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The DuPont Aerospace DP-1 was a subscale prototype for a fixed-wing VSTOL transport aircraft, intended to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. The fullscale aircraft, named DP-2, was designed to travel at high subsonic speeds with a greater range than its rotary-wing equivalent, and to allow troops to rappel from the aft cargo ramp. The development of the 53% scale DP-1 aircraft was originally funded in the early 1990s as a backup to the V-22 Osprey program, which was undergoing significant technical and political challenges. During the construction of the test aircraft, program management changed the requirements, and mandated that the vehicle be tested as a UAV. This change added significant cost and time to the project, but in September 2007, the DP-1 autonomous prototype achieved sustained, controlled tethered hovers of 45 seconds at the Gillespie Field test site. On June 13, 2007, the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology held a hearing about the fate of the DP-2. In August 2007, funding was finally cut, after a total of $63 million spent over nearly two decades.

It's a video clip that popped up on FB. Maybe not everyone has seen it. I thought it was interesting that he bounced it on the road, intentionally he said, before landing. What's your beef?

119K views · 431 reactions | Almost Made It To The Runway! #airplane... WWW.FACEBOOK.COM Almost Made It To The Runway! #airplane #pilotlife #landing #M #studentpilot #pilotdebrief #flying.

The Airbus RACER (Rapid and Cost-Effective Rotorcraft) is an experimental high-speed compound helicopter developed by Airbus Helicopters from the Eurocopter X³. Revealed at the June 2017 Paris air show, final assembly will start in mid-2020 for a 2021 first flight. Cruising up to 400 km/h (216 kn), it aims for a 25% cost reduction per distance over a conventional helicopter. On 20 June 2017 at the Paris air show, Airbus Helicopters revealed a high-speed demonstrator configuration based on the X3 developed within the Clean Sky 2 research programme. Its aerodynamic configuration was validated in 2017. In February 2018, the 2,500 hp (1,900 kW) Safran Aneto-1X power plant was selected over the RTM322 initially selected, it is 25% more compact for the same power. By October 2018, design of key subsystems was completed before the first components started manufacturing with long-lead items, as the lateral drive shaft production began. GE's Avio Aero in Italy launched procurement and manufacturing of the lateral gear boxes housings, GE Aviation Systems in UK is building the wing’s titanium cradle, INCAS/Romaero in Romania started the design and manufacturing the hybrid structure (metal & composite) of the Main Fuselage and the Firewalls and Aernnova in Spain the tail parts primary structure. It made its first flight on 25 April 2024 in Marignane. By its third test flight in May, it had performed aggressive manoeuvres and reached 165 kn (305 km/h), using 300 kW (400 hp) less power than a conventional helicopter, while both engines were at 50% torque at 160 kn (300 km/h). It should reach 220 kn (410 km/h) later in 2024 and the “eco-mode” with one engine shut down in cruise should be flight tested in 2025, along mission demonstrations.

The Grumman XP-50 was a land-based development of the shipboard XF5F-1 Skyrocket fighter, entered into a United States Army Air Corps (USAAC) contest for a twin-engine heavy interceptor aircraft. The USAAC placed an order for a prototype on 25 November 1939, designating it XP-50, but it lost the competition to the Lockheed XP-49.

The Horton Wingless aircraft was invented by William Horton of Huntington Beach, California in 1952. He called the strange-looking plane “wingless” because he claimed the entire craft was a simple air foil with vertical fins and utilized all surfaces for lift. Unfortunately, Horton did not have the money to develop it, but was able to get into a partnership with billionaire Howard Hughes and Harlow Curtis. The plane had a successful, but short, test flight. The venture failed not because the airplane didn't fly, but because Hughes wanted to take full credit for the patents and production rights, which Horton refused to allow. Hughes sued Horton which effectively stopped any further development of the aircraft. Hughes managed to have the prototype and partially-constructed production version destroyed. One aspect of the law suit was a statement that the aircraft could not fly, which witnesses, photographs and video obviously show not to be true. At one point, Horton served jail time for selling stock in a company for an airplane that "couldn't fly" and had several violent confrontations with people associated with Hughes and Curtis because of the law suit and resulting injunctions."

The Yokosuka R2Y Keiun (景雲 - "Cirrus Cloud") was a prototype reconnaissance aircraft built in Japan late in World War II. Commissioned for the Imperial Japanese Navy after the R1Y design was cancelled due to its disappointing performance estimates, the R2Y used coupled engines driving a single propeller and also featured a tricycle undercarriage. Completed in April 1945, the prototype made a short flight on 8 May, but was destroyed in a US air raid only a few days later, thus ending development.

One-off B-17 Flying Fortress conversion with Rolls Royce Dart turboprops, used for firefighting.

I took this photo at Avalon 2016.

Paris aircraft movement during te Olympics.

Claude Auguste Joseph Givaudan's iconic and weird aircraft The French engineer Claude Givaudan (1872-1945) designed his first aeroplane with circular wings in tandem. A unique design which later became famous in aviation history. His design was granted a patent. Givaudan designed his tandem circular wing around 1909. To get the machine to fly higher or lower the front wing could be pivoted up and down. The wing at the back could move left and right for directional orientation. The Givaudian design was built by the automobile factory Usines Vermorel, where Givaudan was employed. Power was delivered by a Vermoral engine rated at 50 hp. Although this design of Givaudan was not succesfull he had a long career in cars and aviation. He finally became at the end of his life the president of the Aéro Club de Rhône.

The SNCAC NC.2001 Abeille (English: Bee) was a single engine, twin intermeshing rotor helicopter designed and built in France in the late 1940s. Three were completed but only one flew, development ending when SNCAC was closed. The design of the Abeille was directed by René Dorand at the helicopter division of SNCAC. An intermeshing rotor layout was chosen instead of a tail rotor design, following the examples of the 1939 Flettner Fl 265 and the Kellet XR-8 of 1944. Its twin, two blade rotors were driven by shafts which leaned out of the fuselage side-by-side. The rotor blades, which began some way from the hub, tapered strongly. Pitch and roll were adjusted from the control column by altering cyclic pitch via a pair of swashplates and yaw by changing the relative collective pitch of the two rotors with the pedals. Forward tilt of the rotor shafts was automatically linked to forward speed. A single lever controlled both the collective pitch and the throttle through an electrical link. The Abeille was powered by a 429 kW (575 hp) Renault 12S, an inverted, air-cooled V-12 engine. The Abeille had a pod and boom, all-metal fuselage. The nose was fully glazed with two side by side crew seats ahead of a cabin with a bench seat for three passengers. The engine and gearboxes were behind them. Aft, a high mounted boom carried the empennage, which on the first prototype consisted of a tall T-tail with a narrow fin. On the second machine the tailplane was lowered to the top of the fuselage and had a pair of fins at its extremities, each roughly elliptical and mounted from its top. The tails was wooden, with fabric covered. The Abeille's fixed main landing gear had two wheels on a single axle positioned a little behind the rotor shafts and mounted on broad, single struts to the mid-upper fuselage, together with a smaller nose wheel. Three examples of the Abeille were built. The first was destroyed by fire before it had flown. The second made its first flight on 28 June 1949, piloted by Claude Dellys. SNCAC was closed in that month, its assets distributed between three remaining state owned firms and as a result the Abeille programme was abandoned; the second machine did not fly again and the third never flew.

Up is the American standard.

There are areas where such features are as scarce as hens teeth. One silo looks pretty much like the next.

No electronics in those days. WAC charts and E6B.