Untitled

ROTOR PROPELLER
AIRCRAFT
TILTING
THRUST
TILTING
THRUST
DEFLECTION
THE
DUAL
PROPULSION VTOL AIRCRAFT
FAMILY
DUCTED FAN TURBOJET
JK
c ct-^
^CX
VERTICAL TAKEOFF
AND LANDING AIRCRAFT
VERTICAL
bv JOHN PAUL CAMPBELL
sketches by Joseph S. Denn

TAKEOFF
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY NEW YORK
A Division of The Crowell-Collier Publishing Company
© John Paul Campbell 1962
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re-
produced in any form without permission in writing

from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to
quote brief passages in connection with a review writ-
ten for inclusion in a magazine or newspaper.
First Printing
Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-8553
The Macmillan Company, New York

Brett-Macmillan Ltd., Gait, Ontario
Printed in the United States of America

In memory of my father,
Parker W. Campbell
PREFACE
The most common form of vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, the
helicopter, has been well covered in the literature since its introduction
During the last 10 years, however, a

into service in the early 1940's.
large number of new VTOL have appeared on the scene,
aircraft types
resulting in the need for a book on the entire VTOL aircraft family
which would describe the distinguishing features and characteristics of
the various VTOL types. This book is intended to fill that need.
Written with the nontechnical reader in mind, the book makes
liberal use of photographs, sketches, and other illustrations so that the
presentation may be as clear and straightforward as possible. At the
same time, an effort has been made to include information which
should be useful as reference material for those working in the aero-
nautical field.
Having been engaged in VTOL aircraft research at the Langley

Research Center of the National Aeronautics and Space Administra-
tion (NASA) and its predecessor the National Advisory Committee
for Aeronautics (NACA) for a number of years, I am naturally in-
vii
viii Preface
debted to my co-workers for many of the ideas and much of the in-
formation presented herein. Any opinions, expressed or implied, how-
ever, represent my personal views and should not be considered to
represent those of NASA. Three of my associates at Langley to whom
I am especially indebted are Charles H. Zimmerman, a pioneer in-
ventor and researcher in the VTOL aircraft field, and Marion O.
McKinney and Richard E. Kuhn, who have spearheaded the research
effort at Langley in this field. Dick Kuhn not only provided material
for use in the book but also read the manuscript and offered many
valuable suggestions for its improvement.
I should also express my appreciation to the others at Langley and
Ames Research Centers of NASA and in various service and industry
organizations for the assistance given me in the preparation of the
book. In particular, I would like to thank all those who supplied
photographs for use as illustrations in the book. Their assistance has
made it possible for me to present a collection of the best available
photographs of VTOL aircraft.
And finally, I should acknowledge the contributions of two others
who were most directly involved with the preparation of the book:
my illustrator, Joseph Denn, whose sketches speak eloquently where
words are inadequate, and my wife. Alma, who typed the manu-
script and ofi"ered many helpful suggestions for improving the clarity
of the text.
John Paul Campbell
Newport News, Virginia

CONTENTS
Preface vii
1
VERTICAL TAKEOFF
THE VTOL AIRCRAFT FAMILY
1 FROM THE
Brothers to the hypersonic
FIRST SHORT HOPS BY THE
X-15, advances in aeronautics
flights of the
WRIGHT
have usually been associated with increases in speed. Speed and more
speed has been a primary objective in the design of military and com-
mercial airplanes alike. But during the last few years another signifi-
cant trend has been developing. In addition to the emphasis on higher

top speeds, there has been a growing interest in achieving lower and
lower minimum speeds for takeoff and landing in an effort to develop
safer and more versatile aircraft. The ultimate in this direction is of
course a minimum speed of zero, which means that the aircraft can
hover and take off or land vertically. A whole new class of aircraft
with this capability is now being developed. They are called VTOL
or vertical takeoff and landing aircraft.
VTOL aircraft can, by definition, include a wide range of aircraft
types from low-speed helicopters to rocket-powered space craft that

someday will take off vertically and perform "soft" vertical landings
on the moon or one of the planets. The term VTOL airplane has usu-
1
2 Vertical TakeofF and Landing Aircraft
ally been applied to the large number of other aircraft types having
vertical takeoff and landing capability with top speeds somewhat
greater than that of the helicopter and much less than that of the
rocket-powered spacecraft. In simple terms, a VTOL airplane may be
thought of as a more or less conventional airplane with special fea-
tures added to permit it to take off and land vertically. Since the last
few years has seen the introduction of such a large number of widely
different VTOL types, it is probably desirable as a first step in any
discussion of these machines to arrive at some systematic method of
classifying the various types. We shall then be able to see more clearly
some of the basic differences as well as the relationships that exist
between the different configurations.
For hovering flight, the slipstream or jet exhaust of a VTOL air-
craft must be directed vertically downward in order to produce the
vertical upward thrust or lift to support the aircraft. One logical
method of classifying VTOL aircraft is on the basis of the propulsion
system used to produce this vertical lift for hovering. Four basically
different types of propulsion systems — rotor, propeller, ducted fan,

and turbojet — are used on VTOL aircraft for this purpose. Although
the rocket propulsion systems of some future spacecraft will permit
them to take off and land vertically, it is perhaps best to exclude
rocket propulsion from this particular classification of VTOL types
because of the very specialized nature of the possible applications and
the uncertainty as to the form such applications will eventually take.
The one rocket-powered VTOL machine to be covered in the book,
an individual lift device with a hydrogen peroxide rocket motor, will
be discussed in Chapter 8 with turbojet aircraft.
In general, the distinguishing features of the four propulsion types
under consideration are readily apparent. Since there are some cases,
however, in which questions will arise as to the classification of a
particular VTOL configuration, we should explain the terms rotor,
propeller, ducted fan, and turbojet as we intend to use them. More
complete differentiations between the various types will be given in
later chapters.
Usually there is no problem in distinguishing between the rotors
used on helicopters and the propellers used on conventional airplanes.
Where a question does exist in connection with some of the VTOL
types to be discussed, we will assume that if cyclic pitch is used for
The VTOL Aircraft Family 3
control in hovering flight, the device is a rotor; if not, it is a propeller.

The term ducted fan will be used to include all the propulsion devices
known variously as shrouded propellers, ducted propellers, and buried
fans. The turbofan engine, however, will be classed as a form of turbo-
jet rather than a ducted fan because it involves the use of a very
highly loaded fan that is integrated into the design of the turbine
engine.
VTOL aircraft can also be on the basis of their means
classified
of performing the transition or conversion from hovering to cruising
flight —the process of changing the direction of the thrust vector from
upward in hovering flight to forward in cruising flight. In some ma-
chines, such as the helicopter, there is really no clear-cut process of
transition since the machine merely tilts forward slightly to fly for-
ward. But for the purpose of our classification on the basis of transi-
tion method we can consider that these machines are of the same type
as those that tilt aU the way from a vertical to a horizontal attitude to
perform the transition from hovering to forward flight.
Although a casual observation of the many different VTOL types
under study would lead one to believe that VTOL aircraft designers
have developed many different methods of performing the transition,
a closer examination reveals only four fundamental principles in-
volved. In some cases (as we shall see later), aircraft have employed
combinations of two or three of these principles. The four basic tran-
sition types are aircraft-tilting, thrust-tilting, thrust-deflection, and
dual-propulsion. Aircraft-tilting configurations are those in which the
thrust axis remains essentially fixed in the aircraft, while the aircraft
itself tilts to perform the transition from hovering to forward flight.
Thrust-tilting and thrust-deflection configurations are those having
provisions for either tilting the thrust unit itself or deflecting the slip-
stream or jet exhaust in order to perform the transition with the fuse-
lage remaining essentiaUy horizontal at all times. Dual propulsion
refers to configurations that use two different means of propulsion for
hovering and forward flight.
Now if we make means of classification, each of

use of both these
which has four categories, we obtain a total of 16 possible VTOL
types which make up the VTOL Aircraft Family. Out of this total of
16 possible types, 15 have been studied with varying degrees of inter-
est during the last few years. Only the dual-propulsion propeller type
has received no attention at all. Later we will take a detailed look at

all 15 members of the family, describing and discussing the specific
configurations of each type that have been studied and dwelling at
some length on the more promising types that are likely to be de-
veloped in the future. Now, by way of introduction, let us take a brief
look at the various types in the order that they appear in the chart
formed by the cross classification (see end papers). We will consider
in order the rotor, propeller, ducted fan and turbojet aircraft, and
under each the aircraft-tilting, thrust-tilting, thrust-deflection, and
dual-propulsion types.
The first VTOL aircraft type we come to using this procedure is,
appropriately, the helicopter, which is the forerunner of all other

VTOL types. Since the helicopter is a well-developed type that has
been covered quite adequately in the literature during recent years, we
shall not give it extensive treatment in this book. Its relationship to
other VTOL types will be brought out, however, and some of the
more important current developments and possible future trends in
the helicopter field will be discussed.
The other three rotor VTOL types may be thought of as advanced
helicopter developments, for in hovering flight they operate much the
same as a helicopter. In each of these types, however, features have
been added to perm.it cruising flight at higher speeds than can be
achieved with the pure helicopter. In the thrust-tilting type, as ex-
emplified by the Bell XV-3 convertiplane, the rotor shafts tilt from
the vertical to the horizontal to perform the transition so that the
rotors serve as propellers in criusing flight. The thrust-deflection type
maintains the rotor axis horizontal and uses large wing flaps to deflect
the slipstream downward for hovering flight. The Kaman K-16 is a
machine of this type but has the added provision of some wing tilt
along with the slipstream deflection. The dual-propulsion rotor type
is usually referred to as the unloaded-rotor convertiplane or the com-
pound helicopter. Two examples of this type are the McDonnell
XV-1, an American research machine that had a single pusher pro-
peller for propulsion in cruising flight, and the Fairey Rotodyne, a
British transport aircraft with two tractor propellers. The Rotodyne
is expected to go into service soon as the first VTOL transport other
than the helicopter.

Turning to propeller aircraft, the best known examples of the air-
craft-tilting type have been the tail-sitter or "Pogo" airplanes, the
Convair XFY-1 and the Lockheed XFV-1 machines, built for the
Navy and flown in 1954. A more recent example of the aircraft-tilting
type is the Curtiss-Wright aerial jeep, a four-propeller Army utility
machine. The thrust-tilting propeller type has taken two forms —one
in which both the wing and propellers tilt from a vertical to a hori-
zontal position to perform the transition, and another in which only
the propellers tilt. Examples of these two types are the Air Force
Hiller X-18 and Army Vertol VZ-2 tilt-wing research airplanes, and
the Curtiss-Wright X-100 tilt-propeller airplane. Two thrust-deflec-
tion types have been sponsored by the Army: the Ryan VZ-3 and the
Fairchild VZ-5 deflected-slipstream research airplanes. An important
VTOL type to be covered in some detail is the tilt-wing-and-flap con-
figuration, which embodies a combination of the tilt-wing and de-
companies in the United
flected-slipstream principles. Several aircraft
States have worked on designs of this type, and the winner of the
Tri-Service VTOL transport competition was a tilt-wing-and-flap con-
figuration entered by Chance Vought, HiUer, and Ryan.
Ducted-fan VTOL types have taken a number of widely different
forms but most of them are as yet untried in flight. In the aircraft-
tilting category are the Piasecki and Chrysler aerial jeeps, the Hiller
flying platform flown by the natural balancing reactions of the pilot,
and the coleopter, a Perhaps
vertical-attitude ring-wing configuration.
the best known of the ducted-fan configurations is the Army Doak
VZ-4, a thrust-tilting type which has tiltable ducted fans at the wing
tips for performing the transition. A number of different thrust-deflec-
tion ducted fan types have been studied under the sponsorship of the
services but only one of these, the Avro Avrocar, has reached the
flight-test stage. Considerable attention is now being given to dual-
propulsion ducted-fan schemes such as the fan-in-wing and fan-in-
fuselage configurations. In these arrangements ducted fans buried in
the wing or fuselage are used for hovering flight; after transition to
forward flight, the fans are covered over and conventional turbojet
propulsion is used.
Perhaps the most spectacular of all VTOL aircraft flown to date
was the Ryan X-13 Vertijet, a turbojet aircraft-tilting type that
hovered with the fuselage and made takeoffs and
in a vertical attitude
landings by engaging a "clothesline" cable with a special hook on its
6 Vertical Takeoff and Landing Aircraft
nose. To perform the transition to cruising flight the airplane merely

tilted furtherand further forward until it reached a normal flight at-
titude. Most of the work on thrust-tilting turbojet types has been done
by BeU Aerosystems Company, which did some early experimental
research with a crude tilting-engine machine and later designed a
fighter airplane of this type. Bell also built one of the two thrust-
deflection turbojet aircraft flown to date — the X-14 research airplane,
which has two small jet engines in the forward part of the fuselage
with provisions for either deflecting the exhaust straight down for
hovering flight or straight back for cruising flight. The other thrust-
deflection turbojet type is the Hawker P. 1127, a small strike aircraft
powered by the Bristol Siddeley BS 53 turbofan engine which has four
swivelling exhaust nozzles. Dual-propulsion turbojet types have usu-
ally been referred to as lifting-engine types because they involve the
use of a number of small lightweight engines mounted vertically in
the fuselage and used only for takeoff and landing. In cruising flight,
these engines are shut down and covered over, conventional turbo-
jet engines being used for propulsion. Most of the work to date on
this type had been done in England in connection with the Short
SC.l, a small research aircraft. Design studies have also been made on
supersonic transport configurations of this type proposed by Dr. A. A.
Griffith of Rolls-Royce.
So much for our first quick glance at the 15 basic VTOL types.
Later we will describe them individually and in detail, with the aid of
photographs and sketches. First, however, we will relate briefly some
of the historic milestones in the development of VTOL aircraftand
the general principles involved in their two most important flight
regimes — hovering flight and the transition between hovering and
cruising flight. The STOL or short takeoff and landing aircraft and
its relationship to VTOL aircraft will also be covered in the discussion
of transition.
Included later in the book is a chapter on the GEM, or ground
effect machine, that flies only a short distance above the ground on a
cushion of and requires only a modest amount of power because
air,
of the beneficiallift augmentation produced by the ground cushion.
Although there is some controversy as to whether the GEM is actu-

ally a VTOL aircraft, it is certainly a machine with intriguing pos-
sibilities that warrants some consideration in this discussion of unique

