Experimental Airplane: SNECMA C.450-01 Coléoptère

The elegant SNECMA C.450-01 Coléoptère, shown below,, another oddity from the 1950s, part of the then VTOL research effort, was sadly abandoned after one (aborted & destructive) flight. The aircraft was essentially made of a circular wing wrapped arround a SNECMA ATAR turbojet. Neither the circular wing layout nor the jet stabilisation systems were deemed responsible for the destruction of the prototype though.

The following video link on YouTube provides more insight into the aircraft design philosophy and some of the associated issues: 

One point to take away is that, before time, this aircraft already exploited, in effect, the benefits of a high by-pass ratio engine, so common nowadays (the large fan helping suck larger amounts of air used to propel the aircraft on current HBR engines).

This prototype was following in the footsteps of the so-called SNECMA C.400 ATAR volants, essentially a VTOL remote controlled turbojet. Such a concept of tail-sitter aircraft was not new at the time; others, mainly in the USA [Note: the Germans had also considered it with the FW Triebflugel for example], had also experimented with it, such as with the Convair XFY-1 Pogo (shown thereafter) or Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon, propelled by turbo-prop engines in the late 1940s and very early 1950s.

JP Colliat's webiste [in French] contains interesting material on the topic: http://jpcolliat.free.fr/xfv1/xfv1-1.htm