Contemporary with the Lockheed XFV-1, the Convair XFY-1 was designed for the same US Navy competition. This was intended to investigate the potential of a small single-seat tail-sitting VTOL fighter aircraft for operation from and to small platforms on a variety of ships. The fuselage served to accommodate the pilot's cockpit and turboprop power-plant, and mounted externally the monoplane wings of modified delta planform and large dorsal and ventral tail surfaces in a cruciform arrangement. On the ground the XFY-1 rested on small castor-ing wheels at the tips of the horizontal and vertical surfaces.

Extensive tethered tests from a special rig were followed by a first vertical take-off and landing on 1 August 1954. Testing continued with a series of similar vertical flights before the first complete transition from vertical to horizontal flight and vice versa was accomplished on 2 November 1954. Although some 40 flight hours were accumulated by two prototypes of this experimental fighter, its development was abandoned as a result of major flight control problems.

3-View

A three-view drawing (1280 x 912)