The U.S. Navy's Unconventional 'Flying Pancake' Fighter

Vought V-173 prototype's 427 square feet of wing area gave it the capability of taking off nearly vertically with typical wind over a ship’s deck.

Jason McDowell

Tuesday, October 15, 2024 at 11:21 AM ET

Verified

Edited By:

Kimberly Johnson

With the 22-degree deck angle on the Vought V-173, the pilot was forced to look forward, past his feet, through windows on the underside of the nose. [Courtesy: U.S. Navy]

Key Takeaways:

The Vought V-173 "Flying Pancake" was an unconventional, saucer-shaped aircraft designed by Charles Zimmerman in the late 1930s for the U.S. Navy, intended to provide short takeoff/landing (STOL) capabilities for fighters operating from non-carrier ships.
Its radical design featured an almost entirely wing structure with extremely low wing loading, two buried small engines, and oversized propellers that generated propwash over the entire airframe, enabling a remarkably slow landing speed of 22 mph and near-vertical takeoffs.
The V-173 prototype successfully accumulated 131 hours of flight time, including flights by Charles Lindbergh. While its larger, more powerful successor (XF5U) never truly flew and the prototypes were initially scrapped, the V-173 was later meticulously restored and is now on display in a museum.

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If one were to claim that their new aircraft design utilized two 80 hp Piper Cub engines that turned two 16.5-foot propellers, that individual’s mental state might be called into question. If that individual were to go on to claim that their new aircraft design would resemble a flying saucer and could land at 22 mph, we might suggest that they sketch their design out on paper so they could show it to a psychiatrist and receive powerful prescription medication to help them control their delusions.

Such a design did emerge in the late 1930s, but the designer, Charles Zimmerman, was not insane. On the contrary, his unconventional vision, which became the Vought V-173 and was nicknamed the “Flying Pancake,” did, in fact, come to fruition. Not only did it fly, but it demonstrated remarkable performance.