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Carrying 48 rockets and the most powerful engine of its type outside the Soviet bloc, this buzzy little fighter could fly just as fast and pack a punch as the earlier fighter jets of post war world war two.
But this fighter jet didn’t need a airbase, nor even a runway - it can fly vertically and land on its tail.
The project was so successful that the prototype clocked in 60 + hours of test flights and dominated lockheeds rival design.
Meet the world’s first true VTOL fight jet, the Convair Pogo!
VTOL technology was quite the obsession of aviation designers and the military brass during the 20th century.
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The Convair XFY-1 Pogo was one such effort made after World War II in the pursuit of creating a VTOL combat aircraft that was both technologically financially viable and practical. But why the Pogo design at that particular time?
World War II had laid bare just how vulnerable fixed land bases could be to assaults by the enemy from both air and land.
Equally exposed were aircraft carriers and other naval vessels, as the Japanese showed with the attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941,
not to mention the threat that their kamikaze pilots posed to American aircraft carriers and other large ships during the subsequent war in the Pacific.
The United States Navy, still deeply traumatized by the destruction of many of its naval vessels during World War II, was hell-bent on having planes on board that could rapidly intercept enemy attacks.
Naval strategists were serious about the feasibility of having VTOL interceptor planes that could achieve just that.
The focus was on developing an aircraft that could take off and land vertically
on non-aircraft carriers or medium-sized to large ships not designed or equipped to transport conventional aircraft.
Theoretically, this VTOL interceptor would be able to protect its mother ship or join a fleet of VTOL fighters to defend a naval convoy or task force.
The time was therefore ripe for an aircraft such as the Convair XFY-1.
The Convair Pogo VTOL plane had a characteristically short, stubby fuselage that made the plane look stocky, even squat.
Two near-delta wings and two enormous fins, one ventral and one dorsal, were mounted on the fuselage.
This combination of wings and fins created what is known as a cruciform configuration.
There was a small castoring wheel attached to the apices or trailing edges of all four of these surfaces. These four small wheels were key as they allowed the aircraft to rest on them when the plane was parked.
These wheels were also integral to ensuring a stable base for landing. Once parked, the plane would sit stationary at a ninety-degree angle to the ground and with its nose in the air. Hence its designation as a ‘tail-sitter aircraft.
For takeoff, the engines would run up to full power, thereby allowing the aircraft to ascend vertically with the needed thrust.
Once it reached a safe altitude, the plane could then be nosed into a more conventional horizontal flight path. This would need to be done gently and gradually, as a sudden switch to the horizontal would make the aircraft aerodynamically unstable.
During normal flight, control of the aircraft was provided with the help of full-span ailerons and large rudders on both the dorsal and ventral fins.
For landing, the aircraft would approach its landing pad with its nose pitched up at a high angle, allowing it to gradually descend to the ground under reduced power.
During touchdown, the struts would compress by several feet, very much like a child's pogo stick does when pushed down on. This would dampen the forces of impact on the plane, always remembering that it would have to land vertically with its nose facing up.
In the event of an emergency, which could readily occur aboard a moving ship, especially in bad weather, the ventral fin could be jettisoned. This would allow the aircraft to make a crash-landing using a more conventional, wing-supported mode of operation.
The Pogo had a maximum wingspan of 27.7 feet or 8.44 metres and a total wing area of 355 square feet or 108 square metres. It was only 34 feet and 11 inches or 10.6 metres in length and 22 feet or 6.7 metres in height, making it a very compact plane. That explains why it could only accommodate one pilot. The Pogo would have a gross weight of 16,250 pounds or 7,370 kilograms.
