"Flying Barrel" Takes Off Vertically
French aircraft designers have come up with a "flying barrel", an annular-winged plane that takes off vertically from a launching truck, then shifts to horizontal flight. Called the C-450 "Coleoptere", the tail-sitting plane has a one-man cockpit, flanked by air-intake ducts that feed the central jet engine. Fuel is contained in the surrounding wing. The experimental craft is expected to fly at speeds up to Mach 2 or 3. Manufactured in Paris, the strange plane is expected to be test-flown for the first time this summer.
This was in the August 1959 edition of the Popular Mechanics magazine
