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Department of the Navy

Navy advanced naval vehicles study: nuclear-powered aircraft, 80-knot ships, giant airships (late 1970s)

Study · written 1979 · released 30 September 2026

Why this matters

Hundreds of pages of technical, cost and mission analysis from a late-1970s Navy effort to choose its next generation of vehicles: nuclear-powered aircraft that could stay aloft for days, 80-knot surface-effect ships and enormous lighter-than-air craft. None were built. It is a record of the future the Navy considered and chose not to buy.

Read the original

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https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-releases-hundreds-of-pages-on-cold-war-era-advanced-naval-vehicles-including-nuclear-powered-aircraft-and-high-speed-warship-concepts/

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Tags

Part of a collection · step 4 of 11

Failed Procurement Programs

The Navy's late-1970s menu of futures it never bought.

Cite

Department of the Navy. "Navy advanced naval vehicles study: nuclear-powered aircraft, 80-knot ships, giant airships (late 1970s)." 1979. Released 30 September 2026. https://www.theblackvault.com/documentarchive/navy-releases-hundreds-of-pages-on-cold-war-era-advanced-naval-vehicles-including-nuclear-powered-aircraft-and-high-speed-warship-concepts/ (accessed via The Quiet Archive, QA-0136).

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    Written 31 Mar 1994 Released 19 Jan 2026 Never classified United States Live