There have been a lot of these planes.  Howard Hughes built the XF-11 and damn nearly killed himself with it when it crashed in California.

 

 http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Contra-rotating_propellers

 

Bill B

 

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From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Thomas Mann
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 10:12 PM

To: Rotary motors in aircraft

Subject: [FlyRotary] Re: interesting cooling idea

Actually that was the real deal. A prototype was built in 1941.

 

http://www.luft46.com/fw/fwbmw802.html

 

The engineers on all sides were really coming up with some creative solutions.

 

From: Rotary motors in aircraft [mailto:flyrotary@lancaironline.net] On Behalf Of Mike Wills
Sent: Wednesday, February 10, 2010 8:37 PM
To: Rotary motors in aircraft
Subject: [FlyRotary] interesting cooling idea

 

While looking around on the web for info on Rhino I came across these models of an airplane labeled an FW-802. I don’t know if it was ever real, a prototype, or nothing more than an artist conception. But a pretty intriguing idea.

 

Mike