A vertical take-off and landing aircraft is one that can hover, take off, land vertically. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors; some VTOL aircraft can operate in other modes as well, such as CTOL, STOL, and/or STOVL. Others, such as some helicopters, can only operate by VTOL, due to the aircraft lacking landing gear that can handle horizontal motion. VTOL is a subset of V/STOL; some lighter-than-air aircraft qualify as VTOL aircraft, as they can hover and land with vertical approach/departure profiles. Electric and hybrid-electric vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, or eVTOLs, are being developed in the quest for autonomous passenger air vehicles. Besides the ubiquitous helicopter, there are two types of VTOL aircraft in military service: craft using a tiltrotor, such as the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey, another using directed jet thrust, such as the Harrier family and new F-35B Lightning II Joint strike Fighter.

In the civilian sector only helicopters are in general use. Speaking, VTOL aircraft capable of STOVL use it wherever possible, since it significantly increases takeoff weight, range or payload compared to pure VTOL; the idea of vertical flight has been around for thousands of years and sketches for a VTOL shows up in Leonardo da Vinci's sketch book. Manned VTOL aircraft, in the form of primitive helicopters, first flew in 1907 but would take until after World War Two to perfect. In addition to helicopter development, many approaches have been tried to develop practical aircraft with vertical take-off and landing capabilities including Henry Berliner's 1922–1925 experimental horizontal rotor fixed wing aircraft, Nikola Tesla's 1928 patent and George Lehberger's 1930 patent for impractical VTOL fixed wing airplanes with a tilting engines. In the late 1930s British aircraft designer Leslie Everett Baynes was issued a patent for the Baynes Heliplane, another tilt rotor aircraft. In 1941 German designer Heinrich Focke's began work on the Focke-Achgelis Fa 269, which had two rotors that tilted downward for vertical takeoff, but wartime bombing halted development.

In May 1951, both Lockheed and Convair were awarded contracts in the attempt to design and test two experimental VTOL fighters. Lockheed produced the XFV, Convair producing the Convair XFY Pogo. Both experimental programs proceeded to flight status and completed test flights 1954–1955, when the contracts were cancelled; the X-13 flew a series of test flights between 1955 and 1957, but suffered the same fate. The use of vertical fans driven by engines was investigated in the 1950s; the US built an aircraft where the jet exhaust drove the fans, while British projects not built included fans driven by mechanical drives from the jet engines. NASA has flown other VTOL craft such as the Bell XV-15 research craft, as have the Soviet Navy and Luftwaffe. Sikorsky tested an aircraft dubbed the X-Wing, which took off in the manner of a helicopter; the rotors would become stationary in mid-flight, function as wings, providing lift in addition to the static wings. Boeing X-50 is a Canard Rotor/Wing prototype.

A different British VTOL project was the gyrodyne, where a rotor is powered during take-off and landing but which freewheels during flight, with separate propulsion engines providing forward thrust. Starting with the Fairey Gyrodyne, this type of aircraft evolved into the much larger twin-engined Fairey Rotodyne, that used tipjets to power the rotor on take-off and landing but which used two Napier Eland turboprops driving conventional propellers mounted on substantial wings to provide propulsion, the wings serving to unload the rotor during horizontal flight; the Rotodyne was developed to combine the efficiency of a fixed-wing aircraft at cruise with the VTOL capability of a helicopter to provide short haul airliner service from city centres to airports. The CL-84 was a Canadian V/STOL turbine tilt-wing monoplane designed and manufactured by Canadair between 1964 and 1972; the Canadian government ordered three updated CL-84s for military evaluation in 1968, designated the CL-84-1. From 1972 to 1974, this version was demonstrated and evaluated in the United States aboard the aircraft carriers USS Guam and USS Guadalcanal, at various other centres.

