There have been many magnificent projects for V/STOL. The detail of the finest (against stiff competion) are somewhere in the mess but it was a proposal for the requirement that lead to the TSR2. This was a very non V/STOL aircraft which to get the V/STOL would take off and land (launch and be recovered?) from a flying VTOL carrier with 60 lift engines!
As someone said "Nothing comes down quite as fast as a VTOL upside down"