The Aerocon Wingship, a flying ship with 20 rocket engines and a range of nearly 20,000 km, which was never developed because of crazy costs

At the end of the twentieth century, the United States was working on a flying ship Aerocon Wingship, but because of the crazy costs the project had to be closed.

What we know

The Aerocon Wingship could have revolutionized aviation if the U.S. Defense Department's Office of Advanced Research Projects had completed development of the Aerocon Wingship. The flying craft was supposed to weigh 400 tons and be more than 170 meters long. It was designed to carry cargo weighing up to 1,500 tons or carry 1,000 passengers.

The Aerocon Wingship was to be equipped with 20 rocket engines on its wings. According to the engineers' calculations, the range of the screen-plane would be almost 20,000 km. This would have made it possible to use the aircraft for travels almost anywhere in the world.

The designers of the Aerocon Wingship were inspired by the Soviet screen-plane Caspian Monster (pictured above). It was available in a single 240-ton model that could reach speeds of up to 500 km/h.

Steven Hooker, chief designer of the Aerocon Wingship, was confident he could bring the project to life. According to his calculations, an American screen plane could carry passengers across the Atlantic at a price $72-73 per ticket.

The initial cost of the screen ship was $600 million, and the military wanted to order 13 ships worth $15 billion. However, the Office of Advanced Research Projects had to abandon the development of Aerocon Wingship because of the huge costs and cancel the billion-dollar project in the 1990s.

Source: Interesting Engineering