Beetle

The "Beetle" is an aircraft that was built and tested in France in 1959 as a single prototype, which was unfortunately destroyed during testing, after having reached an altitude of 900 meters. The idea originally came from a German: Von Zborowski. It was one of the "secret weapons" with which Hitler had hoped, at the end of the war, to regain the advantage. As Allied bombers regularly damaged the runways, the twin-engine Messerschmidt 262, which required a long takeoff distance, was often grounded. Zborowski's aerodyne, with vertical takeoff, would thus have solved the problem. The French recovered this German defector, just as the Americans recovered Von Braun at Penmünde. A machine conforming to his ideas was studied and built around a turbojet: the "flying ATAR," powerful enough to allow vertical takeoff. In horizontal flight, it was planned that Von Zborowski's aerodyne could, after injection of kerosene into the space surrounding the engine, operate as a "ramjet," which would then have allowed it to reach Mach 3. The destruction of the prototype was a stroke of bad luck, because this type of craft could have given birth to an entire generation of absolutely revolutionary fighters. Currently the only operational vertical takeoff aircraft is the British Harrier (the harrier is an English dog used for hunting in packs).

The "Beetle" was studied in France by the engineer Pierre Lhoste (now retired and who happens to be my neighbor), on behalf of SNECMA, in 1959. After the destruction of the prototype and the abandonment of the project, he went to work at the CEA.

It would be wrong to believe that a machine with an annular wing could have poor flight qualities. In fact, as this wing is "completely rolled up on itself," the losses linked to "wingtip vortices" are eliminated. The following pages, extracted from a comic strip, show how one can oneself build an annular wing, which glides very well. It is even one of the best paper airplanes I know.

....The Beetle had been built around an astonishing engine: the "flying ATAR," shown below in flight. It had been designed to demonstrate the feasibility of vertical takeoff. First tested under a gantry, it was then tested free of any restraint, as shown. One can make out its rudimentary landing gear as well as, perched on the body of the turbojet, the pilot's seat. This photo corresponds to an altitude of a few tens of meters. Piloting was ensured by acting on the orientation of the jet, using flaps placed in the nozzle.