VTOL aircraft types.
In order to bring into better perspective the potential of VTOL
aircraft and to indicate possible areas of application, the concluding
chapters will deal with some of the military and commercial aircraft
types now being contemplated and will attempt to predict the future
of the rapidly developing VTOL field.
HISTORY OF VTOL
AIRCRAFT DEVELOPMENT
ing is
2 THE PRINCIPLE OF VERTICAL TAKEOFF AND LAND-
The Chinese are credited with
certainly not a recent discovery.
the first development in this field over 2,000 years ago. They devised
a toy, called the Chinese top, which was simply a short stick with two
or more feathers serving as rotor or propeller blades. When the stick
was spun between the hands and released, the toy would rise vertically
like a helicopter, then descend as the spinning slowed.
There are no records of other ideas in this field until the "aerial
screw" was designed in 1483 by Leonardo da Vinci, the brilliant
Italian artist and inventor. About three centuries later, Launoy and
Bienvenu of France built and flew the first powered helicopter model,
which had feathers for rotor blades and a wind-up motor that con-
sisted of a piece of flexible bone and a length of wire. A short time
afterward, in 1796, Sir George Cayley of England began experiment-
ing with improved helicopter models of the same general type. His
later work included the design of a four-rotor steam-propelled "aerial
carriage" and the flight of small-scale models of similar design.
8
(top) The Chinese top, a toy helicopter invented over 2,000 years ago.
(middle) Leonardo do Vinci's "aerial screv/," a brilliant idea but never flown (1483).
(bottom) Cayley's "aerial carriage" design had rotors for hovering and propellers
for forward flight (1843).
Emile and Henry Berliner's twin-rotor helicopter (1924).
The nineteenth century saw a number of other experimenters

working with hehcopter models. W. H. Phillips of England and En-
rico Forlanini of Italy, both built steam-driven flying models, neither
of which was successful. In the United States Thomas A. Edison was
also unsuccessful in his efforts to develop a helicopter in the 1880's.
Realizing that an inherent limitation in helicopter development at that
time was the lack of a lightweight engine, but feeling that this limita-
tion would not exist for long, Edison predicted that the helicopter
would eventually succeed and would someday be more important than
the airplane. Another man of vision in this era also indicated success
for the helicopter: Jules Verne in his Clipper of the Clouds (1886)
described an aerial ship with 37 counterrotating lifting propellers.
It was shortly after the Wright Brothers' success with the airplane
in 1903 that some degree of success was finally realized with man-
carrying helicopters. PaulCornu of France constructed a two-rotor

machine which carried a pilot and passenger aloft for a short tethered
flight in 1907. At about the same time another Frenchman, Louis
Breguet, made some fairly impressive flights in a four-rotor helicopter.

This machine, however, like the others that preceded it, was not a
controUable 1909 Emile Berliner of the United States built
aircraft. In
a coaxial helicopter having counterrotating rotors. Later he and his

son Henry built a machine that resembled an airplane with rotors at
each wing tip. An improved version of this machine eventually made
controlled flights up to 100 yards in length and lasting as long as a
(top) Breguet's four-rotor helicopter, the first to carry man aloft in untethered flight
(1908).
(bottom) George de Bothezat's helicopter, built for the U.S. Army's air service
(1921).
minute and a half. The made notable contributions to heli-

Berliners
copter progress with their work on control systems. Another Ameri-
can, George de Bothezat, large and fairly successful
built a very
helicopter in 1921 for the U. S. Army's air service. A four-rotor,
4,000-pound machine, it was powered by a 180-horsepower engine.
In one flight in 1922 it carried aloft a pilot and four passengers. Two
other helicopter pioneers in the 1920's were Raoul Pescara of Spain,
who built a coaxial hehcopter with biplane rotors, and Von Baum-
hauer of the Netherlands, who built and flew the first single-rotor heli-
copter configuration.
Some of the most important contributions to helicopter develop-
ment in the 1920's and 1930's were made by a man who was not di-
rectly interested in the helicopter. Juan de la Cierva of Spain, in the
n
Heinrich Focke's record-breaking twin-rotor machine (1937).
course of his pioneering work on the autogiro, revealed a number of

basic rotary-wing principles that later proved of great importance in
the successful development of the helicopter. For example, he was the
first to use freely hinged rotor blades as a means of equalizing the lift
on the two sides of the rotor in forward flight. He flew his first auto-
giro in 1923 and later worked with the Pitcairn Company and Kellett
Aircraft Corporation in this country while developing it into a useful,
operational aircraft.The autogiro enjoyed a measure of success until
it was displaced by the more versatile helicopter.
The 1930's saw the first real forward strides in helicopter prog-
ress. Coradino d'Ascanio of Italy and Rene Breguet of France made
important contributions with their coaxial types. In his machine,

d'Ascanio stayed aloft for more than eight minutes and reached a
height exceeding 50 feet. Also in the 1930's two German engineers,
Anton and Heinrich Focke, produced some outstanding heli-
Flettner
copters. Flettner, who started his work with rotor craft in 1932, flew
his first successful helicopter— a single rotor type —
in 1936. A year
later he developed an entirely new helicopter configuration, called the

synchropter, which had intermeshing side-by-side rotors. A number
of helicopters of this type built by the Germans before and during
World War II saw considerable service as support aircraft. In 1937
Focke built a successful twin-rotor helicopter which received world-
wide publicity when it was flown by a woman pilot inside an exhibi-
tion hall in Berlin. It later established an altitude record of 11,200
History of VTOL Aircraft Development 13
Igor Sikorsky's VS-300, the first successful single-rotor helicopter (1939).
feet,a speed record of 75 miles per hour, an endurance record of one

hour and 20 minutes, and a distance record of 143 miles.
In 1939 Igor Sikorsky, who had come to the United States after
the Russian Revolution, built and flew the first successful single-rotor
helicopter. His VS-300 was a relatively simple and completely con-
trollable machine with two horizontal tail rotors for pitch and roll
control and one vertical rotor for yaw, or directional, control. Later
he eliminated the two horizontal rotors and arrived at the now con-
ventional single-rotor helicopter configuration, with one rotor at the
tail for yaw work is sometimes considered to represent
control. His
the transition from the pioneering and invention stage of helicopter
development to the engineering and manufacture of successful and
operationally useful helicopters. Thus we may appropriately end our
history of the helicopter at this point and cover subsequent develop-
ments in this field in a later chapter.
The foregoing history of the helicopter is, of course, highly con-
densed. Much has been written elsewhere on the subject, however,
and ample reference material is available for those who desire more
detailed information. Here we are interested not only in the helicop-
ter but in all the other types of VTOL aircraft.
Probably the first man to attempt to combine the features of the

helicopter and the airplane in a single machine was Sir George Cayley.
In one variation of his "aerial carriage" design he made provisions for
putting the rotor blades into flat pitch so that the rotors became disk-
likewings to support the aircraft in forward flight. Separate propellers

were installed for propulsion in forward flight. In 1908 a Frenchman
named Bergeon designed a VTOL machine to achieve vertical lift
with a number of independent turbine-driven fans that could be tilted
for horizontal flight. This design, however, never got beyond the draw-
ing-board stage.
Another airplane incorporating provisions for vertical takeoff and
landing was designed during World War I by Dr. Albert F. Zahm, an
eminent American scientist in the aeronautical field. This design,
which was patented in 1921, was a deflected-slipstream type that is, —
its special wing and flap arrangement turned the propeller slipstream
downward to provide vertical lift for hovering flight. There were five
wings, placed one above the other in a sort of venetian-blind arrange-
ment, and thrust was provided by three propellers located in front of
the wings. For hovering flight the wing flaps were deflected downward
to turn the slipstream, while for cruising the flaps were aligned with
the wing to permit the slipstream to go straight back. The principle of
operation of Dr. Zahm's machine was basically sound, but an airplane
of this type was never built because a propeller thrust equal to the
Dr. Zahm's deflected-slipstream VTOL airplane design (1921).

4r
HORSEPOWER
PER POUND 3
OF ENGINE
WEIGHT
1940 1950 I960

YEAR
The introduction of the turboprop engine in the 1 940's brought about an increase
in power-to-weight ratio that made the VTOL airplane feasible.
weight of the airplane could not be produced by the piston engines in

use at that time, and, of course, a basic requirement for vertical take-
off is that the vertical thrust, or lift, be greater than the weight of the
aircraft.
It was primarily this lack of a suitable powerplant that discouraged

early designers of VTOL airplanes and caused virtually all work on
VTOL on the helicopter. Although the
aircraft to be concentrated
helicopter itself the problem of getting enough
was plagued with
power from an engine of a given weight, it was better off than the
VTOL airplane because it made use of a relatively large diameter
rotor. The power required for hovering flight by a machine of a given
weight decreases as the diameter of the propeller or rotor is increased.
This relationship, explained in a later chapter, is one of the funda-
mental factors affecting VTOL aircraft design. Although the ratio of
power to engine weight of the aircraft piston engine has improved
slowly over the years, this type of engine is still not light enough to
warrant serious consideration for use in VTOL aircraft other than the
helicopter.
In the 1940's there were developments of outstanding significance
in the aircraft engine field — the introduction of turbine engines, first
the turbojet and then the turboprop. These developments not only
revolutionized the design of conventional airplanes but made it pos-
sible to take a new and more serious look at the VTOL airplane.
Even in its early form the turboprop engine had a greater power-to-
Gerard P. Merrick's convertiplane, the upper wing of which was also a rotor (1931).
weight ratio than the piston engine. Now, after a period of continuous
development, it can produce two or three times as much power as a
piston engine of the same weight.
In the period between Dr. Zahm's VTOL airplane design during
World War I and the introduction of turbine engines in the mid-
1940's, very little attention was given to VTOL types other than the
helicopter. Two designers who did work on nonhelicopter VTOL types
during this time, however, deserve special mention: Gerard P. Herrick
and Charles H. Zimmerman. In the 1930's Herrick designed and
built a rotor convertiplane. Although not a true VTOL concept, it is
of interest as an early attempt to combine the characteristics of the
helicopter with those of the airplane. His machine resembled a con-
ventional airplane with biplane wings, but the top wing was actually
a rotor that could be fixed in place to serve as a wing or freed to
rotate like the rotor of an autogiro. Herrick's convertiplane was first
flown in 1931, both as an airplane and with the upper wing rotating.
The first conversion during flight from the fixed-wing to the rotary-
wing configuration was made in 1937. The problems associated with

the conversion from rotary-wing to fixed-wing operation, however,
were much more difficult, and this conversion was never performed
in flight. No further development of this particular concept has taken
place, but some consideration has been given in recent years to rotor
convertiplane designs in which the rotor is stopped and stowed in the

fuselage for cruising flight.
Perhaps the most interesting VTOL airplane development before

the introduction of turbine engines was the "flying pancake" propeller
VTOL airplane designed by Zimmerman. This machine, which had
a wing of almost circular planform and two large propellers, was in-
tended to hover like a helicopter and fly at high forward speed like
an airplane. It can be classified as an aircraft-tilting or tail-sitter
VTOL type because it sat in a tail-down attitude with the propellers

pointed skyward for takeoff, thentilted over to the normal flight at-
perform the transition from hovering to cruising flight. Zim-

titude to
merman started work on this concept in 1933 and demonstrated its
feasibility in 1936 by flying a rubber-powered model both as an air-
plane and as a helicopter. In 1937 United Aircraft Corporation under-
took the development of an aircraft of this type with Zimmerman as
project engineer. Unfortunately, however, the VTOL capabilities of
Charles H. Zimmerman's V-173, the "flying pancake," was originally intended to

be a VTOL airplane but lacked the engine power to hover (1942).
the design were not to be developed; instead, development of a high-

