When you see this airplane in the pic above, you're probably thinking this one would send you to space. But it won't. The Coléoptère was a French experiment from the 1950s which had plans to make a vertical take off and landing. Too bad it was a complete failure.

The annular wing might have screamed fun, and a tilting seat that transitioned the pilot from vertical flight to horizontal flight might just be the sort of sci-fi love we have for planes, but it never did successfully took flight. Air & Space writes:




Takeoff, hover, and landing were controlled by deflecting vanes in the engine exhaust: in horizontal flight by four fins mounted just above the castoring landing gear, and in the transition to vertical flight by two retractable canards in the nose.

On it's ninth and final attempt, the aircraft almost accomplished its mission, but only "wild oscillations" and "horizontal acceleration" resulted, causing the pilot to eject (and suffer serious injuries), while the craft burned up. [Air & Space via BoingBoing]