A waste of effort

I have just, by coincidence been reading about two different aircraft projects which saw prototypes being completed, but then never flown.

The ones I read of were the Yak 1000, which couldn't fly, and the Dornier 728, which never got the chance to try.

This reminded me of the Rockwell XFV-12 which, like the Yak, was incapable of lifting itself off the ground and I wonder if anyone can name any more planes which, after all the effort, and expense, of designing them and building a prototype, never made it into the air at all?

Over to you guys.

Good thread, waynos...I was all ready to jump on this with the Avro Arrow, but it did actually fly and was dropped because of political stupidity.

Yeah. that's the different angle I was aiming for here, there have been so many interesting design projects that were never built and so many fascinating prototypes that were wasted, such as the Arrow and TSR 2, there can't be too many that fall in between and were actually built without flying. Surely the three I named in the opening post can't be the only ones?

The Lockheed company was the first in the USA to start work on a jet powered aircraft, the L-133 design started in 1939 as a number of "Paper Project" by engineers Clarence R "Kelly" Johnson and Hall J Hibbard. .

Scrapped for the P-80 Shooting star..

How about the Miles M52? It beleive it was built but was scrapped before it could be flown as it was considered by the UK government of the time to be too dangerous for the pilot......however a lot of its design ideas were ....ahem....borrowed for the Bell X1.

A few years later a scale model of the M52 was built and launched and apperently exceeded mach 1 before it was lost....so history might have been different if the real M52 had flown.......good old labour government strikes again!!!!!!!!!

SV......Out!

Yes, I suppose part built aircraft count too, in which case the M.52 is a good one, in fact the model M.52 reached mach 1.6, or 1,000 mph. Considering it was to have its own undercarriage, take off under its own power like a normal plane, and use the worlds first afterburning jet engine as opposed to the X-1's rocket, its even more of a shame as it would have (most likely) beat the X-1 into a cocked hat.

Still, 'coulda, woulda, shoulda' isn't quite the same as 'did'.

I can add the Supermarine 545, a supersonic fighter in the F-100/MiG 19 class which was complete and ready for flight when axed in 1955 and the Hawker P.1121, a mach 2 multirole fighter of similar size and weight to the F-105 which was also canned with the prototype virtually complete two years later in 1957.

The L133 doesn't count as it was never built but at least the US seems to actually fly the ones it does build.

[edit on 26-9-2006 by waynos]

i will have to look up exactly what i reffer to , but my sunmission has to be an italian " flying boat " to use the term loosely

the name was something like " capagnini "

and it looked like a garden shed with wings [ and chinz curtains in the windows ]

if you see a picture , you will just giggle -- its that bad

I know the one you mean, it was the Caproni Ca 60 and a description of it from the time said "it wouldn't have looked out of place sailing up Plymouth Sound with the Spanish Armada".

Sadly it disqualifies itself from this list by actually hauling its sorry arse into the sky, briefly.

Found another entry for this long dormant thread.

The Tarrant Tabor was a huge triplane strategic bomber built towards the end of the 1st world war, it doesn't look too bad with its curvaceous fuselage which looks very modern for the time. Hopwever its fatal flaw was its arrangement of the engines in a 'square' around the fuselage. On its first ever take off attempt it pitched forward and nosed over as the upper two engines were run up to full power, the Tabor nosed over killing both pilots

The designer Walter Barling did learn from his mistake however as, after emigrating to the USA after the war he successfully flew a revamped derivative of the Tabor called the Whittman-Lewis Barling Bomber.

An aircraft in the sense that it was supposed to fly, but not a traditional plane. The XF5U1 flying disk. It was a smaller version of the V-173 which made over 100 successful flights. By the time the XF5U1 prototypes were completed the war was over and the USN was back to more "traditional" designs.

reply to post by Zaphod58

The XF5U1 incorporated radial engines locatedinboard of the prop so a complicated and heavy drive system was required. The engines had cooling problems and the drive system wasfraught with unresolved design errors Performance was degraded by the addition of weighty items such as armor plating. Thus the Navy and Mr Zimmerman were not pleased to put it mildly. The aerodynamic design seems to have a unique feature namely infinite aspect ratio due to the placement of the props if I rember right. Can jet engines produce this performance advantage? I experienced the fore going I was there as alow grade engineer overseeing the testing the mechanical drive system. WE paid for this so we as tax payers should be aware of why our tax moneydid not produce a unique flying aircraft. Charlie