performance was started. This project eventually led
fighter airplane
to the construction of theChance Vought XF5U-1 airplane.
As a preliminary step in this work, Chance Vought built the V-173
airplane, a low-power, full-size flying model of the XF5U-1. This
machine made 210 flights during the period from 1942 to 1947 and
demonstrated generally satisfactory characteristics for the configura-
tion over the flight range that could be covered with the limited
amount of engine power available. Flights were made at speeds as
low as 35 miles per hour and at angles of attack as high as 40 degrees.
The airplane, as flown, weighed about 3,000 pounds and had a pro-
peller thrust of about 2,000 pounds. If the development of turboprop
engines had come a few years earlier, in time for use in the V-173, the
propeller thrust could have been made greater than the weight of the
airplane and perhaps this machine would have had the distinction of
being the first nonhelicopter VTOL type to hover and perform the
transition to forward flight. As is was, this distinction was reserved for
the Convair XFY-1 turboprop VTOL airplane, which will be dis-
cussed later. It is ironic that, whereas the V-173 could have benefited
from an earlier development of the turboprop engine, it was the de-
—
velopment of the first turbine engine type the turbojet that brought —
an end to the XF5U-1 project, including work on the V-173. As a
propeller-powered fighter, the XF5U-1 could not compete with turbo-
jet fighters, and the project was cancelled by the Navy in 1948.
It is generally agreed that the development of turboprop and
turbojet engines was the most significant single factor leading to seri-
ous consideration of VTOL airplanes. A second important stimulus
to work on VTOL airplanes was the success of the heUcopter, which
demonstrated the great and varied usefulness of VTOL capability
both for military operations, such as those in Korea, and for certain
commercial operations. Actually, it was not only the success of the
helicopter but also its inherent limitations that spurred interest in the
VTOL airplane. Basically a hovering machine, the helicopter is much
less efficient in cruising flight than a conventional airplane. One logical
approach to this problem therefore was to build a machine that would
be essentially a conventional airplane, but with the added capability
of vertical takeoff and landing.
HOVERING FLIGHT
3
flight are ( 1 )
THE TWO BASIC REQUIREMENTS FOR HOVERING
that the propeller slipstream or jet exhaust be directed
and (2) that
straight downward to lift the aircraft vertically, this up-
ward thrust be greater than the weight of the aircraft. We have already
mentioned the variety of methods by which the slipstream or jet ex-
haust can be directed downward, and we will treat these in more
detail in the next chapter. In this chapter we will be concerned with
the problems of vertical thrust and hovering flight without regard to
the means used to orient the thrust vertically.
Thrust and Slipstream Velocity
First, we should consider briefly the physics involved in this pro-

duction of a vertical thrust or lift. A VTOL aircraft pushes a mass of
air or hot gas downward to produce the upward lift for hovering flight.
The amount of thrust produced is equal to the product of the mass
19
100
ROTOR
OR 80
PROPELLER
DIAMETER,
FEET
60
40
20
100 200 300 400

SLIPSTREAM VELOCITY, MPH
Variation of slipstream velocity with rotor or propeller diameter for a 40,000-
pound VTOL aircraft in hovering flight.
of air or gas that is moved per unit time and the velocity with which
it is moved. That is,
thrust ^= mass X velocity
Thus the same thrust can be attained by moving a large mass or large-
diameter column of air downward at low speed with a helicopter rotor
or by moving a small mass or small-diameter column of air downward
at high speed with a propeller. For a given thrust, the slipstream
velocity varies inversely as the diameter of the slipstream.
The relationship between the thrust and slipstream velocity of
various VTOL types is often given in terms of the parameters "disk
loading" and "exit-area loading" and the slipstream dynamic pres-
sure.The two loading parameters are obtained by dividing the thrust
—
by some reference area the disk area or circular area swept by the
blades for rotors and propellers, and the exit area of the duct or tail-
pipe for ducted fans and turbojets. Slipstream dynamic pressure is
equal to one-half the product of the air density (in slugs per cubic
foot) and the square of the slipstream velocity (in feet per second).
Hovering Flight 21
For rotors and propellers, the slipstream dynamic pressure is theo-

retically equal to the disk loading, while for ducted fans the slipstream
dynamic pressure is equal to one-half the exit-area loading. This basic
difference in relationships is a direct result of the fact that the slip-
streams of rotors and propellers contract downstream to an area only
one-half the disk area, while the slipstream of a ducted fan does not
contract downstream of the duct exit. This point will be discussed fur-
ther in Chapter 7.
The disk loadings of present-day helicopters vary from about 3 to
8 pounds per square foot, while the range for propeller VTOL aircraft
flown to date is from about 20 to 80 pounds per square foot. For
ducted-fan configurations, exit-area loadings have varied all the way
from values less than 50 to values over 400 pounds per square foot.
We can grasp the significance of these numbers by comparing them
with propeller disk loadings of conventional transport airplanes, which
vary from about 60 for airplanes such as the Fairchild F-27 to 80 for
the Lockheed Electra. The slipstream velocities of propeller VTOL
transports are likely to be generally comparable to those of airplanes
like the Electra. The total thrust of the VTOL machines will be much
greater, however, because of the larger diameter propellers used. Con-
ventional propeller transport aircraft have values of thrust at takeoff
that are only 30 or 40 percent of their gross weight, while VTOL ma-
chines necessarily have thrust-weight ratios greater than one.
Power Required and Fuel Consumption
The power used in producing thrust varies as the mass and the
square of the slipstream velocity:
power ^ Vi mass X ( velocity )-
Now if we combine the two expressions for thrust and power, we

find that
power ^ V2 thrust X velocity
That is, the produce a given amount of thrust in-

power required to
creases with increasing slipstream velocity as we go from the rotor
to the propeller, ducted fan, and turbojet propulsion types.
Since power represents energy which must come from the fuel
HORSEPOWER
40,000r
30,000
<^^Z^
20,000
c^£^ DUCTED FANS

10,000
PROPELLER
^ ROTOR
100 200 300
J
400
Power required in hovering fliglit for various types of VIOL aircraft. Gross v/eight,
40,000 pounds.
power means a comparable increase in the rate

used, an increase in
of fuel consumption.Thus there is a direct relationship between the
fuel consumption and the power required in hovering flight by the
various VTOL types. For hovering with a given payload, a helicopter
will use only about V^ as much fuel as a propeller VTOL airplane
and only about V2r> as much as a turbojet. Helicopters and other rotor
VTOL aircraft are therefore most suitable for applications which in-
volve a large proportion of hovering time. And it is equally obvious
that the hovering time of turbojet VTOL aircraft must be kept to an
absolute minimum if they are to have any fuel left for cruising flight.
The consumption of the various VTOL aircraft types is some-
fuel
times used as a measure of their relative hovering efficiency. On this
basis, of course, helicopters have the greatest hovering efficiency and
turbojets the least. There is a second definition of hovering efficiency
which may be more appropriate to use in some cases. It is based on
the combined weight of the propulsion system and the fuel required
for a specified hovering time. Since the over-all propulsion system
weight generally decreases with increasing slipstream velocity aswe go
from the helicopter to propeller, ducted fan and turbojet VTOL air-
craft, and since the weight of fuel consumed in hovering increases with
Hovering Flight 23
FUEL
CONSUMPTION
100
80
MINUTE
60
IRBOJET
TURBOFAN
40
20 -
PROPELLER
^' ROTOR
200 400 600 800 1,000 1200 1,400
SLIPSTREAM VELOCITY. MPH
Fuel consumption in hovering flight for various types of VTOL aircraft. Gross
weight, 40,000 pounds.
HOVERING TIME
40 MIN
WEIGHT OF
PROPULSION
SYSTEM
PLUS
FUEL FOR
HOVERING
MIN
ROTOR
PROPELLER jTURBOFAN
1 TURBOJET
DUCTED FAN
200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400

One measure of the hovering efficiency of VTOL aircraft is based on the combined
weight of the propulsion system and the fuel required for hovering.
increasing slipstream velocity, we find that the relative hovering effi-

ciency of the various VTOL types is strongly dependent on the speci-
fied hovering time. For very short hovering times — say three minutes
or less — the high thrust-weight-ratio turbojet designed especially for
VTOL use will have the least total weight of installed powerplant and
hovering fuel; while for progressively longer hovering times the ducted
fan, propeller, and finally the rotor VTOL types will in turn become
most efficient in this respect. Thus the helicopter which was most
efficient on the basis of hovering fuel consumption alone is also the
most efficient on the basis of this second definition when the hovering
time is greater than 30 minutes or so.
Hovering Problems and Requirements
When an aircraft is provided with VTOL capability, there are a

number of new problems to contend with and a number of new
requirements to be met. First, of course, the power required for hover-
ing flight is usually much greater than that normally installed in con-
ventional airplanes for cruising flight. Thus there is an inherent differ-
ence in the power requirements of VTOL aircraft for hovering and

cruising flight. We shall cover later some of the design compromises
and special configurations resorted to by VTOL aircraft designers in

an effort to obtain efficiency in both hovering and cruising flight de-
spite this disparity in power requirements.
Special problem areas for the hovering flight condition include
stability and control, safety in event of engine failure, slipstream im-
pingement and recirculation, and noise. The problem of obtaining
sufficient stability to insure easy flying appears to be much greater for
the hovering condition than for conventional cruising flight; and in
nearly all cases, a special new control system must be added to an
aircraft to permit it to hover. Since the propulsion system is the sole
source of support of the aircraft in hovering flight, adequate provision
must be made for safety in event of engine failure; further, since the
slipstream of the VTOL aircraft is pointed straight downward for
takeoff and landing, the problems involved with slipstream impinge-
ment and recirculation tend to be much more important than for con-
ventional aircraft. The substantial increase in power or thrust required
to add hovering capability to an aircraft also increases the severity of
—
Hovering Flight 25
an already serious noise problem. Let us now consider each of these

hovering problem areas.
Control Systems for Hovering
The control surfaces of a conventional airplane — ailerons, rudder,

and elevator — are effective only when the airplane is flying forward
so that there is a strong flow of air over the wing and tails. In hover-
ing flight, without this airflow, these surfaces are completely ineffec-
tive unless they happen to be immersed in the slipstream of a rotor,
propeller, or fan. Only one VTOL type, the propeller tail-sitter, has
obtained all of its hovering controls in this manner. The Convair
XFT-1 and Lockheed XFV-1 had aileron, rudder, and elevator con-
trol surfaces which remained in the propeller slipstream at all times
from hovering through the transition to forward flight. This proved to

be a generaUy satisfactory control system. Unfortunately, however,
the answer is not quite so simple for other VTOL types, and special
hovering controls usually have to be provided in addition to the con-
ventional controls for cruising flight. Helicopters, of course, have con-
trol systems which are designed especially for hovering but which are
also used in forward flight.
The control systems of specific configurations will be described in
later chapters, but a few general points will be made here first regard-
ing the means of obtaining control in hovering flight about the various
Axis conventions for horizontal-attitude and vertical-attitude VTOL aircraft.

axes. The axis convention used for VTOL aircraft is determined by

the forward flight condition, and the axes are defined the same as
those of a conventional airplane — that is, roll about the longitudinal
axis, yaw about the vertical axis, and pitch about the transverse or
lateral axis. Thus, motion about the axis that is perpendicular to the
ground in hovering flight is a rolling motion for a vertical-attitude or
tail-sitter type but is a yawing motion for the helicopter and other
horizontal-attitude VTOL types. Now, let us consider the means of
obtaining control about each of the three axes in hovering flight.
Roll control. Roll control on the helicopter is usually obtained by

cyclic pitch control, that is by changes in the rotor blade angle as the
blade sweeps through its circular path. Since the changes in blade
angle are such that the lift produced on one side of the rotor disk is
CYCLIC PITCH DIFFERENTIAL THRUST
COMPRESSED AIR JETS

AT WING TIPS SURFACES IN SLIPSTREAM
Hovering roll control systems.

