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Channel saucers
Page 71
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If you think Thermoskyships Limited put model boats in Russian vacuum flasks, you are quite wrong. They are to build a revolutionary flying saucer aircraft combining airship and jump-jet technology. European Ferries, who operate the Townsend-Thoresen crosschannel ferries, have agreed in principle to provide financial, backing.
One of these crafts could, I learn, carry sixty passengers at up to 90 knots over a maximum range of 900 miles. According to European Ferries, their relative quietness would permit them to operate from city centres.
Work could start before Christmas on a prototype which could be flying by the summer of 1980. A 6-ton-payload model would be available from late 1981 at the knock-down price of 61.8m.
Keith VVickenden, of furopean Ferries, said. "Added to our conventional shipping fleet, we see Thermoskyships as an attack on hovercraft, hydrofoils, rail-connected traffic and the airline market. They also make a Channel Tunnel obsolete before anyone decides to build one."