With over 500 views and no answers, I seem to have achieved a degree of difficulty in this quiz. Here are the answers, which may surprise you.

1a. CONVAIR

1b. XFY-1

1c. "POGO"

1d. VTOL point defense fighter

1e. 1954

The US Navy requested designs for a point defense fighter that could take off and land vertically, powered by a powerful turboprop with counter-rotating propellers. Two manufacturers responded; Convair with the XFY-1 "POGO" and Lockheed with the XFV-1 "SALMON." This quiz is about POGO, the design that was built, tested and rejected beyond the one test aircraft that did make flights.

Much difficulty ensued in getting the POGO test pilot safely back down on a landing. If the vertical descent rate was greater than 10 feet/second, wind tunnel tests showed that POGO would tumble out of control. The sole test pilot, "Skeets" Coleman, was the only man to ever fly POGO. On landing he would have to look over his shoulder, adjust his ejection seat to a 45 degree angle, carefully judging the rate of descent while traveling backwards-think about that!

There was no zero-zero ejection seat at that time (a description, by the way, that Martin-Baker Aircraft, British maker of ejection seats, abhors). I know, as I toured their works at Upper Denham in September, 1971 on official business, meeting Sir James Martin who was still alive then, and getting a full factory briefing.

A further problem for "tail-sitter" POGO was its engine, an Allison XT-40 5,850 Hp turboprop that was unreliable, helping kill the POGO flight test program. Both the XFY and the XFV programs were cancelled in mid-1955.

Unlike a helicopter, POGO could not auto-rotate to a safe landing. A total of four castering wheels were fixed on the ends of the delta wings and its opposing tail surfaces. To board the aircraft a very tall ladder was required, with Coleman then lying on his back during the startup and takeoff sequence. Special moveable hangars were needed for mechanics to work on the engine. Armament was to be four 20mm cannons or a battery of air-to-air rockets in any production version.

The nose spinner was so large in diameter in order to accommodate two three blade each counter-rotatating propellers. The propeller tips were square, with a huge noise signature. Never to be solved was how to incorporate a non-spinning air-intercept radar's radome within the huge spinner. Slip-rings? Don't even go there!

POGO Specs

One-Off

Crew-1

Length-35'

Wingspan- 27' 7"

Tailspan-22' 11"

Powerplant-One 5,850 Hp Allison XT-40 Turboprop

Max speed- 610 mph

Weight maximum-16,250 lb.

Thank you for all who visited this quiz.