Hovering Flight 27
greater than the Hft on the other side, a tilt of the rotor disk is ob-
tained. The tilted rotor then produces a rolling moment to bank the
helicopter. Some other VTOL configurations having a single rotor or
having two rotors, propellers, or ducted-fans arranged in tandem have
also made use of cyclic pitch for roll control. When there have been
two or more propulsion units of any kind arranged side-by-side along
the wing of a VTOL it has usually been the practice to vary
aircraft,
the thrust differentially on the two sides of the wing to provide roll
control. This method of control, which has seen application in all the
propulsion types, appears to be a logical one for aircraft with multiple
lifting elements because it usually affords ample control power for all
requirements. A third type of roll control, used in configurations that
have ducted fans or turbojets installed near the center of the aircraft,
involves the use of wingtip control jets which are supplied with com-
pressor bleed air from the engines. Another means of obtaining roll
control that has had less general use is the one previously mentioned
for the tail-sitter airplanes — the use of control surfaces in the slip-
stream.
Yaw control. The most common method used to date for provid-
ing hovering yaw control for VTOL aircraft is the use of some thrust
device to produce a side force at the tail of the machine. The tail rotor
of the helicopter is the best example of this type, but there have also
been VTOL aircraft with tail fans, tail jets, and vanes located in the
turboprop jet exhaust at the tail. Experience to date has indicated
that the jet exhaustfrom a turboprop engine does not usually provide
an adequate source of yawing moment (or pitching moment) for
hovering controls. Conventional control surfaces in the propeller slip-
stream provide yaw control in hovering for some VTOL types such as
the propeller tilt-wing and tail-sitter configurations. Such controls usu-
ally lose some of their effectiveness when the aircraft is operating near
the ground because the slipstream spreads out and loses velocity as it
approaches the ground. Other yaw control systems include the use of
differential torque in the case of coaxial rotor or propeller types, the
use of differential cyclic pitch for twin-rotor or tandem-rotor aircraft,
and the use of jet deflection at the tailpipe for turbojet tail-sitter types.
Pitch control. Pitch control in hovering for some helicopters and

other rotor VTOL been provided by cyclic pitch control.
aircraft has
Tandem arrangements have usually obtained a powerful pitch control
THRUST DEVICE AT TAIL
^S' //^
-
^ y DIFFERENTIAL CYCLIC PITCH
JET DEFLECTION AT TAILPIPE
S^
DIFFERENTIAL TORQUE
Hovering yaw control systems.
from differential thrust of their rotors, propellers, or fans. Another

approach has been the use of a device at the tail to produce an upward
or downward lift. Tail rotors, tail fans, tail jets, and vanes in the jet-
engine exhaust at the tail have all been used for this purpose. For some
28
tr
CYCLIC PITCH THRUST DEVICE AT TAIL
(^^^
DIFFERENTIAL THRUST SURFACES IN SLIPSTREAM
JET DEFLECTION AT TAILPIPE

Hovering pitch control systems.
propeller VTOL types, wing flaps located in the propeller slipstream

have provided a satisfactory pitch control, and jet deflection at the tail-
pipe has been used for the pitch control of tail-sitter turbojet types.
Another type of control used for roll and pitch control of flying-
29
platform aircraft is the kinesthetic control in which the pilot merely

shifts his weight on the aircraft and uses his normal balancing reac-
tions to maintain steady flight. This kinesthetic control is further dis-
cussed inChapter 5 and 7.
Control power. One general point that should be emphasized in
connection with VTOL control systems is the need for adequate con-
trols about all axes in hovering flight. As a result of continued de-
velopment, most helicopters today have reasonably good hovering
controls, but most other VTOL aircraft tested to date primarily re- —
search machines —
have been seriously lacking in control power about
one or more axes. The need for a powerful hovering control system
arises partly from a lack of stability in hovering flight and partly from
the requirement that VTOL aircraft be able to maneuver precisely in
confined areas and in turbulent wind conditions. In many cases the
achievement of adequately powerful controls will be difficult without
a sacrifice in payload or performance of the aircraft; nevertheless this
sacrifice must be made if a safely controllable machine is required
under all operating conditions. Another important point that should
be made regarding the control system used for hovering and low-
speed flight is that it should provide ample control regardless of the
power setting. In some VTOL research aircraft, control deficiencies
have been experienced when flying with reduced power while using
controls whose eff"ectiveness varied with power setting.
Stability in Hovering Flight
The conventional airplane is designed to be inherently stable in

cruising flight. It has static stability, which means that when disturbed
it tends to return to its original attitude; it has dynamic stability,
which means that any oscillations or other motions of the aircraft tend
decrease in amplitude or damp out by themselves. The VTOL air-
craft in hovering flight, however, is unstable or at best neutrally stable.
Let us examine some of the fundamental factors involved.
First of all, every VTOL aircraft has neutral stability of attitude
in hovering flight — that is, if the aircraft pitches or rolls there is no
immediate restoring tendency to bring it back to its original attitude.
We can see the reason for this if we consider the difference between a
balloon and a VTOL aircraft. If a balloon is disturbed by a gust of
Hovering Flight 31
air so that the gondola swings off to one side, there is a righting mo-
ment tending to bring the gondola back under the balloon. This right-
ing moment, or "pendulum stability" as it is sometimes called, results
from the fact that the balloon lift continues to act straight upward
and the gondola weight straight downward so that a restoring couple
is produced. On the other hand, when a VTOL aircraft is banked over
by a gust of wind, the lift vector banks over with the machine; and
since the lift vector still passes through the center of gravity (or center
of weight) no restoring couple is produced.
Although VTOL aircraft in hovering flight have no stability of
attitude and thus no immediate restoring tendency after a disturbance,
they usually do experience a righting moment a short time after a
disturbance. Let us consider again the VTOL machine which has been
banked over by a gust and assume that it is banked to the right. Since
the thrust vector is also tilted to the right, there will be a component
of thrust tending to move the aircraft to the right. As it and
slides off
acquires some lateral velocity, forces are produced on the aircraft
which tend to return it to a level attitude in bank. This type of restor-
ing tendency is experienced by most VTOL aircraft to some degree,
and is usually greater for rotor, propeller, and ducted-fan types than
for turbojet aircraft. The restoring tendency is decreased by decreas-
ing the height of the rotor, propeller, or fan above the center of
gravity of the aircraft.
To consider dynamic stability, let us go back to our VTOL aircraft
which was sliding sideways to the right and had experienced the re-
storing moment to bring it back to a level attitude. Unfortunately,
this restoring moment is usually so strong that the machine passes
through the level attitude to a left bank angle. Then, with the thrust
vector tilted to the left, the machine starts moving to the left. This
time a restoring moment to the right is produced, causing the aircraft
to bank over when it was first disturbed.
to the right even farther than
This process is bank angle increasing each time
repeated, with the
until the angle becomes so high that the machine goes out of control.
This is called an unstable oscillation and is a form of dynamic instabil-
ity. All VTOL aircraft which experience the restoring tendency when
sliding sideways in hovering flight also experience this dynamic in-

stability.
Similarly, those aircraft which experience a restoring tendency

—
when moving forward or backward in iiovering will have an unstable

pitching oscillation. The existence of bank and pitch instability means
that VTOL machines will not fly themselves in hovering flight unless
equipped with some form of artificial stabilization device. Of course,
this does not mean that the aircraft cannot be flown in hovering flight
without a stabilization device, for experience has shown that they can
be. It does mean that they are more difficult to fly in hovering than a
conventional stable airplane is in cruising flight.
All VTOL aircraft have neutral directional stability when hovering

in still air — that is, there is no tendency for the aircraft to point in any
particular direction.
The unstable oscillation in hovering flight which is experienced by
nearly all VTOL aircraft is usually most troublesome when the period
of the oscillation is so short that the pilot has insufficient time to apply
the proper corrective control. The unstable oscillations experienced by
helicopters, though objectionable, have generally been of long enough
period not to be considered dangerous. Various stabilizing devices tied
in with the rotor have been used successfully by helicopter designers
to alleviate this stability problem. It appears quite likely that most
VTOL aircraft will require some form of artificial stabilization to
perform satisfactorily as operational machines under all conditions,
especially for the blind flying involved in all-weather operations.
Another stability problem of VTOL aircraft in hovering flight
the problem of gyroscopic coupling introduced by the rotating com-

ponents of jet engines — is covered in Chapter 8.
The Engine-Out Problem
Experience over the years has shown that engine failure, even on
conventional airplanes can be quite serious under some conditions of
flight. For the VTOL aircraft, the engine-out problem becomes of
paramount importance because the aircraft is entirely dependent on
the engines for lift during the takeoff, hovering, and landing phases
of flight. Thus all reasonable precautions must be taken in the design
of a VTOL machine to insure that the failure of an engine (or possibly
more than one engine) does not lead to the loss of the aircraft.
Let us start our consideration of engine-out safety of VTOL air-
craft with the —
most familiar case at hand the single-engine heli-
Hovering Flight 33
copter. Having only a single engine, such a machine must of course

come down when it loses that engine; but it can land safely from some
altitudes following an engine failure in hovering flight because of its
inherent autorotational capability. That is, the rotor can be allowed to

autorotate or windmill during the descent, and the energy stored up
in the rotating rotor can then be used to perform a flare at landing to
soften the impact. If a safe landing is to be made following a complete
power must either be very close to the ground
failure, the helicopter
or else at an altitude from which it can take advantage of the auto-
rotation of its rotor. Hovering altitudes between about 25 and 300

feet are usually considered dangerous for a single-engine helicopter
from the standpoint of engine failure. This range of dangerous alti-
tudes is the so-called "dead man's zone" for the helicopter. Single-
engine VTOL aircraft that are not powered by rotors have no auto-
rotational capability and therefore require a much higher altitude for
safe hovering. In event of engine failure they have to drop vertically to
pick up speed so that the wing can support the aircraft; then they must
make a pull-out and perform a conventional power-off landing. It
will be shown in the next chapter how this safety problem in hovering
is alleviated when the aircraft starts flying forward.
It is apparent that real safety in hovering is difficult if not impos-
sible to achieve with single-engine VTOL aircraft without certain
restrictions on their operation. One logical requirement for safety in
hovering, then, is that even with the loss of an engine the VTOL air-
craft will have enough vertical thrust to continue hovering. This is a

rather stringent requirement in cases where it means doubling the
installed power, but such is the price of safety in these cases. In multi-
engine installations, the use of an additional engine is not quite so
drastic a step. It should be pointed out that most helicopters and
other VTOL aircraft flown to date have not been able to hover with
an engine out, and they have all had to compromise their operational
capability because of this deficiency. To operate safely they have had
to do their hovering either at fairly high altitudes or only a few feet off
the ground.
A second requirement for hovering safety is that the failure of an
engine should not cause large changes in trim that cannot be con-
trolled by the pilot. To appreciate the significance of this problem,
consider what would happen if a hovering VTOL aircraft had two in-
dependently driven thrust units, one at each wing tip, and one of them
failed! The motion would probably resemble that of a pin-

resulting
wheel. Fortunately, there are a number of ways to prevent such an
occurrence. We can use cross-shafting to interconnect rotors, propel-
lers, or ducted fans so that if one engine fails the others can continue
to drive all the propulsion units. Another possibility that has been
considered is the use of two or more engines to drive each rotor, pro-
peller, or ducted fan. For turbojet aircraft, two solutions have been
proposed: installing the engines close to the center of the aircraft so
that thenormal hovering controls can handle the out-of-trim moments
produced by an engine failure, or making provisions for the instan-
taneous shut-down of an engine on the opposite side of the aircraft.
Slipstream and Ground Interference Effects
Slipstream velocity, in addition to being one of the primary fac-

tors determining the hovering efficiency of a VTOL propulsion sys-
tem, is also a very important factor determining the types of operation
for which the various aircraft are suited. For example, the relatively
low slipstream velocities of rotor VTOL aircraft such as helicopters
make them generally well suited for use as rescue aircraft. On the
other hand, the higher slipstream velocities of the other VTOL types
not only make them generally unsuited to rescue work but introduce
serious problems of ground erosion and recirculation of dust and
debris when operating from unprepared bases.
Although slipstream effects in the presence of the ground can take
a number of different forms, we can logically divide them into three
categories: surface erosion, effects on objects near the landing area,
and recirculation effects on the aircraft itself. First, consider surface
erosion — the tendency of the slipstream to dig holes in the ground
underneath the aircraft during vertical takeoff and landing operations.
Surface erosion. Although the problem of surface erosion is most
serious for intense, high-velocity slipstreams, problems can be en-
countered even with the low-velocity slipstreams of helicopters when
operating over certain types of terrain such as loose dirt or dry sand.
Very hard dirt surfaces and grassy surfaces pose no problems for the
helicopter and are reasonably satisfactory for the much higher slip-
stream velocities of propeller-driven machines. A good sod surface
Hovering Flight 35
Surface erosion and recirculation of debris ore serious problems for VTOL aircraft
operating from unprepared takeoff and landing sites.
can stand very high downwash velocities for short periods of time, as
evidenced by the fact that jet VTOL research airplanes have at times
operated from sod fields. Such operations have to be carried out
quickly, however, for it does not take long for the hot jet exhaust to
bum away the grass, dry out the top layer of soil, and start blasting
holes in the earth. For repeated takeoflf and landing operations from
a given spot, therefore, a jet VTOL aircraft will probably require some
type of hard surface such as special concrete or metal plates. An
asphalt surface has not proved to be satisfactory for such operations
since it is not only subject to blast erosion but also melts and re-
may be thrown up against the aircraft.
leases stones that
One promising means of preparing takeoff and landing areas for
operation of jet VTOL from forward bases is the use of spe-
aircraft
cial soil stabilizing agents which have been developed during the past
few years. When mixed with the soil, these agents provide satisfac-
torily hard and durable surfaces for jet operations. Another proposal
for the preparation of takeoff and landing sites involves the use of
special plastics which would be sprayed on the ground in liquid form,
perhaps by the VTOL aircraft itself before landing.
Slipstream flow along the ground. One problem of serious con-
cern to the services in planned operations of VTOL aircraft is the high
slipstream velocity radially outward along the ground when takeoffs
and landings are made in confined areas. Packing cases and other
objects around the landing area can be slid along or overturned by
these slipstreams. Experience with helicopters has indicated that this
can be a very real problem, and some have feared that the problem
might be far worse with other VTOL types having higher slipstream
velocities. Recent research and analysis have shown, however, that
High-velocity slipstream flow olong the ground can be a hazard around VTOL
takeofF and landing sites.
the problem may be no worse for these aircraft and perhaps not even
as bad. The reason for this rather surprising result is that the higher
velocity slipstreams experience a much more rapid drop in velocity as
they spread out along the ground. A short distance from the aircraft
the slipstream velocity along the ground will be approximately the
same for a helicopter and for a propeller VTOL airplane of the same
gross weight. And, since the propeller slipstream will be in a thinner
layer over the ground, it will probably have less tendency to cause
objects to slide or overturn. The higher velocity propeller slipstream,
however, is still likely to create a greater safety hazard because of the
higher outward velocities imparted to debris directly under the air-
craft. In general, these problems associated with slipstream flow along
the ground are expected to become worse as the weight of the VTOL
aircraft increases, regardless of whether it is a helicopter or a pro-
peller VTOL machine. Special provisions must therefore be made
for coping with this problem when laying out takeoff and landing
areas.
A somewhat related slipstream problem has caused some concern
in the operation of helicopters around the New York City airports.
Airplanes parked on the airports have been damaged by the slip-
streams of helicopters flying over them at low altitude and low speed
while moving across the airport to their landing area. The problem
has been alleviated, at least temporarily, by specifying certain mini-
mum and speeds for helicopter operation over the airport
altitudes
area. The problem is expected to increase with the in-
severity of the
troduction of larger and higher performance VTOL types.
Slipstream recirculation. Let us turn from the effects of the slip-
stream on the ground and surrounding area and consider the effects
on the aircraft itself resulting from slipstream or jet exhaust impinge-
Hovering Flight 37
ment during takeoff and landing. We can divide these slipstream re-
circulation effects on the aircraft into three categories: recirculation of
dust and debris, effects on the performance or lifting ability of the

