The bizarre Convair Model 49

[Snark]

Hi,
Thought you may be interested in the bizarre Convair Model 49:
http://hushkit.wordpress.com/2014/07/28/the-us-armys-ring-wing-transformer-the-strange-story-of-the-convair-model-49/

Does anyone have any pictures of the small proof of concept demonstrator in flight? I'd love to see them.

Cheers 

[Captain Canada]

That's pretty wild !

[McColm]

There is a colour picture of Convair Model 49 in the book 'Secret US Proposals of the Cold War' by Jim Keeshen, ISBN 978-0-8597916-1-8 price $34.95 /£22.95.
Look under Drones page 164-166.
Page 165 shows the in-house model of the Convair ADD showing how it looks similar to the French Coleoptere VTOL testbed. Taken from the John Aldaz collection of models.
The Model 49 is essentially a flying tank. A circular, closed-wing vehicle almost 23ft (7m) in diameter with an articulated cockpit that was 30ft 2in (9.2m) high. It had two three-blade contra-rotating rotors powered by three Lycoming LTC 48-11 engines. It was also armed with heavy on-board weaponry.
Similar to a helicopter, the Model 49 could take off and land vertically . Could fly horizontally like an airplane. The nose could articulate downwards, 45 degrees so the pilots could oversee landings or take-offs or direct their weapons in battle.

[rickshaw]

The '49 was a bizarre aircraft, without a doubt and a poorly thought out concept.  The idea that it would land and slug it out on the ground as a sort of strongpoint was silly.  It would have traded it's greatest advantages, speed and manoeuvrability for something which was a lightly armoured sitting target for any wily NLF soldier with an RPG.   It's flight characteristics were such that it wasn't as manoeuvrable as a helicopter but couldn't carry as heavier load as an aircraft.  So it didn't fit into either basket very well.

[KJ_Lesnick]

Now what would have been cool would have been an enlarged turboprop powered XF5U type concept with the following capabilities

• Payload of at least 8,000 pounds
  
• Top speed of at least 400 mph
  
• Stall speed either between the V-173 and XF5U and ideally the same as the XF5U
  
• Ability to carry a sufficient amount of rockets to actually be useful carried between the props
  

Admittedly this would be fixed wing...

[Weaver]

Some demonstration video clips: https://youtu.be/t4LQhTCWhiE

[Tophe]

The same (bizarre) tilting cockpit/nose is available on the Focke-Wulf 860, as kit by Unicraft, at
http://www.unicraft.biz/germ/fw860/fw860.htm