could be achieved, funding ran out in March 1961. After modified proposals the Avrocar and related VTOL programs were officially completed in December 1961 by the U.S. military and any further research efforts were rejected.
The Avrocar was a failure: it couldn't lift more than a few feet off the ground, and its design and high noise made it impractical for the military.
However, its performance would be prophetic: it was a rubber skirt shy of being one of the world's first hovercraft, the Saunders Roe SRN-1 also taking off in 1959.
Additional Reading
- Campagna, Palmiro, Requiem for a Giant: A.V. Roe Canada and the Avro Arrow, Dundurn Press, Toronto, 2003
External links
- http://www.avrocar.com/avrocarstory.html
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