In 1925, a man named Willard Ray Custer had an interesting idea. Instead of getting an airplane to move at rapid speeds to create lift on its wings, why not move air over the wing using a propeller? So instead of pushing an entire plane through the air to get it skyward, you in effect, bring the air to the wings.

A few years later, Custer patented his design for a channel wing. This design, which features propellers set into a half-circle channel on each wing, provided planes shorter take-off distances thanks to lift at slower airspeeds. To demonstrate this, Custer had a man run alongside one of his channel wing planes until it lifted off the ground. In another test, Custer's team strapped the plane down, and turned on the propellers. The resultant lift the craft exhibited is probably the first instance of plane taking off vertically.

Unfortunately, Custer never found a way to make channel wings commercially viable. Planes back then were simply too heavy to make the system efficient.