These trials involved military pilots from the United Kingdom and Canada. During testing, two of the CL-84s crashed due to mechanical failures, but no loss of life occurred as a result of these accidents. No production contracts resulted. Although tiltrotors such as the Focke-Achgelis Fa 269 of the mid-1940s and the Centro Técnico Aeroespacial "Convertiplano" of the 1950s reached testing or mock-up stages, the V-22 Osprey is considered the world's first production tiltrotor aircraft, it has one three-bladed proprotor, turboprop engine, transmission nacelle mounted on each wingtip. The Osprey is a multi-mission aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing and short takeoff and landing capability, it is designed to perform missions like a conventional helicopter with the long-range, high-speed cruise performance of a turboprop aircraft. The FAA classifies the Osprey as a model of powered lift aircraft. Attempts were made in the 1960s to develop a commercial passenger aircraft with VTOL capability.

The Hawker Siddeley Inter-City Vertical-Li

On July 28, 1943 American Airlines Flight 63 was flown by a Douglas DC-3, named Flagship Ohio, routing Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati-Louisville-Nashville-Memphis, that crashed on the Louisville-Nashville sector about 1.6 miles west of Trammel, Kentucky. The aircraft descended from 200 feet until it struck trees slid across an open field and stopped in an upright position. Of the 22 people on board, 20 died; the cause of the crash was loss of control due to violent downdrafts. Flagship Ohio was a Douglas DC-3 manufactured by the Douglas Aircraft Company and owned and operated by American Airlines. Since its first flight in 1936, the aircraft had logged 17,991 hours of flight time. At the time of the crash, it serviced a domestic scheduled passenger route with several stops in Ohio and Tennessee. Flight 63 departed Cleveland at 5:42 pm on July 28, 1943; the flight proceeded during its scheduled stops in Columbus, Dayton and Louisville. The aircraft arrived at its fourth Louisville, at 9:42 pm.

After refueling, the flight received clearance to depart at 9:54 pm. During the Louisville-Nashville leg, the Flagship Ohio was crewed by four American Airlines personnel, carried eighteen passengers; the aircraft's departure clearance specified an altitude of 2,500 feet to Smiths Grove, at 2,000 feet onward to Nashville. The projected arrival time was 10:54 pm — an hour's flight. Thunderstorms around Smiths Grove caused extreme turbulence and strong downdrafts which forced the plane to lose altitude; the Smiths Grove area is characterized by hilly terrain with an elevation that ranges from 695 to 720 ft above sea level. The plane clipped a clump of trees before skidding across an open field until it came to rest in an upright position in a copse of trees 1,000 feet away from its initial point of impact; the Civil Aeronautics Board investigated the crash and determined that the extreme turbulence and conditions caused by the nearby thunderstorm created such severe flying conditions that the pilot was unable to maintain control of the aircraft.

Loss of control of the aircraft due to unusually severe turbulence and violent downdraft caused by a thunderstorm of unknown and unpredictable intensity. All four crewmembers died in the crash. Of the eighteen passengers, only two survived. After the loss of the Flagship Ohio, American Airlines replaced the aircraft on the Cleveland-Columbus-Dayton-Cincinnati-Louisville-Nashville-Memphis route with sister DC-3 Flagship Missouri. Three months on October 15, 1943, Flagship Missouri crashed on the Nashville-Memphis leg of the flight. American Airlines American Airlines Flight 63 American Airlines accidents and incidents List of accidents and incidents involving commercial aircraft

The Water Diviner is a 2014 drama film directed by and starring Russell Crowe, in his directorial debut, written by Andrew Anastasios and Andrew Knight. The film is loosely based on the book of the same name written by Andrew Anastasios and Dr Meaghan Wilson-Anastasios, it follows an Australian farmer, Joshua Connor, who travels to Turkey soon after World War I to find his three sons who never returned. The film co-stars Olga Kurylenko, Jai Courtney, Cem Yılmaz, Yılmaz Erdoğan, Jacqueline McKenzie; the Water Diviner had its world premiere at the State Theatre in Sydney, Australia on 2 December 2014. It opened in Australian and New Zealand cinemas on 26 December 2014; the film had a limited release in the United States on 24 April 2015. The film begins in 1919, just after World War I has ended, centres around Joshua Connor, an Australian farmer and water diviner, his three sons Arthur and Henry served with the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps during the military campaign in Gallipoli four years and are presumed dead.