aircraft, and effects on the handling qualities or flying characteristics
of the aircraft.
Slipstream recirculation of dust and debris has proved to be a
problem even for the helicopter with its low slipstream velocities.
After hovering low over dry sand or loose dirt for a few moments,
helicopter pilots usually find themselves flying in a dust storm kicked
up by their own downwash. Even if the pilot is able to see well
enough to maintain flight, his machine takes a beating from the sand.
Operations with helicopters in desert areas has shown that sand inges-
tion in the engines can be a real problem and, if special precautions
777^777777777777777
I
PROPELLER
VTOL AIRPLANE
VELOCITY
ALONG
GROUND HELICOPTER
DISTANCE OUT
The slipstream velocity along the ground at some distance from the aircraft is no
greater for a propeller VTOL airplane than for a helicopter of the same weight.
38 Vertical TakeoflF and Landing Aircraft
are not taken, the rotor blades are sanded so rapidly by the flying sand
particles that they have to be replaced after only a fraction of their
normal service life. Additional filters on the engines and special metal
coverings on the leading edges and tips of the rotor blades have proved
to be fairly effective solutions to these particular problems, but the
helicopter is still plagued with the basic problem of stirring up dust
when flying low over loose dirt or sand. From the military viewpoint,
of course, it is very undesirable for the helicopter (or any other VTOL
aircraft) to produce a dust cloud which helps to reveal the presence
of the aircraft to the enemy.
The tendency to blow debris up around the aircraft is accentuated
when there are two or more slipstreams spaced some distance apart
instead of a single slipstream. When a slipstream strikes the ground,
it spreads out and flows in allWith a single slipstream,
directions.
debris is blown outward except in cases where it is blown
generally
upward out of a hole or deflected upward by some obstruction. With
two or more slipstreams, however, there is also an inward flow along
the ground from each of the slipstreams, and when these inward
flows meet below the center of the aircraft there is no place for them
to go but up. Thus we have a strong upward flow against the bottom
A two-propeller aircraft hovering near the ground experiences a strong upward

flow at the center where the spreading slipstreams meet.
Hovering Flight 39
of the aircraft in these cases, and consequently there is a much greater

danger that the aircraft will be damaged by rocks and other debris.
We should expect the recirculation effects when operating from
unprepared bases to be even greater for the newer types of VTOL air-
craft than for the helicopter because of the higher slipstream velocities
involved. Propeller, ducted fan, and turbojet aircraft not only raise
dust storms with surface dust but can dig their own holes in some
types of loose terrain and then blow dirt and stones out of these holes.
One indication of theproblem involved with these higher slipstream
velocitieswas obtained during flight tests of the Vertol VZ-2 propeller
VTOL research airplane. A taxiing turn was made on a macadam
overrun area at the end of a concrete runway before the pilot realized
that there was some fine crushed stone lying loose on the overrun.
Even in the short time spent on this area, pieces of crushed stone
were blown up against the aircraft, damaging the propellers, tail rotor,
and the engine stator and rotor blading. Obviously, this is a serious
problem for which solutions must be found before such machines can
be operated safely from unprepared takeoff and landing areas. Perhaps
some form of deflectors, either on the aircraft itself or on the landing
area, can be used to prevent damage to the propulsion system and
other vulnerable portions of the aircraft. Another suggested solution
is that the slipstream be directed downward and rearward to make
short takeoff and landing runs whenever possible in order that the
dust and debris may be blown backwards, away from the aircraft.
Effects of recirculation on performance. Slipstream recirculation
can affect the hovering performance of VTOL aircraft in two basic
ways. The engine performance can be affected by ingestion of hot
gases or debris, and the over-all vertical lift can be altered by changes
in pressure on the aircraft when operating near the ground.
When the hot exhaust gases from jet VTOL aircraft are recircu-
lated and reingested into the engine, a reduction in the thrust of the
engine will result and the aircraft may not even be able to get off the
ground. A second way in which recirculation can influence engine
thrust was vividly illustrated during a flight demonstration of the
Short SC. 1 jet VTOL research airplane at the Farnborough Air Show
in 1959. The SCI is a dual-propulsion VTOL type with four lifting
jet engines mounted vertically in the fuselage for vertical takeoff and
landing. Fine mesh screens are installed over the inlets to prevent
—
ingestion of recirculated debris which might damage the engines. In

this particular flight demonstration, the airplane was being operated
from a freshly mowed field from which the grass clippings had not
been raked. The takeoff was normal, but after a few moments of
hovering at low altitude, the airplane sank slowly to the ground de-
spite the efforts of the pilot to increase thrust and continue flying. In-
spection of the airplane to determine the cause of this peculiar behav-
ior showed had become clogged with grass
that the engine inlet screens
cuttings leftfrom the recent mowing. The inlet air to the engines had
been gradually choked off by this clogging of the screens and the re-
sulting loss in engine thrust had caused the premature landing. This
incident indicates that the VTOL aircraft designer may be on the
horns of a dilemma in trying to solve his recirculation problems.
Should he design to prevent the ingestion of heavy debris like rocks or
of light debris like grass clippings?
The vertical thrust or lift of most VTOL aircraft operating in the
presence of the ground is also altered by changes in pressure over the
aircraft induced by ground interference. These ground interference
effects, which can cause either a decrease or an increase in vertical
lift depending upon the particular aircraft configuration, may be
divided into two separate effects: ground on the
the effect of the
thrust of the propulsion device itself and the effect on the airframe.
First, consider the effect of the ground on the propulsion devices
the rotors, propellers, ducted fans, and turbojet engines.
When a rotor in hovering flight approaches the ground, the slip-
sXream spreads out causing a decrease in velocity and increase in pres-

sure in the slipstream. These changes cause a substantial increase in
lift of the rotor for a given amount of power. Stated another way, less
power is required to hover near the ground than at heights where there
is no ground effect. This beneficial effect first becomes evident when
the rotor descends to a height about one rotor diameter above the
surface. It increases as the ground is approached, and at a height
corresponding to about one fourth of the rotor diameter (about nor-
mal landing gear height for a helicopter), the lift is generally about 30
or 40 percent greater than it is out of ground effect.
The ground effect on a propeller is similar to that on a rotor, but

of course in actual VTOL applications the propeller is usually much
higher off the ground in terms of propeller diameters than the rotor
Hovering Flight 41
LIFT I
AUGMENTATION
RATIO
20 40 60 80 100 120 140
HEIGHT ABOVE GROUND, PERCENT DIAMETER
A rotor or propeller experiences an increase in lift as it approaches the ground.
is in terms of rotor diameters. So a propeller VTOL airplane will not

ordinarily realize as much beneficial ground effect from its propeller
as the helicopter does from its rotor.
A ducted fan that is designed for efficient hovering performance
out of ground effect will usually experience a loss in lift as it ap-
proaches the ground because the fan and lose lift as will tend to stall
it nears the surface. This detrimental ground effect can be eliminated
by the use of a smaller fan blade angle, but such a change will cause
a loss in hovering efficiency out of ground effect.
When a jet engine approaches the ground, there is usually a loss in
lift because the increased pressure in the jet exhaust increases the back
pressure on the engine and causes it to produce less thrust. The ground
effect on the jet engine is usually quite small, however, because its
height above the ground in terms of engine tailpipe diameters is usu-

ally large.
To get the over-all effect of the ground on the performance of
VTOL aircraft one must include the effects of the recirculating slip-
stream on the aerodynamic lift of the airframe. These effects on the
airframe can be either favorable or adverse, depending on the arrange-
ment of the propulsion system with respect to the airframe. If we have
a single slipstream coming out the bottom of the aircraft, the ground
effect will usually be adverse because of the negative (downward lift-
ing) pressure induced on the bottom of the airframe. This negative

pressure results from the fact that the high-velocity slipstream spread-
ing out along the ground tends to entrain the air beneath the aircraft
V?/////^////////////////////////// V77777777777777777777777777777Z
UNFAVORABLE FAVORABLE
GROUND EFFECT GROUND EFFECT
'////////////////^^////^//////////^y'^/^
NEGLIGIBLE
GROUND EFFECT
The effect of the airframe on lift in ground effect can be unfavorable, favorable,
or negligible, depending on the configuration.
with a sort of pumping action which reduces the pressure beneath the
machine. On the other hand, if two or more slipstreams are located
well away from the center of the airframe, there will tend to be a posi-
tive (upward lifting) build-up of pressure underneath the airframe
where the slipstreams flowing along the ground meet and flow upward.
Of course, many VTOL configurations will actually have a combina-
tion of these adverse and beneficial changes in pressure underneath
the airframe, and the over-all effect can be either favorable or un-
favorable (or perhaps negligible), depending upon the particular
geometry of the aircraft. The changes in lift produced by ground inter-
ference are usually accompanied by changes in pitching moment, since
the additional lift does not usually act exactly at the center of gravity
of the aircraft.
On the basis of these ground effects on the airframe and on the
propulsion devices themselves, some fairly reliable generalizations can
be made regarding the ground effects to be expected with various
VTOL configurations. For helicopters and other rotor VTOL aircraft,
the rotors will provide a substantial beneficial ground effect, while the
Hovering Flight 43
contribution of the airframe will be negligible since it is relatively

small compared to the rotor disk area. This beneficial ground effect
has proved to be a very valuable characteristic of the helicopter, be-
cause it has enabled overloaded machines to hover near the ground
and has made the landing flare-out a safer maneuver, particularly dur-
ing power-off" landings. Propeller VTOL airplanes of the tilt-wing type
will also experience a beneficial ground effect, but it will generally be
smaller than that of the helicopter. Part of this ground effect for the
propeller VTOL machine comes from the build-up of positive pressure
underneath the fuselage resulting from the upward flow of the recircu-
lating slipstream in the plane of symmetry.
Turbojet VTOL configurations of the horizontal-attitude type hav-
ing either a single engine or several engines grouped closely together
near the center of the airframe, will usually experience a detrimental
ground effect. Examples of this type are the Bell X-14 and the Short
SC. 1 research airplanes, both of which experienced substantial losses
in thrust (up to 25 percent) in ground effect. These losses were re-
duced somewhat on the X-14 by the simple expedient of installing a
longer landing gear, but a gear of sufficient length to bring the losses
down to an acceptable value for operational aircraft would have been
impractical. It has been found possible to virtually eliminate the thrust
losses for these two aircraft, however, by having them take off from
a special grating a few inches off the ground. The function of this
grating is to separate the high-velocity jet exhaust along the ground
from the air above it which is normally entrained by the exhaust. By
preventing this entrainment, the grating reduces the negative pressure
build-up under the aircraft to a negligible value and thereby minimizes
the detrimental ground effect.
Turbojet VTOL aircraft having exhaust nozzles near the edges of

the fuselage or on the wings will usually tend to have very small
ground effects, either favorable or unfavorable, depending upon the
proportion of airframe area between the jets and outboard of the jets.
Aircraft such as the Hawker P.l 127 with its four exhaust nozzles, two
on each side of the fuselage, fall into this category. If we pursue this
idea to the extreme and place jets aU around the perimeter of the air-
frame, we get a tremendous build-up of positive pressure under the
airframe and obtain an extremely large beneficial ground effect. This
principle is employed in the disk-shaped Avrocar VTOL aircraft and
also in the ground effect machines (GEMs) which are covered in

Chapter Attempts are also being made to incorporate this principle
9.
into aircraft which are intended to take off and land using a ground
cushion instead of conventional landing gear. These machines, called
GETOL (ground effect takeoff and landing) aircraft, are also covered
in Chapter 9.
Effect of recirculation on handling qualities. Flight research to

date has indicated that slipstream recirculation can have pronounced
effects on the handling qualities of VTOL aircraft flying near the
ground. The slipstream recirculation can be produced, as indicated
earlier, by the flow from two slipstreams meeting on the ground and
being deflected upward, or it can be produced when an aircraft with
a single slipstream is flying over uneven terrain or near some obstruc-

tions or buildings. This recirculated flow is likely to be very unsteady
and unsymmetrical, particularly when flying over rough ground or in
gusty air or when the aircraft is not maintaining a wings-level attitude.

