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Vweccc ws Zecca s ——— Project Y2 Silver Bug slices through a Soviet Bear bomber using an intercept technique proposed by John Frost. The flying disc would be fitted with a hardened leading edge and the attack would take place at high supersonic speed. Frost maintained there would be very little prospect of damage to the Silver Bug aircraft and the pilot would be safe. Bill Rose sion system are unknown but performance was optimistically suggested as a maximum speed of Mach 3, with a ceiling of 90,000ft (27,432m), a cruise altitude of 65,000ft (19,812m) and a range of 15,000 miles (24,140km). An unmanned Silver Bug was considered as a guided missile, presumably carrying a nuclear warhead, along with a small 6ft (1.8m) diameter version for battle- ae factor appears to be the allocation of an MX _ by the USAF as a follow on to Silver Bug and designation to a system under development — in 1955 Quarles allocated a further $750,000 to by a foreign contractor. the programme. In September 1955 a 5ft Project MX 1794 featured a new type of (1.5m) diameter 1/6th-scale model of Project turbo-ramjet propulsive system, which can — 1794 (the MX designation now seems to have be traced to 1953 when John Frost and been discarded) was shipped to Wright-Pat- Claude Williams began to consider alterna- terson AFB for wind tunnel testing, while tives to the RFGT. Their first proposal was a__ engineers began to assemble an engine test flying disc with an approximate diameter of _ rig at Malton. 35ft (10.7m), which used a series radially dis- persed axial flow gas turbines to drive a large compressor stage that revolved around the upper centre of the aircraft. In turn, this forced air through ducts to a series of flame holders around the circumference of the aircraft and the gas finally exhausted through shuttered ports that were adjusted to provide flight con- trol. In addition to supplying air to each jet engine, the compressor would have turned fast enough to generate gyroscopic stability in much the same manner as the RFGT. In level flight the pilot could throttle back the turbo- jets and allow the ramjet function to take over. Normally ramjets only work at high speed but this propulsion system was intended to operate in ramjet mode at all speeds, including hover! Two further designs followed, with differ- ent engine layouts and alternative pilot posi- tions, but the fourth study became Project MX DECLASSIFIED 1794, which combined aspects of all the ear- lier turbo-ramjet studies with elements of Sil- ver Bug. Project MX 1794 was finally selected Avro Canada 1794 document front cover. USAF field use. : Project MX 1794 In 1954 the Air Research & Development Command at Wright-Patterson AFB funded a highly classified alternative to Silver Bug that was allocated the designation Project MX 1794. (Confusingly, the 1794 designation also appears on some Project Ladybird docu- ments that refer to the earlier RFGT design.) Project MX 1794 promised a much higher level of performance than Silver Bug and by late 1955 this design had become Avro Canada’s principal flying disc interceptor pro- ject, receiving the internal company designa- tion PR (Proposal Reference) 89221. The USAF prefix MX from this era is often associated with experimental missiles, but it was actually used to identify many other research projects and may simply be short for Military Xperimental. MX designated pro- grammes ranged from radar systems and jet engines to aircraft like the Bell X-1 series (MX 984). In the case of MX 1794, the only unusual ype ese 67 Project Y2 Silver Bug aircraft operating from a specially converted US Navy submarine. USAF Avro Canada 1794 document front cover. USAF Canada’s Cold War Saucers