Flying Saucers Were Real After All

It was designed to take off vertically and would have a top speed of Mach 4, a maximum altitude of 30km and a range of over 1,000 nautical miles.

A document titled “Project 1794, Final Development Summary Report” and dated 1956 was recently made available on the site. It reveals that the Air Force had contracted the construction of the craft to a Canadian company, Avro Aircraft Limited in Ontario.

Technical schematics reveals one version of the craft which would only have been big enough for a single pilot, and another with a bigger cockpit.

The document concluded that the project was "feasible and the aircraft can be designed to have satisfactory handling through the whole flight range from ground cushion take-off to supersonic flight at very high altitude".

It estimated that it would cost another $US3 million to take the project to a prototype, two years later.
The program was estimated to cost $3,168,000 at the time - $26.6 million today, according to a report on Wired.