When this unsteady and unsymmetrical flow of recirculated air strikes
the VTOL aircraft hovering a short distance off the ground, random
upsetting moments are produced which usually make the aircraft more
difficult to fly than when it is hovering at greater heights.
Experience to date with VTOL research aircraft having two lat-
erally disposed propulsive units — that is a rotor, propeller, or ducted

fan on each wing — has shown that erratic flight characteristics about
one or more axes are usually obtained when the machines are hover-
ing within about 10 or 15 feet of the ground. Pilots have reported that
under these conditions some of the machines seem to have the
"dithers" and objectionable "darting tendencies." In most cases, the
flight characteristics near the ground have become worse at low for-
ward speeds as the aircraft flies into the disturbance it is creating.

Then, at higher speeds, the aircraft flies ahead of its recirculation dis-
turbances and the flight characteristics improve.
The use of artificial stabilization devices has proved to be bene-
ficial in improving the hovering characteristics of these aircraft near
the ground, but it appears highly desirable to develop some more
direct solutions to the problem. Perhaps some form of deflector similar

to those suggested earlier for alleviating the debris recirculation prob-
lem can be used to direct the troublesome recirculating slipstream flow
away from the aircraft. The running takeoff procedure suggested for
Hovering Flight 45
minimizing debris recirculation may also be applicable as a means of

alleviating the adverse effects of slipstream recirculation on flight
characteristics near the ground.
VTOL Aircraft Noise
Since most of the noise of an aircraft is usually produced by its
propulsion system and since VTOL aircraft, especially the higher per-
formance types, have several times as much power installed as a con-

ventional airplane of the same general type, it has been anticipated
that noise will prove to be a very serious problem for VTOL aircraft.
Experience to date with helicopters seems to bear out this supposition;
these rotor-powered craft, presumed to be the quietest of all VTOL

machines, have proved in many cases to have very objectionable noise
characteristics. Theoretically, the noise level of an aircraft increases
with increasing slipstream or jet-exhaust velocity, so we can expect the
noise problems of propeller, ducted fan, and turbojet aircraft to be
much greater than those of the helicopter.
Much of the noise of helicopters powered by reciprocating engines
comes from the engine exhaust. We may therefore expect some reduc-
newer turbine-powered machines. One promising
tion in noise with the
approach toward further noise reduction on the helicopter and other
rotor VTOL aircraft is the use of additional rotor solidity, that is the
use of more total blade area for a given rotor diameter. The noise of
propeller VTOL aircraft can also be reduced by using more blade
area and by reducing the propeller-tip Mach number.
It is expected that the duct of the ducted fan will serve as a form
of sound suppressor, but care must be taken in the design to realize
this advantage. The ducted fans of the Doak VZ-4 tilt-duct research
aircraft have proved to be quite noisy, sounding very much like high-
powered sirens. The number and spacing of the fan blades and stator
vanes in the duct appear to be important factors affecting the noise
characteristics of the ducted fan. Sound suppressors used on the turbo-
jet engines of conventional jet transports will not be nearly effective
enough to quieten the jets of VTOL aircraft. The most promising ap-
proach for noise reduction of jet VTOL types is to make use of the
turbofan engine with its inherently lower jet exhaust velocity.
The noise problem may well restrict city-center VTOL operations
to aircraft having rotors or lightly loaded propellers. For operation

from conventional airports, however, the ability of VTOL aircraft to
take off vertically and climb out steeply may make them just as ac-
ceptable from the noise standpoint as conventional aircraft. The steep

climb-out enables the VTOL machine to gain considerable altitude be-
fore crossing the airport boundary, while the conventional airplane,
with its long takeoff run and flatter climb, is still at a fairly low altitude
as it leaves the airport. The greater altitude of the VTOL aircraft dur-
ing climb-out may render its noise even less objectionable to those on
the ground than the noise of conventional airplanes.
—
THE TRANSITION
FROM HOVERING TO
CRUISING FLIGHT
4
flight is
THE TRANSITION FROM HOVERING TO CRUISING
generally the most critical flight regime for VTOL aircraft.
The transition range is usually defined as that speed range between

hovering and the minimum speed at which the aircraft can fly on wing
lift alone without making use of the lift of its engines. Thus we might
say that the upper limit of the transition speed range corresponds
roughly to the minimum speed or stall speed of the aircraft when
flying as a conventional airplane. Sometimes for convenience the
upper limit of the transition is assumed to be the speed for the mini-
mum power required for level flight.
The term "conversion" rather than "transition" has often been
used to describe the operation by which a VTOL machine changes
from hovering to cruising flight. This term usually implies that the
aircraft converts from one form to another to perform the operation.
Since there are some VTOL aircraft (for example tail-sitter VTOL
types) in which there is no change in the configuration involved
—
merely a change in attitude we have chosen to use the more general
term "transition."
47
The unique designs of most VTOL aircraft can be attributed di-

rectly to the features required to permit the transition to be made from
hovering to cruising flight. As noted in Chapter 1, the four basic
means of accompHshing the transition are aircraft tilting, thrust tilting,
thrust deflection, and dual propulsion. Let us take a closer look at
these four transition methods and some of the fundamental features
of each.
Aircraft Tilting
Aircraft-tilting VTOL machines can be divided into two general

categories: aircraft such as helicopters which tilt only a few degrees
forward, and aircraft such as tail-sitters which tilt all the way from
vertical to nearly horizontal. As pointed out earlier, the helicopter
really hasno clear-cut process of transition. The basic difference be-
tween these two types is that the helicopter has no wings and relies on
its rotor for support even in cruising flight, while the tail-sitter does
have a wing to take over the lifting function when it tilts over to nor-
mal flight. Of course, the difference in the amount of tilting involved
with these two types results in a basic configuration difference — in
hovering flight the fuselage of the helicopter is horizontal while that
is vertical. Other VTOL aircraft which operate in
of the tail-sitter
much same way as the helicopter are the flying platform and aerial
the
jeep machines which we will cover in a later chapter.
Although tail-sitter aircraft of the propeller and turbojet types are
generally similar in configuration, they have one important basic dif-
ference. The wing is bathed in the pro-
of the propeller tail-sitter type
wing can remain smooth and
peller slipstream so that the flow over the
unstalled during the transition. The wing of the jet tail-sitter, on the
other hand, has no slipstream over it to preserve the smooth unstalled
flow, and thus it experiences severe flow separation and stalling at the
high wing angles of attack during the transition. Since this wing stall
in transition is a basic problem for a number of VTOL types, it is
perhaps a good idea to digress a bit at this point to consider what is
involved in the wing stall phenomenon itself and to explain why it
occurs on some VTOL aircraft.
Wing stall in transition. Wing stall occurs when the wing angle of
attack has been increased to the point where the oncoming air can no
The Transition from Hovering to Cruising Flight 49
longer flow smoothly over the top of the wing. When this angle is ex-
ceeded, the flow separates from the upper surface of the wing resulting
in a loss of lift and an increase in drag and also in erratic motions and
loss of control of the aircraft if the stall is severe and sudden. If the
stall occurs first near the wing tip, there are likely to be violent rolling
motions of the aircraft that will be especially difficult to control. The
wing stall usually occurs at angles of attack of about 15 degrees for
normal unswept wings but is delayed to about 30 degrees or so by
the use of highly swept wings.
Now how does this wing stall affect VTOL aircraft in transition?
For simplicity we will first consider only the stalling problems experi-
enced by VTOL aircraft on which the wing (or the entire aircraft)
tilts to perform the transition. For aircraft of this type which have no
slipstream over the wing (for example, the tail-sitter jet), the wing
will of course be stalled during the entire transition because the wing
angle of attack is the same in this case as the wing tilt angle, and the
tilt angle must vary from 90 degrees down to almost zero as the transi-
tion from hovering to forward flight is performed. For configurations

in which the wing is immersed in the slipstream (for example the
propeller tail-sitter and tilt-wing types), the picture is not quite so
simple. In this case, the effective angle of attack of the wing is not
merely the wing tilt angle; it is also a function of the forward velocity
of the airplane and both the direction and velocity of the slipstream.
This point can be illustrated by two simple cases.
First, for a condition near hovering flight, when the slipstream
velocity is very high and the forward velocity of the airplane is very
low, the effective wing angle of attack will be near zero because the
slipstream is usually aligned with the wing. On the other hand, if the
forward velocity of the airplane is fairly high and the slipstream
velocity suddenly reduced to a very low value by cutting power, the
is
effective wing angle of attack will be about the same as the wing tilt
angle. Thus if the power were cut suddenly during the transition phase
of flight while the wing was still at some high angle of tilt, the wing
would surely stall. Of course, this is an extreme case. In normal opera-
tion, the effective angle of attack ofa wing within a slipstream will not
usually become wing incidence angle, although in cer-
as large as the
tain cases it may exceed the wing stall angle. One factor which aggra-
vates this stalling tendency is the slipstream rotation, which increases
airplane velocity
slipstream velocity
resultant velocity over wing

wing angle of attack
Level flight — high power Steep descent —

low power
High siipstreom velocity Low slipstream velocity
Moderate wing angle of attack High wing angle of attack
Wing unstalled Wing stalled
The propeller slipstream can keep a properly designed wing from stalling in level
transition flight, but the stalling problem becomes more severe in steep descents
with low power.
the angle of attack of the wing sections behind the upgoing rotor or
propeller blades and decreases the angle on sections behind the
downgoing blades. This makes for a very nonuniform stall pattern
over the wing. The stalling problem is further aggravated during such
operations as steep descents or rapid decelerations when the engine
power (and thus the slipstream velocity) is cut back sharply. Some
additional points regarding the wing stall problem and possible means
of alleviating it will be brought out in Chapter 6.
Thrust Tilting
VTOL aircraft of the thrust-tilting type perform the transition by

tilting the thrust unit itself. In some cases the wing as well as the
50
thrust unit is tilted. Since such configurations are fairly simple and
straightforward, designers have given them considerable attention, and
we have seen examples of all the four means of propul-
this type with
sion: tilt-rotor, tilt-propeller, tilt-duct, and tilt-jet. Only with the pro-
peller type has serious consideration been given to having the wing as
well as the thrust unit tilt. Of course, in the case of tilt-duct configura-
tions the duct itself serves as part of the wing area in cruising flight. In
the case of tilt-rotor types, the wing is not tilted because the slipstream
velocity over the wing would not be high enough to keep the wing from
stalling during the transition. For turbojet types, the wing is kept fixed
because it appears impractical to try to keep a tilted wing from stalling
by blowing hot jet exhaust over it. For propeller VTOL aircraft, how-
ever, it is perfectly feasible to tilt the wing and keep it from stalling
as long as we keep the wing immersed in the slipstream and follow
certain design procedures as indicated in Chapter 6. This is not to
say we are necessarily better off with a tilt-wing configuration than
with a tilt-propeller configuration, for there appear to be applications
where each may prove superior. Let us examine the difference be-
tween these two types to indicate certain fundamentals of flight in the
transition range.
Because the wing is a very efficient lifting device, we want to keep
it lifting as much as possible all through the transition down to
hovering flight. If the wing is kept fixed and is not immersed in the
propeller slipstream it actuaUy does very little lifting at the lower
speeds; therefore most of the lifting must be done by the propellers
which do the job less efficiently. On the other hand, if the wing is fully
immersed in the slipstream and tilted with the propeller, it can con-
tinue to lift even at the lowest speeds. With such an arrangement, the
increased lifting efficiency means that less power is required to fly at
low speeds. This basic advantage of making the fuHest use of wing lift
is offset to some extent by the greater possibilities for wing stall. Thus
if we want to take advantage of wing lift in the transition we are prob-
ably going to have to pay for it in the design compromises necessary

for preventing wing stall. One of the primary reasons for going to the
more efficient but more complicated tilt-wing configuration is that it
provides better short takeoff and landing (STOL) characteristics. We
will cover the factors involved in STOL operation later in this chapter.
Thrust Deflection
Now we come to the thrust-deflection VTOL types — those that

keep the propulsion unit in a horizontal or nearly horizontal attitude
at all times and turn the slipstream or jet exhaust downward with flaps,
turning vanes, or swivelling tailpipes. A basic problem of aircraft of
this type powered by rotors, propellers, or ducted fans is that they
experience a substantial loss in thrust in turning the slipstream down-
ward. The turbojet type also experiences a thrust loss in turning the
exhaust downward but in this case the loss is not usually large enough
to be of serious concern to the designer. For the other three propulsion
types, however, the losses experienced with designs studied to date
have been so great that they have aroused serious doubts as to whether
deflected-slipstream configurations are feasible at all for VTOL opera-
tion.
Research has indicated that turning a slipstream a full 90 degrees

