Up, Up and Away - The VTOL/Helicopter GB Inspiration thread.

[Weaver]

Alternative Harrier users:

Sweden (long interest in dispersed ops)
Switzerland (long interest in survivable air bases, Harrier allows minimal runways, all other facilities in cave-hangar)
Any current or former small carrier operator: Canada, Australia, Netherlands, Brazil, Argentina
A longer-lived South Vietnam (short-reaction CAS)

Yak-38 alternative users:

Still-Soviet-backed Egypt, to avoid another Israeli pre-emptive strike

[Weaver]

Awesome collection of unbuilt V/STOL projects here:

http://www.aiaa.org/tc/vstol/unbuilt/

[dy031101]

Yak-38 Forger Different Users/Markings

• PLAAN  

Illustration of an example.

[RotorheadTX]

Here's another easy one, the Dash-22 (I think I stole this from Alvis Pi).....

Hobbycraft fuselage and ESCI wings and pods - wing-root chord is an exact match.

[Jschmus]

The Kamov Ka-90 high-speed stowable rotor concept


Kamov Ka-92


Sikorsky Joint Heavy Lift concept


Bell Hybrid Tandem Rotor


Sikorsky S-97 Raider

[jcf]

STOVL Clunk.

[Cobra]

Awesome Job the AW-171 looks like something You'd see in Thunderbirds or Captain Scarlet! Thanks for Posting.Dan

[Weaver]

Hawker Siddeley V/STOL airliner, the HS-141.





A guy came to the What If stand at Crewe who'd worked on the design of that!

[ysi_maniac]

^^^^
SA-2 Guideline

[jcf]

More Boulton-Paul.















... and a photo of a model of the P.146 (Duncan beat me to the 3-view  )

[Weaver]

That P.141 nearly has more engines and fans than passengers! 

Duncan: it'd probably be cheaper to build the VVP-6 in 1/35th scale, given the price of Airfix 1/72nd SA-2s these days.....

[Weaver]

Actually you know, the old safety argument against multiple lift engines, namely that the loss of one engine in the hover causes height loss AND attitude change, thereby making the resultant crash much worse, has a limit. It applies if each lift engine represents a significant fraction of the total lift thrust (as in a Yak-38, for example), but if there are so many lift engines that the loss of just one is relatively minor, then it no longer applies, because any asymetric vertical thrust will be within the limits of the reaction control system. You could therefore argue that lots and lots of little independent lift engines is the safest of all VTOL systems (there are other issues, of course).

[frank2056]

In case some of you have missed this treasure trove:

V/STOL Concepts and Developed Aircraft. Volume 1. A Historical Report (1940-1986)

Scroll down to see the two download options. It's 450+ pages of VTOL goodness.

[rickshaw]

You can see why engine manufacturers were rubbing their hands with glee when the craze was on for vertical lift engined aircraft...   

[jcf]

Westland whirly things.