Coleopter

From 1944 on, the Luftwaffe was suffering from almost continual daytime attacks on its airfields and was finding it almost impossible to conduct large-scale operations.

Their preferred solution was to introduce some sort of VTOL interceptor that could be launched from any open location, and there were many proposals for such a system.

As the limitations of the simple rotary wing became clear, teams started looking for other solutions and many turned to using jet engines directly for vertical thrust.

Even in this limited testing period, the design showed several serious problems related to the high angular momentum of the engine, which made control tricky.

In the US, Hiller Aircraft had been working on a number of ducted fan flying platforms originally designed by Charles H. Zimmerman.

The Hiller VXT-8 Coleopter was a proposed annular wing VTOL aircraft designed in the late 1950s, inspired by the French SNECMA Coléoptère.

After some early successes, the Army demanded a series of changes that continued to increase the size and weight of the platform, which introduced new stability problems.

Convair selected the coleopter layout for their Model 49 proposal, entered into the Advanced Aerial Fire Support System (AAFSS).

[2] The design was intended to be capable of carrying multiple armament configurations, with all weapons being remotely controlled by the gunner from the crew capsule.