I suppose logic was to very-short-land laden onto rough field, un-load, depart even shorter...
If not too silly a question, what drives such lift-fans ? Blown air / shafting from existing engines ? Or 'pancake' core ??
IIRC, Germans did a lot of design work on VSTOL 'short-haul' civilian designs using podded Pegasus engines. Ghastly weight overheads...