Weird Aircraft - The Lockheed XFV-1

[Guest Glenn]

A high performance fighter which could take off and land vertically, like a helicopter! No more need to depend upon elaborate and vulnerable airfield facilities in time of war. Every paved highway, even every level patch of farmland suddenly capable of launching a cloud of fighters to deal with an invading army. And more! Fighter protection at sea which doesn?t require huge aircraft carriers- -every destroyer, even every transport and oiler, capable of carrying one or two fighters of its own! Such an aircraft would present any attacker with enormous difficulties and therefore would help mightily to preserve the world?s peace.

 

In the early days of the Cold War, this dazzling concept suddenly seemed within reach when a massive turboprop engine looked like it would soon became available. The Allison YT-40, consisting of two smaller T-32 engines mounted in tandem and connected to a single, massive gearbox, delivered its combined 5,280 horsepower to a pair of 16 ft counter-rotating propellers. Although the powerful new engine was still under development, and in fact required further modifications to equip it for sustained vertical flight, it offered enough promise for the Navy to issue a pair of contracts to Convair and to Lockheed to develop competing fighter prototypes. Convair was awarded a contract to develop its XFY-1 on 31 May, 1951, and the Lockheed contract followed three weeks later. The Convair aircraft was unofficially--and probably inevitably--dubbed the Pogostick. Lockheed?s own VTOL never received an official nickname but, oddly enough, both aircraft soon came to be known interchangeably as Pogo, by public and insiders alike.

 

Lockheed assigned the design project to its chief designer, Clarence L. "Kelly" Johnson and his Skunk Works team, the legendary group which produced a series of brilliant aircraft for Lockheed for more than a generation. The vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) project would prove to be one of the most unusual--and in many ways the most frustrating--of Johnson?s experience. The new aircraft would normally rest in a vertical stance, literally sitting upon its cruciform tail. At takeoff the pilot, lying on his back, would lift the thundering fighter into the air. At a safe altitude he would ease it over into horizontal flight, whereupon the plane could be maneuvered like a conventional fighter, supported by a pair of thin, straight, F-104-like wings. At landing, once more on his back, the pilot would hang the XFV-1 on its propellers and ease it slowly backward and down until contact was made with the ground.

 

As development continued, it became obvious that both the aircraft and pilot would be operating at the very limits of their capabilities. Lockheed?s problem was compounded by the fact that only one YT-40 engine suitably configured for vertical flight was immediately available. As the first contract signer, Convair received the engine and was able to proceed directly to vertical flight testing. In the interim, Lockheed designed a girder-like temporary landing gear which would allow its aircraft to take off and land in the conventional manner. In this way, the aircraft could make its first flight (23 December, 1953) and some of its flight characteristics could be studied until such time as the designed engine was delivered.

 

Unfortunately, this never took place. Famed Lockheed test pilot Herman "Fish" Salmon continued to fly the revolutionary aircraft with its temporary landing gear, making numerous successful in-the-air transitions between vertical to horizontal flight. With the proper engine configuration, the XFV-1 could indeed fulfill its design. By that point, however, Navy interest in the VTOL project had begun to cool. Rapid advances in turbojet technology were yielding engines and aircraft with twice the speed which the tailsitters could ever hope to achieve. Even the promise of a more powerful derivative of the YT-40 engine, the YT-40-A-14 rated at 7,100 horsepower, could not significantly improve the performance of either aircraft. More fundamentally, it was also becoming obvious to all that vertical-landing turboprops would always be too tricky to land--a difficult task for a highly skilled test pilot would be well-nigh impossible for a line pilot, especially under combat conditions. Putting a tailsitter down on a concrete ramp in full daylight was one thing; an uneven pasture or a heaving deck at sea would be quite another.

 

After making 32 flights, none involving actual vertical takeoffs or landings, the Lockheed project was cancelled in June, 1955. The unique aircraft thereafter was displayed at Lockheed?s Burbank facility for a number of years. After San Diego?s Aerospace Museum proved unable to accept it, the XFV-1 was donated in 1981 to the U.S. Naval Air Museum at Pensacola, Florida. There it remains as an everlasting tribute to the imagination and ingenuity of America?s aerospace designers.

 

 

More pictures at http://images.google.com.au/images?q=Lockheed+XFV-1&hl=en&btnG=Search+Images