Weird Wings - Avroplane

The Avroplane was part of a 1950s "air jeep" project, Project Y, which also produced the Avro-car disc-form aircraft. It was developed by A.V. Roe, a subsidiary of Hawker Siddeley.

The prototype VTOL craft was a tail-sitter (intended to take off and land from a vertical position), and achieve speeds of 2,500 mph (4000 km/h). It used radial flow engines, ducting exhaust gases out through several small nozzles.

This apparently gave the jet good performance, whilst reducing its infra-red signature to heat-seeking missiles by dispersing the exhaust.

The sleek, shallow fuselage also reduced the Avroplane's radar cross-section. Both concepts would resurface in later stealth designs.

Why it was abandoned is unknown, but work subsequently continued on the Avro-car. There were no test flights or subsequent production models of the Avroplane.