A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-wing aircraft and other hybrid aircraft with powered rotors such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and gyrodynes.
Avro Canada was a Canadian aircraft manufacturing company. It was founded in 1945 as an aircraft plant and within 13 years became the third-largest company in Canada, one of the largest 100 companies in the world, and directly employing over 50,000. Avro Canada was best known for the CF-105 Arrow, but through growth and acquisition, it rapidly became a major, integrated company that had diverse holdings.
The fuselage is an aircraft's main body section. It holds crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an engine as well, although in some amphibious aircraft the single engine is mounted on a pylon attached to the fuselage, which in turn is used as a floating hull. The fuselage also serves to position the control and stabilization surfaces in specific relationships to lifting surfaces, which is required for aircraft stability and maneuverability.
The Vought XF5U "Flying Flapjack" was an experimental U.S. Navy fighter aircraft designed by Charles H. Zimmerman for Vought during World War II. This unorthodox design consisted of a flat, somewhat disc-shaped body serving as the lifting surface. Two piston engines buried in the body drove propellers located on the leading edge, at the wingtips.
The Republic XP-69 was an American fighter aircraft proposed by Republic Aviation in 1941 in response to a requirement by the United States Army Air Corps for a high-speed fighter. Manufacturers were encouraged to consider unorthodox designs; although the design was ordered as a prototype it was canceled because of delays with the engine that was to power it.
The Avro Canada VZ-9 Avrocar was a VTOL aircraft developed by Avro Canada as part of a secret U.S. military project carried out in the early years of the Cold War. The Avrocar intended to exploit the Coandă effect to provide lift and thrust from a single "turborotor" blowing exhaust out of the rim of the disk-shaped aircraft. In the air, it would have resembled a flying saucer.
In ufology, conspiracy theory, science fiction, and comic book stories, claims or stories have circulated linking UFOs to Nazi Germany. The German UFO theories describe supposedly successful attempts to develop advanced aircraft or spacecraft prior to and during World War II, further asserting the post-war survival of these craft in secret underground bases in Antarctica, South America, or the United States, along with their creators.
John Carver Meadows Frost was a British aircraft designer. His primary contributions centred on pioneering supersonic British experimental aircraft and as the chief designer who shepherded Canada's first jet fighter project, the Avro Canada CF-100, to completion. He was also the major force behind the Avro Canada VTOL aircraft projects, particularly as the unheralded creator of the Avro Canada flying saucer projects.
The Ling-Temco-Vought (LTV) XC-142 is a tiltwing experimental aircraft designed to investigate the operational suitability of vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) transports. An XC-142A first flew conventionally on 29 September 1964, and completed its first transitional flight on 11 January 1965 by taking off vertically, changing to forward flight, and finally landing vertically. Its service sponsors pulled out of the program one by one, and it eventually ended due to a lack of interest after demonstrating its capabilities successfully.
The Vought V-173 "Flying Pancake" was an American experimental test aircraft built as part of the Vought XF5U program during World War II.
The M200G Neuera is a prototype of a flying saucer-style hovercraft, designed by aeronautics engineer Paul Moller. The vehicle is envisioned as a precursor to the Moller M400 Skycar. The M200G Volantor uses a system of eight computer-controlled fans to hover up to 10 feet (3 m) above the ground. Volantor is a term coined by Moller meaning "a vertical takeoff and landing aircraft."
A flying saucer is a descriptive term for a type of flying craft having a disc or saucer-shaped body, commonly used generically to refer to an anomalous flying object. The term was coined in 1947 but has generally been supplanted since 1952 by the United States Air Force term unidentified flying objects. Early reported sightings of unknown "flying saucers" usually described them as silver or metallic, sometimes reported as covered with navigation lights or surrounded with a glowing light, hovering or moving rapidly, either alone or in tight formations with other similar craft, and exhibiting high maneuverability.
Jonathan Edward Caldwell was a Canadian-American self-taught aeronautical engineer who designed a series of bizarre aircraft and started public companies in order to finance their construction. None of these was ever successful, and after his last known attempt in the later 1930s he disappeared, apparently to avoid securities fraud charges. His name was later connected with mythical German flying saucers, and he remains a fixture of the UFO genre.
The wing configuration of a fixed-wing aircraft is its arrangement of lifting and related surfaces.
The Arup S-4 is the last in a series of round-wing aircraft from C.L. Snyder.
The Arup S-2 was the first commercial development of Cloyd Snyder's Arup S-1 low aspect ratio wing aircraft.
The Vertical Take-Off and Landing Experimental Aircraft program is an American research project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA). The goal of the program is to demonstrate a VTOL aircraft design that can take off vertically and efficiently hover, while flying faster than conventional rotorcraft. There have been many previous attempts, most of them unsuccessful.
Lift fan is an aircraft configuration in which lifting fans are located in large holes in an otherwise conventional fixed wing or fuselage. It is used for V/STOL operation.
Nemeth Parasol was a prototype of a taildragger tractor configuration airplane with circular wing set in a parasol configuration. It was designed by Steven Nemeth from Dayton, Ohio, and made its first flight in 1934. The goal was to have a plane that could be stored in a large garage as opposed to a hangar and that it would be relatively easy to fly. Nemeth did wind tunnel tests at the University of Michigan in 1929. Nemeth worked with students from Miami University in 1934 to help him build the plane's wings. Nemeth used his custom "roundwing" on an Alliance A-1 Argo two-seat biplane fuselage. The high-wing monoplane had multiple struts to hold the custom "roundwing". The wing had a diameter of fifteen feet (4.6 m) including the flaps and ailerons. The plane reached a top speed of 135 mph (217 km/h). Thanks to the large wing, the plane could take off in just 63 feet. Tests were done with stall speeds, turning off the engine in flight, and using the wings as a parachute. The parachute-stall landing gave the plane a short 25 feet of landing to stop. The original 90 hp Lambert engine in the Alliance A-1 was replaced with a Warner Scarab 120 hp engine. Nemeth did two years of testing but did not get any interest in producing more. The fate of the one plane built is unknown. Nemeth’s success gave others ideas and other experimental aircraft with circular wings were built later like the Sack AS-6, the Vought XF5U and the Avrocar. Steven P. Nemeth was a flight instructor at the McCook Field near Dayton, Ohio, which closed in 1927. The successful test flights made it into some newspapers and magazines. Modern Mechanix and Popular Science both had articles on the special new plane.