with flaps or vanes usually results in thrust losses as high as 40 or 50
percent, which of course is a completely impractical situation. The
use of boundary layer control to maintain smooth flow over the wing
can reduce these losses to 20 or 30 percent. If we turn the slipstream
only about 50 or 60 degrees with the flaps and achieve the other 30 or
40 degrees of turning by tilting the thrust unit or the aircraft itself,
we can perhaps reduce the thrust loss to 10 percent or less. But a

thrust loss this low can only be realized by an all-out design eff^ort in
which every feature of the thrust-deflection system is optimized. And
of course even a 10 percent thrust loss is serious for a VTOL airplane
since it means a much larger percentage loss in terms of payload or
range.
Dual Propulsion
The dual-propulsion VTOL types — those with two different means

of propulsion — have usually been designed with the idea of incor-
porating within one machine a good hovering propulsion system for
hovering and a good cruise propulsion system for cruising flight.
flight
The procedures by which the various designs of this type were de-
veloped, however, have been quite different. The dual-propulsion
rotor type, usually called the compound helicopter or unloaded rotor

convertiplane, is an advanced development of the helicopter in which
propellers take over the propulsion function in cruising flight to pro-
vide higher speed and greater efficiency.
The other dual-propulsion types, which are powered by turbojets
in cruising flight and either buried fans or lifting jet engines in hover-
ing, have apparently followed a different line of development. Their
designers, starting with conventional high-performance jet airplanes,
have asked the question, "What is the best way to give these airplanes
vertical takeofl'and landing capability?" The designers of buried fan
configurations (fan-in -wing and fan-in-fuselage) have tried to answer
this by offering a direct solution to one of the basic VTOL design
—
problems mentioned earlier how to take care of the disparity in the
thrust requirements for hovering and cruising flight. For hovering
flight, they make use of a ducted fan which is powered by the cruise
jet engine but which provides several times as much thrust as the jet.
(This type is discussed in more detail in Chapter 7.) The designers of

lifting-engine configurations have provided a somewhat different an-
swer to the problem by installing special small turbojet or turbofan
engines to be used only for takeoff and landing. Since these engines
need only be designed for a limited range of operating conditions,
they can be relatively simple, light, and efficient.
Power Required in Transition
The variation ofpower required with airspeed is a characteristic

of fundamental importance for VTOL aircraft. The power required is
greatest for the hovering and top speed conditions and generally drops
to a minimum at a speed about one-third to one-half the top speed. In
considering transition flight we are concerned with that portion of
the speed range from hovering to the speed for minimum power re-
quired. Strictly speaking, the transition is usually completed before
the speed for minimum power required is reached, but this speed will
be an appropriate one to use as the upper limit of the transition in the
present discussion.
Later in the chapter, the power required in the transition range
wifl be shown to be an important characteristic affecting the safety of
flight in event of engine failure and also affecting to a marked degree
hovering /
POWER
REQUIRED
FORWARD SPEED
Variation of power required with speed for VTOL aircraft in hovering, transition,
and cruising flight.
the short takeoff and landing (STOL) characteristics of VTOL air-
craft. Before considering these points, however, we should first look at

the various elements that determine the power required for VTOL
aircraft. The form power required curve against airspeed in the
of the
transition range is determined by three factors: the power required
for hovering, the minimum power required, and the configuration used
for performing the transition. These three factors are first examined
independently and are then related to show their significance in VTOL
and STOL operation.
The power required for hovering flight is determined by the slip-
stream or jet velocity of the propulsion system used, as seen in Chap-
ter 3.Thus, to lift a given weight, a rotor aircraft requires the least
power; and propeller, ducted fan, and turbojet aircraft with their
progressively greater slipstream velocities require progressively more
power.
The minimum power required is not determined quite so simply.
First, we must break down the power required in forward flight into
two parts — that required to overcome induced drag and that required
to overcome parasite drag. Induced drag is the drag or resistance ex-

perienced in the process of producing Hft, while parasite drag is that
portion of the drag, such as the resistance due to skin friction, that is
not associated with the production of lift. In general, for an aircraft of

a given weight we can cut down the induced drag by increasing the
span of the wing. Parasite drag is least for aircraft with well-stream-
lined shapes and smooth surfaces. Thus we find that a VTOL aircraft
which resembles one of our present-day commercial transport air-
planes will have both low induced drag and low parasite drag and will
therefore have a low minimum power required. On the other hand,
aircraft with relatively short wing spans or with unstreamlined fuse-
lages will have higher values of minimum power required. The average
helicopter is an example of this latter type, having a relatively high
minimum power requir i because of the drag produced by the usu-
ally poorly streamlined fuselage and by the landing gear, rotor pylon,
and other components.
Having covered the factors that determine the two end points of
POWER
REQUIRED
WIDE SPAN
FORWARD SPEED
The power required is less for a VTOL aircraft with a wide span than for one with
a narrow span.
POWER
REQUIRED
UNIFORM
LIFT DISTRIBUTION
FORWARD SPEED
A VTOL aircraft with a uniform lift distribution requires less power in the transition
than one with a nonuniform lift distribution.
the power-required curve for transition flight, we now consider those

that determine the shape of the curve between these two points. In
general, the variation of power required between the two points is de-
pendent on the configuration used to perform the transition. For the
present purposes we can consider that there are two basically different
configurations with which we can perform the transition one in —
which there is a relatively uniform distribution of lift across the entire
span at all times, and another in which the spanwise distribution of
lift is very nonuniform during the transition. A uniform distribution of
lift can be obtained by having propellers spread out along the entire
span of the aircraft so that the propeller slipstream is more or less

continuous across the span. On the other hand, we have a nonuniform
distribution of lift in the transition when the slipstream of rotors, pro-
pellers, or ducted fans cover only a portion of the span. As examples
of these two types, a four-propeller tilt-wing configuration might be
expected to have a relatively uniform lift distribution, while a tilt-duct

arrangement with a duct at each wing tip would have a rather non-
uniform distribution, producing most of near the wing tips and
its lift
very little over the center portion of the wing. This difference in lift
distribution causes a large difference in the induced drag and thus a

large difference in power required in transition. With a uniform lift
distribution, the induced drag and power required in the transition will
be at a minimum. For a nonuniform distribution, the induced drag
and power required will be greater, and the more nonuniform the
distribution the greater will be the power required.
How do these characteristics affect the variation of power required
as we move through the transition from hovering to the speed for
minimum power required? With a uniform lift distribution the power
required drops off very rapidly as the transition is started while with
nonuniform distribution it drops off more slowly. Thus it is possible
for two VTOL aircraft which have the same power required for hover-
ing and the same minimum power required to have a large difference
in power required at low speeds in transition flight.
We have just indicated that a propeller VTOL tilt-wing configura-
tion can have a relatively low power required in the transition because
of its relatively uniform lift distribution. We should hasten to add that
ifwing stalling occurs on a configuration of this type in the transition,
the power required will go up markedly. Then its variation of power
required with speed will resemble that for a configuration with a non-
uniform lift distribution. This problem of wing stalling has already
been treated earlier in the chapter and will be discussed again in Chap-
ter 6. The tilt-wing configuration can also experience an increase in
power required at low speeds when operating near the ground. This
detrimental ground effect will have to be minimized if the short take-
off and landing capability of such aircraft is to be fully realized.
Another factor that affects the rate at which the power required
drops off as the transition is started is the ratio of power required in
hovering to the minimum power required. In general, as this ratio be-
comes larger the power required drops off more rapidly. Thus a pro-
peller VTOL aircraft which has a ratio of hovering power to minimum
power of about 4 will have a much sharper drop-off in power required
than a helicopter which has a ratio of about 2. The helicopter is a
rather unusual case in that it requires the least power to hover and
POWER
REQUIRED
WING UNSTALLED
FORWARD SPEED
Wing stalling can result in a marked increase in the power required in the transi-
tion.
yet has a higher value of minimum power required than most other
VTOL aircraft.
Now, to illustrate the effects of power required in transition on

safety of flight and STOL operation, consider three different VTOL
types having basically different power-required variations. Our first
example is an unstalled tilt-wing-and-flap configuration which has a

low minimum power required and a low power required in the transi-
tion by virtue of its relatively uniform lift distribution. Second is a
tilt-duct configuration with a nonuniform hft distribution (and conse-
quently a higher power required in the transition) which has a power-
required curve that is also representative of a tilt-wing configuration
that experiences wing stall in the transition. And third is the helicopter
with low ratio of hovering power to minimum power required. We
its
will assume that all three of these example aircraft have two or more
engines and that the engines are interconnected so that if one of them
fails the others can continue to operate all the rotors, propellers or
fans and thus prevent a large asymmetry of thrust.
POWER
REQUIRED
FORWARD SPEED
Typical power-required curves for helicopter and propeller VTOL aircraft.
First consider the case of two-engine aircraft of these three types

performing a transition after a vertical takeoff. If the machines have
barely enough power to hover with two engines operating and if one
engine fails during low-speed flight they will not be able to maintain
level flight and will lose altitude until a speed has been reached where
the power required has dropped off enough to permit flight on one
engine. This minimum safe speed is reached fairly early in the transi-
tion by the machine because of its rapid drop-off in power

tilt-wing
required with airspeed. The tilt-duct machine and the helicopter have
somewhat higher minimum safe speeds because the power required
drops off more slowly; and the helicopter will barely be able to fly on
one engine since its minimum power required is almost half the power
required to hover. It should be remembered, however, that the heli-
copter does have a safety feature not possessed by propeller and
—
ducted fan types the ability under some conditions to make use of
its autorotational capability to perform a safe landing after failure of
all engine power. For transitions made near the ground immediately
after takeoff or prior to landing, the helicopter may not have enough
altitude to permit full use of this autorotational capability. In such
cases, it appears that partial power failure is likely to be more serious
for the helicopter than for a VTOL aircraft of the tilt-wing type be-
cause of the lower speed at which the tilt-wing machine can fly with-
out losing altitude. If we assume that all three of our example aircraft
have four engines instead of two. the loss of an engine will not be as
serious because the minimum safe speed will then be less for all three
aircraft. The relative merit of the three types in this regard, however,
should remain about the same as for the two-engine case.
Next consider the short takeoff and landing characteristics of our
three example aircraft. If the aircraft are overloaded so that they
cannot take off vertically, they effectively become STOL aircraft
which require short takeoff and landing runs. In this case, of course,
the power required for hovering flight is greater than the power avail-
able from the engines of the aircraft. For takeoff, the STOL aircraft
must run along the ground until it reaches the speed at which the
power required for level flight has dropped enough to be equal to the
power available. This speed is much lower for the tilt-wing aircraft
TWO ENGINES
— POWER
— -POWER
REQUIRED
AVAILABLE
• INDICATES MINIMUM SPEED
FOR FLIGHT WITH ONE
ENGINE OUT
ENGINE OUT
HELICOPTER
TILT DUCT
FORWARD SPEED
The multi-engine VTOL aircraft with the sharpest drop in power required in the
transition can maintain flight at the lowest speed when an engine fails.
(without wing stalling) than for the tilt-duct machine or the helicopter
because of the sharper drop-off power required with airspeed. The
in
tilt-wing airplane would be able to get off the ground in a shorter dis-
tance and would be able to climb out more steeply so that it could
clear obstacles more easily. The steeper climbout results from the
fact that at a given speed after takeoff the tilt-wing machine would
require a smaller percentage of its installed power to fly level and
would thus have more power available for climb.
It should be emphasized that in the illustrations just given, the
tilt-wing, tilt-duct, and helicopter were used merely as examples of

machines having three basically different variations of power required
in the transition. The general conclusion to be drawn is that the op-
timum STOL performance and the greatest safety of operation in
event of engine failure in the transition will be obtained when there
is a rapid drop-off in power with increasing speed in the transition
and when the ratio of minimum power required to hovering power is
small.
STOL and V/STOL Aircraft
The VTOL aircraft which is designed so that it can also perform

short takeoffs and landings is usually referred to as a V/STOL air-
craft. Many of the configurations to be taken up later have this dual

capability. Another which has received considerable at-
aircraft type
tention in recent years is the STOL
airplane, a machine which has
short, but not vertical, takeoff and landing capability. There is no
fixed definition for a STOL airplane, but it has in some cases been
defined as a machine that can use a runway 500 feet long and clear
a 50-foot obstacle at each end. In other cases the allowable runway
length has been much greater. For example, the so-called STOL TFX
fighter being planned for the Tactical Air Command of the U. S. Air
Force would have an allowable takeoff distance of 3,000 feet. Other
STOL applications include propeller-powered transports with large
flapsand boundary layer control (a scheme for increasing the lift of
which are covered
the wing at low speeds), the jet flap configurations
in Chapter 8, and some turbojet airplanes in which the jet exhaust
can be directed downward a few degrees to provide additional lift in
low-speed flight.
The STOL and V/STOL aircraft is that

