The Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar was a VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada) as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War.The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coandă effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft to provide anticipated VTOL-like performance. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer.
Originally designed as a fighter-like aircraft capable of very high speeds and altitudes, the project was repeatedly scaled back over time and the U.S. Air Force eventually abandoned it. Development was then taken up by the U.S. Armyfor a tactical combat aircraft requirement, a sort of high-performance helicopter. In flight testing, the Avrocar proved to have unresolved thrust and stability problems that limited it to a degraded, low-performance flight envelope; subsequently, the project was cancelled in September 1961.
Through the history of the program, the project was referred to by a number of different names. Avro referred to the efforts as Project Y, with individual vehicles known as Spade and Omega. Project Y-2 was later funded by the U.S. Air Force, who referred to it as WS-606A, Project 1794 and Project Silver Bug. When the U.S. Army joined the efforts it took on its final name "Avrocar", and the designation "VZ-9", part of the U.S. Army's VTOL projects in the VZ series.
The Avrocar was the ultimate result of a series of blue skies research projects by designer "Jack" Frost, who had joined Avro Canada in June 1947 after working for several British firms.He had been with de Havilland from 1942 and had worked on the de Havilland Hornet, de Havilland Vampire jet fighter and the de Havilland Swallow aircraft, where he had been the chief designer on the supersonic research project.
At Avro Canada, he had worked on the Avro CF-100 before creating a research team known as the "Special Projects Group" (more commonly known as SPG). Frost first surrounded himself with a collection of like-minded "maverick" engineers, then arranged for a work site. Initially ensconced in the "Penthouse" (the derisive company nickname for the executive wing) of the Administration Building, the SPG was subsequently relocated to a Second World War-era structure across from the company headquarters, the Schaeffer Building, that was secured with security guards, locked doors and special pass cards. At times, the SPG also operated out of the Experimental Hangar where it shared space with other esoteric Avro project teams.
At the time, Frost was particularly interested in jet engine design and ways to improve the efficiency of the compressor without sacrificing the simplicity of the turbine engine. He found Frank Whittle's "reverse flow" design too complex and was interested in ways to "clean up" the layout. This led him to design a new type of engine layout with the flame cans lying directly outside the outer rim of the centrifugal compressor, pointed outwards like the spokes on a wheel. Power for the compressor was drawn from a new type of turbine similar to a centrifugal fan, as opposed to the more typical pinwheel-like design of conventional engines. The turbine drove the compressor using gearing, rather than a shaft. The resulting engine was arranged in the form of a large disk, which he referred to as a "pancake engine." The jet thrust exited from around the entire rim of the engine, and this presented problems trying to adapt the design to a typical aircraft.