Focke-Wulf Triebflügel

The Focke-Wulf Triebflügel, or Triebflügeljäger, literally the thrust-wing fighter, was a German concept for an aircraft designed in 1944 as a defence against the growing Allied bombing of central Germany. It was a vertical take-off and landing tailsitter interceptor meant to protect factories and areas with small or no airfields. It had no wings: lift and thrust came from a rotor assembly of three blades on a ring mounted about a third of the way down the fuselage, with a ramjet at the tip of each blade and simple rockets to spin the rotor up. A cruciform tail with four tailplanes controlled the craft. The design reached only wind-tunnel testing before the Allies overran the production facilities, and no complete prototype was ever built.