Germany's VTOL Interceptor Design

the fock-a-wolf tree bugle if you've

seen this crazy aircraft anywhere it was

likely being piloted by red skull in the

captain america movie because outside of

fiction it never entered production but

it was a genuine world war ii german

design

the tree pugl also called the tribucal

jager translates to thrust wing hunter

it was privately funded by fockewolf and

one of the many radical late war german

designs

it was designed to be a vertical takeoff

and landing tail sitter interceptor

meaning it could defend areas of germany

with no airfields or even be used by the

navy

but the aircraft never made it past wind

tunnel testing with no finished

prototype completed

the aircraft did not have wings lift and

thrust were provided by a rotor

propeller assembly the idea being when

the aircraft is vertical the rotors

would function similar to a helicopter

and when flying they would act like a

giant propeller

but unlike the osprey the pilot would

have to tilt over the entire aircraft

into level flight once sufficient

altitude was gained the blades were

mounted on a ring assembly supported by

bearings allowing them to rotate around

the fuselage each rotor blade would be

spun by a ram jet ramjets were a type of

jet engine that require a flow of air

before working to start the rotor

spinning rockets would have to be used

once sufficient airflow was reached the

ramjets could work on their own the

pitch of the blades could be varied with

the effect of changing the speed and the

lift produced

having the ram jets on the tips of the

blades was a clever design as it created

no reaction torque to cause a counter

rotation of the fuselage

takeoff was arguably the less dangerous

concept for the pilot with landing

providing a far more difficult

engineering and piloting challenge

the pilot would have to slow the

aircraft's speed and pitch the fuselage

until vertical then blindly descend

seating facing upwards with the ground

behind him

emergency landing this type of aircraft

or bailing out would have been an even

more terrifying problem

germany was known for their experimental

and radical designs the luftwaffe was

lucky the design failed where it did and

not at the stage where the project lost

pilots and incurred outrageous expense

in maintaining an aircraft that would be

immensely mechanically stressed with

each flight

rocket aircraft like the me163 were

another concept for quick interception

of allied aircraft over 300 were built

and though they had incredible speed

they were killing irreplaceable pilots

and testing and training due to the

volatility of the rocket propellant

sometimes it's best for a design to fail

early

but testing concepts that don't work can

lead to proving designs that do such as

the successful me262 of course fielded

too late in the war to influence

anything other than allied designs after

germany's defeat

after the war the treepoogle concept was

studied by the allies and for the most

part written off as mad science but it

was not the end of tail sitter aircraft

america was particularly interested in

vertical takeoff and landing aircraft in

the 1950s like the confer x fy pogo

american designs however were powered by

conventional turbo props with nose

mounted contour rotating propellers to

counter torque they also had

conventional wings for lift though they

did share a cruciform tail and integral

landing gear comparable to the tree

flugel

all right i'm johnny thanks for watching

this brief on an unusual design sorry

there's a lack of footage on the subject

as it was never built but i do hope to

see you in the next video

you