Business: Vertical Take-Off

A vertical take-off jet plane has been under development for eighteen months at the Buffalo plant of Bell Aircraft Corp., and last week word leaked out that it has been successfully test-flown. Bell has worked out a mechanism that tilts the plane's two jet engines from the horizontal to the vertical, thereby making it possible to take off and rise straight up, then level the engines again for forward flight. To land, the pilot slows the plane, tilts the engines vertically and eases to the ground. Since tail and rudder are useless while the plane is hovering, compressed-air jets are used...