Luftwaffe Aviation History

TOLS- Ideas to Combat USAAF Bombers near the End of World War II

- DVD

Here is a very interesting mini 12-minute audio-video featuring the computer digital artistry of Mario Merino, mainly about proposed Nazi German vertical take off & landing (VTOL) fighters of WW2 especially the experimental Focke-Wulf "Triebflugeljager" project...which was designed but never built. Several post war American and French flying prototypes from the 50ths such as Lockheed and Douglas are included, too. And today the super secret Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (Darpa) of the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD has announced that they will begin spending $130 million for a 52 month study for their so-called VTOL X Plane program striving for a workable VTOL prototype by 2017. The last great failed VTOL world-wide effort was during the "Cold War" of the 1950s when many nations studied a couple dozen VTOLs designs for defense should the former USSR destroy airport runways world wide. Nothing much came of those VTOL designs. On the other hand, Darpa claims that it will come up with new designs based on advanced technology and "astute integration" which they say will overcome the decades old VTOL failures of lift off and landings and not simply revisit those numerous failures of the past.