After his wife Eliza commits suicide out of grief, Joshua resolves to bring his sons' bodies home and bury them with their mother. Joshua travels to Turkey and stays in a hotel in Istanbul run by war-widowed Ayshe, but is unable to travel to Gallipoli by road. Learning the purpose of his journey, Ayshe tells him to bribe a local fisherman to travel to Gallipoli by boat; when he arrives, Joshua learns that ANZACs are engaged in a mass burial detail and all civilians are banned. Major Hasan, a Turkish Army officer assisting the ANZACs, persuades the ANZAC captain Lt-Col Cyril Hughes to prioritize helping Joshua with his search, as the only father to care enough to come all this way to find the fate of his sons. After finding Edward and Henry's graves, Joshua sees in his dreams. Hasan tells him that Arthur might have been taken prisoner. Joshua returns to Istanbul, but fails to find out to which prison camp Arthur was transferred, as many Turkish records have been burned, he learns that she is being pressed to marry her brother-in-law, Omer.

Their argument becomes heated and Omer retreats. Ayshe tells him to leave; as Joshua leaves the hotel, Omer and a few of his friends attack him, only to be stopped by Hasan's subordinate, Sergeant Jemal. Jemal takes Joshua to Hasan, who explains that the Greeks have invaded and they are going to defend their country as the British are not intervening. Joshua decides to travel with Hasan's group, who will pass through the region where his son might be; as Joshua returns to the hotel to retrieve his belongings, Ayshe apologizes for her earlier words. While on the train, Jemal asks Joshua about a cricket bat he found in the Allied trenches when they retreated, as he is unsure whether it is a weapon or not. Joshua explains to the Turkish soldiers on board the train the basic rules of cricket. However, Greek soldiers attack the train with only Jemal and Joshua surviving the initial assault. Using the bat, Joshua saves Hasan as a Greek officer prepares to execute him but Jemal is killed in the resulting struggle.

Joshua and Hasan flee to a nearby town where they spot a windmill, which Joshua saw in his recurring dream. There he traumatized. Arthur reveals, he pleaded with Arthur to end his suffering, Arthur reluctantly complied. Blaming himself for his brothers' deaths, Arthur felt; the Greek soldiers who attacked the train begin to attack the town, the two men try to escape through the mountains. Arthur refuses to follow his father, but relents when Joshua says that without his wife and sons, he has nowhere else to go, they evade the Greek army and return to Ayshe's hotel. The film ends with Joshua drinking a cup of coffee made by Ayshe which indicates that she has fallen in love with him; the story concept originated from a single line in a letter written by Lieutenant-Colonel Cyril Hughes, a worker in the Imperial War Graves unit. The footnote said, “One old chap managed to get here from Australia, looking for his son’s grave.” After a year of research the writers were unable to identify the man or his son which gave them the freedom to imagine a story which would become their screenplay.

On 18 June 2013, it was announced that Crowe had signed to make his directorial debut with an historical drama film The Water Diviner from a screenplay written by Andrew Knight and Andrew Anastasios. He would star in the film. Producers would be Troy Lum, Andrew Mason and Keith Rodger and it was set to be shot in Australia and Turkey. On 25 March 2014, it was announced that Seven West Media and Seven Group Holdings would co-finance the film. On 7 November 2014, Warner Bros. acquired the US rights to the film. Crowe portrays an Australian farmer. Olga Kurylenko was added to the cast on 18 October 2013 to co-star with Crowe. On 24 October, Jai Courtney was announced as having signed to star in The Water Diviner and another historical film, Unbroken. Courtney first filmed Unbroken and moved to The Water Diviner, playing a soldier, Lt. Col. Cecil Hughes. Turkish actors Cem Yılmaz and Yılmaz Erdoğan were added to the cast, along with some Australian actors: Ryan Corr, Daniel Wyllie, Damon Herriman, Deniz Akdeniz, Steve Bastoni and Jacqueline McKenzie.

Principal photography began on 2 December 2013 in Australia. On 1 February 2014, the first official still from the film was revealed