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‘tle) experimental VTOL aircraft is lowered into an ntal VTOL aircraft hovers in mid-air during a test 1A C.450 Coléoptére VTOL aircraft during a test flight. of this concept was the proposal to build a small spacecraft launcher. It would have comprised a very large first stage annular wing booster powered by four powerful gas turbines with a ramjet capability. This part of the vehicle would have been fully recover- able. The concept was produced by Gerhard Eggers and Eric Haberkorn, who initially pro- duced ideas for a manned and unmanned carrier aircraft capable of lifting smaller test vehicles to very high altitudes. Placing small satellites in Low Earth Orbit (LEO) was prob- ably feasible, although the designers may have had a small manned vehicle in mind In 1964 an American consultant engineer because this design was referred to in some called James Reichert filed a Patent for a SNECMA documentation as the Coléoptére re-usable Ring Wing launch vehicle, which spaceplane. However, it would have been dif- had similar aims to the SNECMA concept. ficult to convince anyone that this was areal- Reichert had been Doak Aircraft’s chief aero- istic alternative to an expendable liquid-fuel © dynamicist, working on a number of VTOL booster projects, and was regarded as a leading SNECMA then studied the possibility of building a supersonic VTOL fighter with delta wings called the AP519. Power was to be pro- vided by two licence-built Pratt & Whitney JTF turbojets and the aircraft would have been supported by a complicated articulated undercarriage, allowing take-offs and landing from either an upright or horizontal position. A somewhat similar design was undertaken in West Germany by Focke-Wulf as the Fw 860. Models of the AP519 were wind tunnel tested but L’Armée de l’Air (The French Air Force) had selected the conventional Dassault Mirage 111V and this proved to be the last VTOL fighter project that SNECMA undertook. Other SNECMA/BTZ studies that exploited the annular wing included several missiles, ranging from small battlefield anti-tank weapons to larger surface-to-air designs. Undoubtedly, the most unusual development In 1964 an American consultant engineer called James Reichert filed a Patent for a re-usable Ring Wing launch vehicle, which had similar aims to the SNECMA concept. Reichert had been Doak Aircraft’s chief aero- dynamicist, working on a number of VTOL projects, and was regarded as a leading Fans and Ducts 147 Above left: The SNECMA C.450 Coléoptére (Flying Beetle) experimental VTOL aircraft is lowered into an upright position from its transport vehicle. SNECMA Above right: The SNECMA C.450 Coléoptére experimental VTOL aircraft hovers in mid-air during a test flight. SNECMA. Right: Telephoto lens image from beneath the SNECMA C.450 Coléoptére VTOL aircraft during a test flight. SNECMA