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It’s what’s known as a V/STOL aircraft, capable of vertical/short takeoffs and landings.

He sits on the floor in the hallway of his communal apartment, in a dark and hopeless mood—he appears doomed to the repeated frustrations of an author who can only “pisat’ v stol,” as the Russian saying goes, “to write for the desk,” or toil over stories that won’t end up anywhere but a desk drawer.

Writers who would not adjust to the state’s ideological constraints were forced to write v stol—“into the desk,” not for publication.

By his calculations, as early as 1975 V/STOL planes could grab half the commercial travel over such short hops as San Francisco to Los Angeles.

During the Viet Nam War, he provided pilotless jet spy planes and pioneered the V/STOL, a vertical-and short-takeoff-and-landing plane.