There is lots of speculation about flying saucers and to be honest I quickly get bored with it all but this subject is a real one from Canada which I
haven't seen detailed on here (sorry if I missed it) This is not the famous Avrocar, this one was for a supersonic interceptor saucer and went by
several names, Project Y, Avro Ace, Y2, Silver Bug and MX1794 amongst others. Niether was it entirely Canadian. There was strong influence from the
parent Avro company in Manchester and there was intense interest by the RAF and RAE and was only with the agreemejnt and recommendation from such as
Sir Roy Dobson etc that the US eventually was granted a full partnership. This was at a time of course when the project needed money and we all know
who had plenty of that. This did lead to the US virtually taking control of Avro Canada's SPG, but again, this was before the Arrow was axed, not
after it.
Here is an early drawing of the Project Y clearly showing the vents for the Radial Flow Gas Turbine that was to power it. At this stage it is not
circular, but more spade like. The RFGT engine was actually structurally integrated into the airframe.
A bit later in its development here are some images of the Mock up in the factory. This was not just a basic mock up but was actually used for engine
integration trials
When Frost decided to redesign this vehicle into a round saucer shape it was decided that the whole thing might as well be axed, especially as the
engine was part of the airframe and redundancy in case of faults or replacements were never going to be an option.
It was at this point that the US came on board and frost also abandoned the RFGT altogether and redesigned the, now Y2 or Silverbug, to use
conventional jet engines, arranged radially breathing from a central intake and venting through the vanes. These could be accomodated in self
contained units that could be removed for mainenance or replaced completely, as shown in this diagram
With the new impetus this brought the programme continuied to flourish and this is an impression of a Silverbug carrying out a 'slash attack' on a
Tu 95, a tactic proposed by Frost himself who insisted no harm would come to the saucer or its pilot. Well, thats all right then
This project evolved into the MX 1794 (a purely US designation for what was basically the same concept) and this fake (repeat FAKE) photo shows how it
might have looked on test.
I hope you found this post informative and it can stimulate more discussion .
More advanced of course. 
