u/Flucloxacillin25pc

The VZ-3 was an experimental aircraft using blown flaps to achieve a short or near vertical take-off. It was a high-wing monoplane powered by an Avro Lycoming T-53 turboshaft engine located inside the fuselage driving two large-diameter propellers mounted, one on each wing. It had a T-tail and originally a fixed tailwheel. It was later converted to nose wheel configuration.

It had wide-span double retractable trailing-edge flaps, these were extended into the propeller slipstream for takeoff. To enable control while in the hover it had a universally-jointed jet-deflection nozzle at the rear of the aircraft.

It crashed after a lengthy test programme but was rebuilt and has been retired to a US Army Museum.

The Soviet Bratukhin (OKB-3) was an aircraft design bureau created in 1940 to develop helicopters. Headed by Ivan Pavlovich Bratukhin, the bureau built several experimental helicopters over the next decade. Each model had the same basic design of two rotors with separate engines carried on the ends of outriggers to each side of the fuselage. The bureau was dissolved in 1951.

The Wibault 72 C.1 was a "parasol" wing monoplane of metal construction, designed by the Michel Wibault aircraft company.

It served as a single-seat fighter aircraft in the French Air Force, for whom 69 aircraft were built In 1932, the Wibault 72 C.1 equipped 4 squadrons of the 7th Wing based in Dijon.

The first conventional takeoff flight of the prototype XV-4A (62–4503), took place on 7 July 1962, followed by tethered flight tests in late November, with the first free hovering flight on 24 May 1963. The first transition from hovering to forward flight took place on 8 November 1963. Unfortunately, 62–4503 was destroyed in a fatal crash on 10 June 1966.

Lockheed modified the second prototype aircraft between 1966 and 1968 to XV-4B standard. The 2 P&W JTi12 engines were replaced by 6 GE J85 turbojets, of which 4 acted as lift jets. This second prototype also crashed (on 14 March 1969) but fortunately the pilot escaped uninjured by ejecting.

The Ryan XV-5 Vertifan was a jet-powered, experimental VSTOL aircraft of the 1960s. The Ryan VZ-11-RY, which was re-designated XV-5A in 1962 was commissioned by the US Army in 1961, along with its rival, the Lockheed VZ-10 Hummingbird (re-designated XV-4 in 1962).

The Vertifan was flown by 15 test pilots, successfully proved the concept of ducted lift fans.

The Ludion was designed in the early 1960s as a 1-man rocket-propelled ‘hopper’ which would enable a single person to cross rough terrain such as rivers boulder fields, trenches and swamps. The Ludion was a military project influenced by the operational needs of the French Army.

In 1965, Sud Aviation was design to build the Ludion, working with Aerospatiale and French and German research groups. The propulsion system drew on experience gathered by the British research into the handling and use of isopropyl nitrate to obtain large amounts of gas to propel jet engines.

The SEPR-developed propulsion system was reportedly able to fulfil all of the established needs but construction of the Ludion struggles with integration of all its components, particularly the need for a highly effective thermal insulation arrangement to protect both the pilot and various elements of the vehicle itself from the intense heat generated throughout its operation^(.)

Capable of carrying a Tetrarch light tank or an M-22 Locust, the Hamilcar was the heavy lift glider of the British paratroop regiments. Due to vacillation and poor management, only 29 had been erected by early 1944. However, by Jumne a total of 80 were available to transport 17-pdr guns, Tetrarch tanks and heavy supplies. Subsequent units were employed during the Arnhem advance and ona third occasion. Altogether, 344 had been produced by the time production ended in 1946.

A prototype of the powered long-range Mark.X was also produced but the war ended before numbers could be built for deployment in the Pacific Theatre.

The first generation Globemaster 4-engined strategic transport.

WHen fitted with the double 3-bladed contraprop rather than the enlarged 4-blad prop; the XP-72 was potentially capable of 550mph. Carrying 37mm autocannon or a mix of 37mm and .50 calibre machine guns, this exceptionally fast and manoeuvreable fighter should have experienced a long oroduction run. However the impending end of the war, the comfortable air superiority experienced by the Allies and the imminent arrival of first-gneration jets limited this ultimate Thunderbolt to two prototypes.

Wanda Ventham as Colonel Virginia Lake of SHADO in Gerry Anderson’s live action series, UFO, filed in 1970-71.

The Nighthawk was developed to intercept bombing raids by German Zeppelin dirigibles against the UK in World War I. Noel Pemberton-Billing MP, owner of a small aircraft company in Southampton, was asked by the British government to design and build a slow aircraft capable of attacking an airborne Zeppelin. He personally designed a quadruplane fighter designated as the P.B.29E to illustrate his views on anti-Zeppelin aircraft. The quadruplane configuration was required as the wing surface area needed to be large enough to lift the aeroplane to the same altitude as a Zeppelin. The PB-29E crashed and Pemberton-Billing becamepart of Supermarine.

The Admiralty ordered two improved PB-31Es, of which only 1 aircraft was built, but it did fly. it attained a speed of 75 mph but took an hour to reach the altitude of a Zeppelin. It was eclipsed by newer, lighter fighters and scrapped in 1917.

Another 'never flew' X-Plane. In early 2001, the potentially Mach 8 unmanned suborbital technology demonstrator program was ended due to budget concerns, with spending of just under $112 million: $85.7M with designer Orbital Sciences, $16M from NASA and various government agencies for testing, and an additional $10M for Orbital Sciences to adapt Lockheed carrier aircraft to accommodate the X-34. The unpowered prototype had been used only for towing and captive flight tests when the project was canceled.

The big, bulbous but stangely beautiful Blackburn Beverly. Only one remaining (just).

The  X-29 was designed to test a then-unique combination of aircraft technologies, including a forward-swept wing, canard control surfaces, composite materials and inherent instability, the last of which required computer-managed, fly-by-wire controls. NASA, the USAF and DARPA jointly funded two airframes, the first of which flew in 1984, with the two X-29s flying regular research missions until 1991.

Mixed jet/rocket propulsion and those inverse tapered wings. Otherwise it’s more or less a ‘Streak? Well, then there’s the optional butterfly tail and the alternative nose with radome...

Genuinely just a tad weird.

The X-21A was a research aircraft designed to test laminar flow control. Based on a pair of Douglas WB-66D airframes, the engines were moved to the rear fuselage leaving space under the wings for air compressors. The X-21s employed sophisticated but overly complex laminar flow control systems within their completely new wings. The high maintenance costs and control difficulties encountered led to the early termination of the program.

A very large (for the time) high-wing, 4-engined monoplane built for the Imperial routes. The remaining 5 were requisitioned into the R.A.F. in the early 1940s, with the survivors being transferred to the Indian Air Force as maritime reconnaissance aircraft.

Bell’s mockup of their 24/7 surveillance and support drone. Despite its on-off-on gestation since 2016 it is of significant potential interest to the US Army and Marines.

Another of Claude Grahame-White’s early transport aircraft, the Type X Aerobus or Charabanc. The remarkably open seating area, the bench seats and the potentially significant number of passengers make the Charabanc description particularly apposite. Clearly, aviation safety wasn’t an issue back then.