The Lockheed XFV-1 Salmon
The American army began getting super creative with their aviation concepts in the mid 20th century. Of course, it was a huge help that they were given such an enormous budget to try and test these new modes of transportation and dogfighting. Because of this, the Salmon was born.
The most innovative aspect of the Salmon was that it could take off vertically and land vertically. This would reduce the time in and out of the air, which the military could use to their advantage. Unfortunately, landing vertically would sometimes result in a collapsed engine and a broken plane. They nixed this idea and moved onto the next.