Cockpit of a Curtiss Robin. Wrongway Corrigan crossed the Atlantic in a highly modified Robin. The cockpit in a standard Robin is very close to what Lindbergh had in the Spirit of St Louis.
Howard Hughes in the F11 photo/recon aircraft he was testing and crashed in. 6000hp it was weed construction and actually a derivative of an earlier design that was kept so secret only a few photos are known to exist. it was a disappointment in performance and lost in a hangar fire, but later used as a starting point in design in making the H11.
Vertical T/O and Land The research started very early but it is still really the domain of the helicopter. I have rad the Marine version of the F35 is very marginal in the VTOL segment of its performance even when lightly loaded.