The Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon
The U.S. military had plenty of bizarre ideas in the ‘50s. Thanks to the high budget, the military turned a few ideas into realities. This aircraft was made to take off vertically, which would be great for a point defense interceptor. However, it meant that one had to land vertically and awkward. The engines also tore itself into bits!
The Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon
The Grumman X-29
In the ‘80s and ‘90s, the U.S. Air Force had the Grumman X-29A. It was an aircraft that had a forward-swept wing that was meant to help give it better performance at subsonic speeds. The wings made it aerodynamically unstable, however. It was developed by the Air Force, NASA, Grumman, and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. Someone from NASA said, “It was unflyable — literally — without a digital flight computer onboard, which made corrections to the flight path 40 times a second.”
The Grumman X-29