A tailsitter is a type of VTOL aircraft that launches and lands on its tail. They are truly remarkable pieces of aviation history: mainly designed in the late 1940s and early 1950s, they were essentially an early attempt to eliminate the necessity of runways.
The downfall of the tailsitter configuration was the lack of ability to transition the pilot to a comfortable position from which to control his descent. This inability led to the concept being abandoned as soon as the experiments that led to the development of the Hawker Siddeley Harrier in the 1960s began to bear fruit.
(via Neatorama)
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