Russians Invade with Flying Saucer

Ridgelift writes "Wired is covering a project revived from Russia by the US Naval Air Systems Command: The Ekip, a pita-bread-shaped, stubby-winged, wheel-less, unmanned ship that weighs in at 500 pounds. 'For more than two decades, engineers at a former Soviet aerospace plant have been toiling on a drone aircraft that looks a whole lot like a prop from Plan 9 From Outer Space.'"

Comments

Ever heard of the AVRO Car?

[evil_one]

AVRO Canada had a working flying saucer back in the height of the cold war.
Link: http://www.avroarrow.org/Avrocar/Avrocar.html

Re:Ever heard of the AVRO Car?

[digital bath]

Moller International has been working on personal 'skycars' for a long time. Some of their earlier models resemble flying saucers, strangely enough.

I can't wait to own one of these, though.

Re:Ever heard of the AVRO Car?

[pipingguy]

AVRO Canada had a working flying saucer back in the height of the cold war.

The hosers also developed a great interceptor, but it got shitcanned due to the emerging threat of ballistic missiles. Or something like that. Some say the program was killed by the Marecans.

Re:Ever heard of the AVRO Car?

[DynaSoar]

From the WIRED article: "In the 1950s, at a plant just outside of Toronto, the Avro-Canada company designed a jet-powered saucer it dubbed the Avrocar. Intrigued by the UFO-esque craft, the U.S. Air Force took over the project in 1955."

Had the designer allowed them to put an apron around the bottom and keeping it close to the ground, rather than insisting on trying to make it fly as it was, he would have been credited with inventing the hovercraft. The original design was too prone to rotary oscillation when it got too high (like 3 feet).

Also: "But despite piles of Pentagon cash, and years of testing, the Avrocar couldn't stay stable more than a few feet off the ground. The program was finally killed in 1965. An Avrocar test model can still be found in a National Air and Space Museum storage facility near Washington."

The other AVRO (of the two built for the US) is on display outside the US Army Transportation Museum at Ft. Eustis, Virginia, half an hour northwest of Norfolk/Virginia Beach. The visitors' center plays a 15 minute documentary about it including footage of flight (such as they were) tests.

Bad Design for Passengers..

[hopbine]

One of the things that killed the passenger flying wing project was that folks on the outside of the aircraft will be going up and down too much when the plane rolls. This design appears to have the same problem. Hand out the sick bags!!!

Ekip Aviation Concern Site

[Anonymous Coward]

Check out http://www.ekip-aviation-concern.com/ for a brouchure with lots of details and more pictures.

The AVROCAR couldn't even get it up

[Colymbosathon ecplec]

According to the article (yes I actually read it before posting, and yes I am new here): But despite piles of Pentagon cash, and years of testing, the Avrocar couldn't stay stable more than a few feet off the ground. The program was finally killed in 1965. An Avrocar test model can still be found in a National Air and Space Museum storage facility near Washington. A "working flying saucer"? I don't think so.

Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets

Re:Wright Flyer vs Flying Saucer.

[uradu]

> had used lift tables on their early gliders that had been made 30 years before by a German man

That "German man" was Otto Lilienthal, hardly an obscure figure. In fact, many consider him at least as important as the Wrights, since he pioneered controllable heavier-than-air flight and made further pursuits into and consideration of flight even acceptable. And he did it all alone.