There are so many planes that were thought to be a break through in their time, that turned out to be nothing more than another failure. Some of these planes bankrupted their small companies while others certainly didn't do their designers and manufacturers any good. When planes are developed during wartime with government contracts, it is a little less risky but after a couple of failures your company may not stand a chance of getting anymore money. There were even companies that sold plans to fantastic planes that went belly up.

I remember reading about a model company named Astral Mills, that was selling model rocket planes in 1946, can you believe that? It was called the Astral Rocket Plane. I know we are only talking about a model here but the concept was very similar to the rocket planes used by the Germans in WW II. The model was said to be very similar to real rocket plane plans that appeared in 1937. Not much was ever heard about this plane

Spruce Goose
Photo Source: US Army

No discussion of failed planes would ever be complete without discussing the Spruce Goose. Howard Hughes decided to build the biggest plane in the world and make it out of non strategic materials, mainly wood. It was the biggest hauler built at the time but unfortunately for Hughes the war ended and so did the demand for a huge cargo plane. It was only flown once and not very high. England had made a wooden plane called the mosquito in the war that was a very successful fighter. Wooden planes are very easy to repair when damaged because you always have the repair materials on hand. I guess you just have to keep the termites away and make sure the planes don't get dry rot.

Some planes are the victims of politics. When you have a competition between two or three planes in this country, every politician affected is trying to pull strings to get the plane from his or her district picked as the winner. It is sort of a sorry way to protect this country. Unfortunately, the fastest rate of inflation seems to be in the airplane industry. Fighter planes in world war II that might have cost $25,000 dollars (British Version of Mustang Fighter), but today there are fighters that cost $187,300,000. per plane such as the F22 Raptor. Can you imagine a price like that? How can any country maintain a large fleet of planes at this price? If a car cost $1,000 in 1941 and today the same make cost $28,000 that is an increase of 28X. The increase from the Mustang to the Raptor is over 749X.

One of the planes that never made it was the POGO. The POGO was a plane built by Convair and was actually the XFY-1. It was an experiment to see if planes could take off and land without a runway. It would take off and land straight up. The Germans, in World War II, had experimented with a similar plane but theirs had jet powered blades. The plane was too far ahead of it's time since the pilot had no way to know how far above the ground he was when attempting to land while laying down in his back in his seat. It turned out that very few pilots could judge the distance correctly and the plane was never produced in numbers.

The Kellett XO-60 was built by Cieva gyro planes. The U.S. Army wanted to get a gyro plane in their fleet but it never worked out and this was the last attempt. When World War II began helicopters began to appear and they forced the autogyro into oblivion. The copter was just so much more maneuverable with it's powered blades. The autogyro has no motor attached to it's copter like blades and they turn like a windmill on their own. Cieva had been able to advance gyros by using the rotor for lift, but it was too little, to late.

The Avro Arrow or CF-105 was a Canadian jet interceptor. Pre production began in 1953 and ground to a halt in 1959. It was thought that the cost overruns had destroyed this plane. Only 5 planes were ever built. 14,000 people had been involved in it's production. The estimated top speed of this plane was Mach 2.5+

The Republic XF-103 was a jet interceptor designed to shoot down high speed enemy bombers. It was part of the competition that the Convair F-102 won. The plane came in 8th out of 9 planes, not very good. It was estimated that the plane had a top speed of 1438 knots and would be limited to Mach 3. It was cancelled in 1957. Was it really this bad or did politics play a role in the selection as usual?

Flying Wing
Photo Source: US Air Force Edwards AFB

One of the planes that I always loved was the Northrop Flying Wing. The B-35 appeared in 1946 and was a bomber that was very large. It had a wingspan of 172 feet and could take off with a weight of 209,000 pounds, including the plane. If you loaded this plane with 10,000 pounds bombs, it could fly over 5,000 to it's target. Later the XB-49 was developed. It was essentially a jet powered version of the same plane. It couldn't fly as far with the same 10,000 pounds of bombs, 4,000 miles, but it could get there at a speed of 450 mph. This plane was followed by the XB-49 in 1947. This model could do better than 500 mph. In 1950 the YRB-49A was introduced which had four of it's six engines enclosed in the plane. These wings almost bankrupted the company as the military was just not ready for such a radical concept.

History has seen a lot of planes land up on the scrap heap. It has also seen some planes that were talked about never come into being. Such a plane that everyone has mentioned, from time to time, is a plane that can enter the water, diving below the surface and then take off again. This became a dream for a long time. A few years ago we achieved another dream, a plane that didn't need fuel, it used solar cells. It can't support a pilot yet but who knows what the future holds.