Lockheed XFV

The Lockheed XFV, sometimes called the Salmon, is an American experimental tailsitter prototype built by Lockheed in the early 1950s to demonstrate vertical takeoff and landing for a fighter that would protect convoys. It grew from a 1948 Navy proposal for an aircraft that could take off vertically from platforms on the afterdecks of ships, and two prototypes were ordered on 19 April 1951. It was powered by an Allison YT40-A-6 turboprop driving three-bladed contra-rotating propellers, with a cruciform tail. The official first flight took place on 16 June 1954, after a brief unintended hop in December 1953 by chief test pilot Herman Salmon. It made 32 flights without a true vertical takeoff or landing, and the project was cancelled in June 1955.