A Plane Without Wings: The Story of The C.450 Coléoptère
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Published 2020-12-21
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Throughout the 1950s, aircraft designers around the world began developing a unique aircraft configuration, called a tail-sitter. Unlike conventional airplanes, tail sitting planes rested on their tails and used engine power alone to lift off the ground before transitioning to vertical flight, and returning to land vertically once again on their tail. The configuration, although technically challenging to develop, would allow aircraft to operate without runways, fundamentally changing how and where air forces could use their aircraft.
In the early 1950s French aerospace firm SNECMA (Société nationale d'études et de construction de moteurs d'aviation) began developing wingless test rigs to prove the viability of the tail sitting concept. At the time, American firms were also developing tail sitting prototypes of their own, But SNECMA would take it a step further by developing a tail sitting aircraft with a highly unconventional annular (cylindrical) wing. The cylindrical wing promised greater efficiency over a conventional wing by eliminating wing-tip vortices. It would also be more compact, further reducing the space needed for vertical take-off and landings. French designers also theorised that a cylindrical wing could eventually be engineered to function as a ramjet engine, propelling the aircraft to supersonic speeds.
The C.450 Coleoptere was constructed in 1958, with tethered flight testing beginning in early 1959. By May, the unconventional plane had achieved its first successful unassisted hover, even reaching altitudes of 800 meters. Despite early successes during flight tests, flaws soon emerged in the aircraft’s design. The Coleoptere proved extremely difficult to pilot. An innovative pilot seat could swivel 90 degrees, but pilots still struggled to judge the aircraft’s distance from the ground while landing. Without a conventional wing to provide resistance, the Coleoptere also had a tendency to slowly spin on its axis.
On July 25, 1959, the Coleoptere performed it’s 9th test flight. This time, the pilot was to transition the aircraft from vertical to horizontal flight, a challenging procedure that would mark a huge milestone for the program. The Coleoptere lifted off successfully, but during its transition, it suddenly became too inclined and slow-moving to maintain altitude. The aircraft started tumbling back to earth as the pilot struggled to regain control, barely managing to eject at the very last minute. The Coleoptere was destroyed.
A second prototype of the Coleoptere would never be built. By the 1960’s it was clear that the tail sitting configuration was a dead-end. It was simply too much of a compromise when it came to payload and range, and far too difficult to pilot. It was clear that vectoring thrust, allowing the aircraft to remain horizontal, was a more practical and safer solution.
Video and imagery supplied by Getty Images: www.gettyimages.ca/photos/video
Thanks for watching!
All Comments (21)
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Ngl this channel is the personification of "quality before quantity."
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The landing pads for these should look like dartboards
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Imagine stacking these boys on an aircraft carrier and not needing the runway. They would be able to launch the entire fleet almost instantly.
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This looks like something straight out of Despicable Me.
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“You want rocketships or jets?” France: “oui”
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I feel like this design would benefit greatly from modern computers and gyroscopic systems.
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5:30 "Transitioning from vertical to conventional forward flight." "It would be a pivotal moment for the programme." Please tell me that pun was intended! 😁
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This is so awesome. My grandfather was in the air force engineer and he was stationed throughout Europe, and when he was stationed in France he told me he saw a plane that was round and it would hover like ufo. I’d always wondered exactly what he saw, and now I think I know. He would even say after that he started to see more and more jets being able to hover and that those were VTOLs
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"A pivotal moment" - Ba dum tish!
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French guy here: Nice to see someone talking about this crazy thing. I hope someday you'll talk about the Leduc planes.
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5:25 "A pivotal moment for the program." Dads around the globe approve of this pun.
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"10.5 foot diameter cylindrical wing." That's impressively small.
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"Is it an airplane, a helicopter or a spaceship?" "It is whatever you want it to be"
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1- Great narration, 2- Great animations 3- Great background musics 4- Great information Thanks !
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This video was the reason I got into aviation, Thank you
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une parfaite illustration de cette "devise" " on n'a pas de pétrole , mais on n'a des idées".
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It looks like something from Star Wars, Star Trek or Battlestar Galactica.
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“It’s like an airplane, without wings” “That ain’t no airplane! Look!”
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This concept of a tail sitting plane came from Germany in WW II . The first tail-sitting plane was the Bachem "Natter" . The concept came up in the last phase of WWII as the Luftwaffe lost the abilty to defend Germany against the overwhelming masses of allied bomb squads. Only the concept of the experimental cylindrical wings later in France was new. Remembering all the german concepts for fast reponse, like the Messerschmitt " Komet", Bachem " Natter" or the Messerschmitt ME 262 "Schwalbe" , were pilots flow rocket engines ( Komet) or the tail sitting wooden aircraft ( Natter). These two concepts were to dangerous for landing, where the pilots often jumped out of these vehicles by parachute or threy had to die
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I feel like this concept has more potential than has been really explored thus far. It would be great if it was revisited someday.
