VTOLogy - The Technology of going vertical: Or how to get it up, and keep it up!

[Overkiller]

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[Weaver]

Okay, to get you thinking, here are 33 ways of getting it up (so to speak):

Helicopters:

Main and Tail Rotor (MTR) aka the Penny Farthing layout or "normal".
As above but with a Fenestron (ducted fan) tail rotor.
As above, but with NOTAR "tail rotor", i.e. a fan blowing air down a hollow boom with a slot in the side.
Tandem Main Rotors (TMR).
Side-by-side main rotors (e.g. Mi-12).
Co-axial counter-rotating main rotors, either traditional (Kamov) or rigid (Hughes projects).
Intermeshing Main Rotors aka the Egg Beater layout (e.g. Kaman)
Personal helicopter backpack.


Tip drive systems for any of the above:

Cold air/gas piped to tips.
Hot gas piped to tips.
Cold air and/or fuel piped to tips and ignited there (tip rocket, essentially).
As above, but with ram air gathered at tip at tip (tip ramjet).
As above, but with full jet engine at tip.
As above, with propellor engine (turbine or piston) on each blade.


Compound Helicopters:

Conventional helicopter with auxilliary propulsion, whether prop, fan or jet.
Autogiro with switchable main rotor drive and auxilliary propulsion (e.g. Rotodyne)
Stopped Rotor designs, where the rotor becomes a wing(s).

Heliostat: static lift provided by airship technology, control provided by helicopter rotors attached to it (not sure if eligible for this GB though)


Tilting Rotor/Fan:

Tilt-rotor (e.g. V-22)
Tilt-wing (e.g. Cl-84)
Tilting fan (where the fan duct is separate from the wing)
Personal flight pack with swivelling ducted fans.


Jet-Lift V/STOL:

Vectored thrust (e.g. Harrier)
Tilting engines (e.g. VJ-101)
Lift jets (e.g. Mirage IIIV)
Any combination of the above (e.g. Yak-38)
Tandem Fan (e.g. Boeing X-32)
Driven vertical lift fan, whether by gas or shaft (e.g. F-35B)
Augmentor lift (e.g. Ryan XFV-12)
Personal jetpack.


Vertical Attitude VTOL (i.e. Tail Sitters):

Propellor driven (e.g. Convair Pogo)
Jet driven (Ryan X-13)
Nutcracker, i.e. jet driven with folding cockpit (various studies (mostly Boeing?))

Sure there are lots more......

EDIT: crossed posts with Dunc there.....

[Weaver]

The V/STOL Wheel.

Excellent visualisation tool here:

http://www.aiaa.org/tc/vstol/wheel.jpg

[jcf]

One of the Boulton-Paul lift fan schemes.