F-0645 The Convair XFY-1 Pogo VTOL Transitional Flights 

AHHH the wonderful 1950s' They tried anything.

Convair engineers nailed this one. A truly amazing feat considering it's been designed and built using conventional methods. Not a single computer in sight, neither any CAD or stress simulation s/w. It's a glaring success in my book.

That pilot must have clanged when he walked. "Excuse me, I have to go review my life insurance payments."

I saw this plane fly when my father was stationed at NAS Pax River. He brought me on base and I watched several flights it made from the flight line. The Navy had it make a flight into washinton DC and returned To the NAS. I also saw the first Martin Baker low altitude zero/zero ejection seat demo from a Grumman F9 fly by and on the second slow pass with the canopy open the guy in the rear seat ejected and landed into a plowed grass field...I saw some really great things while he was stationed there.

Pilot in the last 8 minutes of landing phase: Please God..Oh please bless this beast, and don't let me screw up.

Dad took me to an airshow at the old Oakland Airport. They had this on display, but not flown, they did have the next generation on display and Dad and I got to watch it as it hovered near the vertical ramp it was parked on, it was fully jet powered.

...man what a ride... and courage...

Thank you for posting

one of my favorite aircraft.....

I remember building the Lindberg 1/48 model. The contra-prop had gears so it would actually work. I bet old 'Skeet' skeet himself flying it. He looked through a window in the floor! 😄

Love the sound of Allison turboprop engines!

As a boy in the early 60's they had one of these in prominent static display at NAS Norfolk.

As imaginative as it was impractical! Superb footage here.

We had this monster outside gate 3 at NAB Norfolk back in the 70s.This and the PV2 Neptune called the "Turtle".A Japanese "Mavis" and an "Emily".All disappeared one day.Later I found the seaplanes went back to Japan and this and the Neptune went to Pensacola Fla.

Outstanding! Imagine as carrier borne aircraft 👍

1:57 brilliant statement

This at least did everything it was supposed to do, in terms of taking off and landing successfully... the XFV-1 Pogostick, the XFY-1's competition never did a routine transfer from vertical to horizontal as successfully as the Pogo. I think the guns were supposed to be in the wingtip modules with the landing gear...

I see all this and imagine what kind of spacecraft they havnt let us onto yet. One of the more exciting elements to life.

To be fair, this is the exact same principle which the SpaceX starship is employing and successfully did.

These were the days when everything was simple, engineers knew their stuff and great innovations were still possible.

It looks like the takeoff transition was quite easy…but the approach one… very difficult to master properly

Ryan XV-5A: Teledyne Ryan Aeronautical had a jet VTOL project with the Army called the XV-5A, 1960 to 1970 or so. It's on here. A fairly normal looking fighter jet. Vertical flight was achieved by diverting the jet exhaust to drive big lift-fans in the wings and nose. Seems the exhaust was indirect, to a turbine, driving cold-air fans. Had a multiplying effect on the vertical thrust. Ryan and Convair were both San Diego companies. I had a summer job with Ryan in 1971... my Dad thought it might influence me to study engineering in school. Nope! Not the brain for it. But it was a company with a long history. Lindberg had flown a workhorse Ryan plane on long-haul Airmail jobs. Turned to Ryan for his purpose-built Spirit of St. Louis ride. It worked.

Jim Gordon foi piloto de provas do POGO. Vida Juvenil...

A test pilot said that this airplane was a nightmare to fly

Coleman..."We expect to takeoff at takeoff power"....duh?

I'll bet if they had continued experimenting with the aircraft, the Pogo would've been the first propeller driven aircraft with a cruise speed approaching 500MPH

Strombecker modelled the Lockheed VTOL..

I love how they’re talking to one another like robots during the scripted interview. Lol

I see a big flaw with this plane, emergency landing in high speed is guaranteed destruction of the plane. Any damage to the exposed four landing gear would result in fail landing. Standard plane configuration has much higher chances to survive the crash.

Fastest propeller airplane ever ... What a beast

Not convinced about the 'fastest prop plane' statement. I think the Dornier 335 was at least as fast. Depends on what source you use for the info.

And that was gonna fight jets?

As a fighter plane where and how are the guns suppose to work??

The video doesn't do justice to the sound. At takeoff the tips of the props are supersonic and the noise is still deafening at 300 ft. The only thing comparable in my experience might have been a C-133 making a short field landing with props reversed at max power.

How was this thing supposed to fire guns through those propellers ?

That such a weirdest plane ever,

And they found a lot of stuff that didn't work. So we don't waste a lot of time trying to reinvent something that we know STILL won't work.

No way in hell I'll fly that contraption

What a weird looking airplane

I would love to see this plane retrofitted install a regular nose and fill it with jet engines… That’s the fucking plane of dreams right there

Makes me proud to be British . 😂

Crazy, I can see where it got its name :) No wonder they cancelled this when they saw the flying bedstead

The fixed, lower, vertical stabilizer, will not allow it to land "conventionally." Quotation marks used simply because the plane lacks any landing gear that would allow conventional landing. But even a belly flop wouldn't have even a marginal chance of providing a safe landing. Once the rear of the plane struck the ground the nose would fall forward like a rock. It's almost 100% that the plane would tumble down the runway like the opening scene in the Million Dollar Man. The ejection seat on this thing doesn't work below 100 feet. An engine failure below 100 feet while in the vertical flight mode would not allow the pilot to get out before the plane hit the ground. If he was in horizontal flight, below 100 feet, he could pull back on the stick, and use the plane's inertia to take him above 100 before ejecting. A pilot without significant courage would not be suited to the job. I'm guessing that they chose to use a propeller design, instead of jet thrust, because the means of controlling the plane while in vertical flight was simpler because the prop wash gave the control surfaces enough flow to function. There was probably a jet engine available with enough thrust to lift the plane straight up, but controlling the plane's sideways movements while in vertical / hover was a challenge that they were apparently trying to avoid.

Im a pilot..but dont wana tri it

1908 planes and 1958 planes were massively different. 1958 planes and 2018 planes are almost identical. Progress?

Money to burn in the '50s eh?

But these are working 5dollar toys on banggood why does everyone laugh? I have to go.

What a waste of money.