EWR VJ 101C
Of the three vertical planes built in Germany, two must be pointed out. On the one hand the only VTOL aircraft so far, the Dornier Do 31 and on the other hand the only supersonic take-off aircraft EWR VJ101C. Two thrust units were built in the end of the wings and in the front area of the fuselage. The triangular arrangement resulting from this proved to be beneficial for vertical flight and hovering and also meant that the fuselage was not filled with the thrust units unnecessarily. Both thrust unit pairs at the wing ends were placed in a cradle which could be swivelled in a horizontal direction. In the vertical position they served as lift jet engines during vertical take-off and after swivelling during the transition into horizontal position they served as cruising engines. The two thrust units behind the cockpit served as pure lift jet engines and were switched off during aerodynamic flight. All thrust units (during hover flight 6, aerodynamic flight 4) were operated with a joint performance lever. To move the aircraft during hover flights around the longitudinal and transverse axes, the so-called thrust modulation was used for the thrust difference between the cradle and lift jet engines for the entire flight range - hovering, transition and aerodynamic flight. The pilot was supported during hovering by a hover mode autopilot basing on a gyroscope. The VJ 101C X-1 flew for the first time on April 10, 1963. Up until August 1964 the VJ 101C X-1 was thoroughly tested in nearly 130 tests with 40 aerodynamic flights, 24 hover flights and 14 full transitions. During these tests the sound barrier was broken, for the first time by a vertical take-off aircraft. On September 14, 1964 the test aircraft X-1 crashed due to an avionics problem. The tests were subsequently continued with the 2nd prototype VJ 101C X-2, which in contrast to the X-1 was already equipped with the high performance exhaust reheater jets.
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