basic difference between
the STOL aircraft has much
power or thrust installed. The reason-
less
ing behind STOL designs is something like this: since the power re-
quired for a VTOL airplane is very high for hovering and drops off
rapidly with forward speed, why not design for a short, slow takeoff
and landing which the power requirements are much more modest?
for
This is certainly a logical argument, but there are some compromising
factors involved. For example, it is generally agreed that a STOL
airplane capable of very low-speed operation will require a special
VTOL-type control system for satisfactory flight characteristics at low
speeds. It appears that interconnection of the powerplants will be
another necessity for safe operation of STOL aircraft at very low
speeds in order that the failure of an engine will not cause the aircraft
to go out of control. Experience also indicates that pilots will prob-
ably not make full use of the capabilities of such machines in actual
operation because they will tend to fly them at speeds well above their
minimum takeoff and landing speeds in order to allow a margin of
safety.
Studies of jet airplanes have shown that really short takeoff and
landings cannot be made with STOL types that have installed thrust
much less than the airplane weight and which use only the vertical
component of engine thrust to supplement wing lift. In fact, it appears
that a turbojet STOL aircraft would need a thrust about equal to its
weight to perform a 500-foot takeoff over a 50-foot obstacle even when
its thrust is used in an optimum manner first for acceleration to takeoff
speed and then to supplement wing lift at takeoff. This rather surpris-
ing result can be easily explained by examining the fundamental kine-
matics of the takeoff problem. The turbojet STOL aircraft, even with
its rapid acceleration along the ground at takeoff, still requires an
appreciable distance to reach a speed at which the wing and the
vertical component of the thrust can lift the aircraft off the ground and
to an altitude of 50 feet. The STOL performance of aircraft which
make use of the jet-flap principle to be discussed in Chapter 8 can be
much better than that for the STOL machines which use only the
vertical component of the thrust for extra lift, because the jet-flap air-
craft makes more efficient use of the jet thrust available. It uses the
jet exhaust to get more lift from the wing and thereby obtains a greater
over-all vertical lift from a given amount of engine thrust. Of course,

the so-called turbojet STOL which do not use the engine thrust
aircraft
at all to supplement wing lift have even longer takeoff and landing dis-
tances and are really not STOL aircraft at all in the true sense of the
word.
Because of the various limitations of STOL aircraft, many de-
signers have come to the conclusion that real STOL performance will
only be obtained when the airplane is given VTOL as well as STOL
capability. In this case, of course, we have the V/STOL airplane. It
remains to be seen how well the STOL aircraft now being considered
work out in actual operation. Certainly they cannot be ruled out at
this time for there may be a number of applications for which they
are well suited.

—
ROTOR VTOL AIRCRAFT
of their
5
means
IN CLASSIFYING VTOL AIRCRAFT ON THE BASIS
of propulsion, questions often arise as to the distinction
between rotor and propeller types. We should therefore first define
what we mean by the terms rotor and propeller. These terms at times
have been used interchangeably and, in some cases, the term rotor-
propeller has been used where the designer himself has not been too
sure how he should classify his propulsion system. Of course, there is
no problem when we are considering the helicopter and the conven-

tional propeller-powered airplane. Everyone is in agreement that the
helicopter has a rotor — a relatively large-diameter, lightly loaded
device usually with hinged or flexible blades and with provisions for
cyclic pitch control. The propeller is usually thought of as having a
smaller diameter and a heavier disk loading with rigid blades and no
The problem of clas-
provisions for cyclic pitch changes on the blades.
sification ariseswhen we get combinations of these characteristics
for example, when we decrease the diameter and increase the disk
loading of the rotor, or hinge the blades of the propeller.
64
Rotor VTOL Aircraft 65
For purposes of classification, we will consider that the device is
a rotor if cyclic pitch is used for control in hovering flight. Thus we

between two generally similar VTOL types, the Kaman
will distinguish
K-16 and VZ-2, both of which have hinged blades. The
the Vertol
Kaman machine, which has cyclic pitch control, will be classed as a
rotor type while the VZ-2, which does not have cyclic pitch control,
will be considered a propeller type.
Aircraft-Tilting Type
The helicopter is of course the best known example of the aircraft-

tilting type rotor VTOL machine. As pointed out earlier, we do not
give it extensive treatment in this book because it has been well
covered in recent literature. Also, any detailed discussion of the heli-
copter in all its varied forms is certainly an undertaking that would
require a separate book in itself. So this discussion will be confined
to some general remarks about the various helicopter types, follow-
ing which another aircraft-tilting type — the flying platform — will be
discussed.
Helicopters. The most common method of classifying helicopter
configurations is on the basis of the number and arrangement of
rotors:
L Single rotor
2. Tandem rotors
3. Side-by-side rotors
4. Intermcshing rotors
5. Coaxial rotors
6. Multiple rotors
Helicopters may on the basis of the method by which

also be classified
the rotors are driven. The most common rotor drive is the direct
drive from the engine by means of gearing and shafting. A second
type of rotor drive that has been used on a number of single-rotor heli-
copters is the tip drive in which the rotor is driven by a jet of air or
exhaust gas at the rotor tip. With this tip drive there is no direct con-
nection of the rotor to the engine, so the torque counteraction problem
of the direct drive rotor system is avoided.
The single-rotor helicopter, the type first developed into a useful
Single-rotor helicopter.
machine by Sikorsky, has received far more attention than the other
five types, perhaps because of its basic simplicity. Most single-rotor
configurations have a tail rotor for yaw or directional control to
counteract the torque of the main rotor, but there have been designs,
called gyrodynes, in which the rotor for torque counteraction is
mounted at the side of the aircraft like a propeller and also provides
some propulsion in forward flight. In the case of tip-driven rotors,
where the torque problem has been minimized, directional control has
been provided by vanes or rudders in the rotor downwash. The best-
known examples of single-rotor helicopters have been built by Sikor-
sky, Bell, and Hiller in the United States, Bristol and Westland in
England, Sud Aviation in France, and Mil in Russia. Others who have
built single-rotor types Kaman, Doman, Hughes, Cessna,
include
Seibel, American, Brantly, McDormell, and Lockheed in the United
States; Saunders-Roe in England; Borgward in Germany; and Fiat in
Italy. Recent work by Lockheed and Bell with single-rotor configura-
tions having rigid rotor blades has indicated encouraging possibilities

for improvement in helicopter stability and simplification of design.
Next to the single-rotor helicopter, the tandem-rotor type has re-
ceived most attention in recent years. These machines, which have a
rotor at each end of the fuselage, have an advantage over the single-
rotor type in that they allow more leeway in the loading of cargo.
Since the over-all weight of the helicopter can be distributed in varying
proportions between the two rotors, a fairly large range of center-of-
gravity locations can be tolerated. The tandem configuration is less
efficient than the single-rotor type in forward flight, however, because

(top) Side-by-side-rotor helicopter,
(bottom) Tandem-rotor helicopter.
the rear rotor is in the wake and downwash of the front rotor and is
therefore effectively "flying uphill" and using more power. Also, since
the two rotors must be interconnected for safety reasons, the gearing
and shafting required on the tandem helicopter is heavier and more
complex than for the single-rotor machine. The companies which have
built tandem configurations are Vertol (formerly Piasecki), Bell, and
McCulloch in the United States; Bristol in England; and Yakovlev in
Russia.
Side-by-side rotor types have not proved nearly as popular as the
single-rotor and tandem machines, despite the early success of the
Focke helicopter in Germany. The side-by-side rotors provide a more
efficient means of producing lift in forward flight than any of the other
rotor arrangements because the two rotors effectively give a greater
span. The pylons required to support the side-by-side rotors, how-
ever, add drag which tends to offset this advantage of rotor arrange-
ment. And, like the tandem arrangement, the side-by-side rotor heli-
copter tends to be heavier and more complex than the single-rotor type
because of the necessity for interconnecting the rotors. In this country,
McDonnell is the only manufacturer to build a successful side-by-side
configuration.
67
(top) Intermeshing-rotor helicopter,
(bottom) Coaxial-rotor helicopter.
A variation of the side-by-side type is the intermeshing-rotor heli-

copter, called the synchropter or "egg-beater." By having the two
rotors moved in closer to each other, this configuration can be some-
what more compact and lighter in construction than the side-by-side
type, but it does lose some in lifting ability in the bargain. The inter-
meshing-rotor configuration was invented by Anton Flettner of Ger-
many in 1937, and machines of this type were used quite extensively
by the Germans in World War II. Since the war, most of the develop-
ment of the intermeshing configuration has taken place in the United
States, with Kellett and Kaman producing a number of such aircraft
for the services.
The coaxial-rotor configuration, which has two rotors rotating in
opposite directions about the same axis, has been the subject of numer-
ous studies and developments, but to date no really successful machine
of this type has been built. Many early experimenters turned to the
coaxial type as the answer to the torque problems experienced with
the single-rotor helicopter. Experience has seemed to indicate, how-
ever, that while it is simple in principle the coaxial concept is difficult
68
Multiple-rotor helicopter.
For one thing, the rotor hubs

to incorporate into a practical helicopter.
and controls associated with the counterrotating coaxial rotors are
extremely complex, and a relatively heavy hub and rotor system usu-
ally results. At the present time it appears unlikely that the coaxial
helicopter type will supplant any of the types now in use. The com-
panies which have experimented with the coaxial helicopter in this
country include Hiller, Bendix, and Gyrodyne. Kamov of Russia has
also recently built a number of machines of this type.
Multiple-rotor helicopters were among the first to be successfully
flown (for example, the Breguet machine in 1908 and the deBothezat
machine in 1922), but such configurations have not found much favor
with designers in recent years. One basic advantage of this type is that
the use of three or more rotors makes it possible to obtain control
about all axes by merely increasing or decreasing thrust on the indi-
vidual rotors. This means a reduction in control complexity, for no
cyclic-pitch control is needed. The best known example of the multiple-
rotor type was the Cierva "Air Horse," a British machine with three
rotors first flown in 1948.
Flying platforms. Let us turn from the helicopter to the rotor
VTOL aircraft known as the "flying platform." The two are related
in that both aircraft tilt forward to fly forward; but there is a clear-cut
basic difference between the two — The flying
the method of control.
platform is flown by merely leaning you want to go!
in the direction
The idea for such a machine was conceived in the early 1940's by
Charles H. Zimmerman, the designer of the Chance Vought V-173
airplane described in Chapter 2. He suggested the use of kinesthetic
control — that is, control by shifting one's weight and making use of
natural balancing reactions. Zimmerman reasoned that if a person
(U.S. Army photo.)
The deLackner Aerocycle, a flying platform with counterrotating coaxial rotors, was
flown by kinesthetic control. The pilot simply leaned in the direction he desired to
go.
could fly by using his normal instinct for balancing himself on his
feet, he could learn to fly with little or no training. A machine con-
trolled in this manner was felt to be of interest to the Army for they
had for many years been seeking a small, simple aircraft that the
ordinary soldier could fly with little or no training. Although Zimmer-
man patented the flying platform in the 1940's, it was not until a few
years later in the early 1950's that the principle of kinesthetic control
was established as basically sound in research performed at the Lang-
ley Laboratory of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
or NACA (forerunner of the NASA). This work was done with three
different types of small in which
man-carrying research platforms: one
the hovering thrustwas provided by a compressed air jet, one in which
a rotor was used, and one in which a ducted fan was the hovering
propulsion unit. Once the soundness of the principle had been estab-
lished, the development of two types of flying platforms, one a rotor
70
machine and the other a ducted-fan type, was undertaken by the serv-
ices. The ducted-fan type is described in Chapter 7.
The rotor-powered flying platform developed under Army spon-
sorship was the deLackner Aerocycle, a machine with counterrotating
coaxial rotors mounted below the pilot's platform. The rotors, which
were 15 feet in diameter, were driven by a 25-horsepower outboard
motor in the first machine. The power was later increased to 40 horse-
power. Pitch and roll control were obtained by leaning in the proper
direction, while yaw or steering control was accomplished by turning
a set of handlebars to vary the torque of the two rotors differentially.
The Aerocycle was flight tested quite extensively by the contractor
and the Army, and also at Princeton University. One of the machines
was tested in the full-scale wind tunnel at the NASA Langley Research
Center. Although this work indicated that it was indeed possible
for an unskilled soldier to fly the flying platform, many problems were
revealed which led to a cancellation of the project. One basic problem
of the machine was that it was just not possible for the pilot to lean
far enough forward to fly at more than about 20 miles per hour.
There were also conditions under which the pilot could not shift his
weight enough to correct for disturbances to the machine caused by
gusts of wind, and in some cases the test flights ended in crashes
(luckily without serious injury to the pilot). Although work on this plat-
form has been discontinued, it seems likely that in the future we shall
see more work on improved versions of the flying platform that may
eventually result in useful operational machines for the services.
A rotor-powered flying platform has also been built and flown by
the E. M. Gluhareff Helicopter Corporation. This machine was gen-
erally similar to the deLackner Aerocycle except that it was powered
by pressure-jet engines at the blade tips. A two-place version of this
machine is reportedly planned by Gluhareflf.
Thrust-Tilting Type
Rotor VTOL aircraft of the thrust-tilting type are usually called

tilt-rotor convertiplanes.In the machines of this type built to date, the
wing remains fixed and only the rotors tilt to perform the transition
from hovering to forward flight. This type resembles a side-by-side
helicopter in hovering flight and a conventional airplane with two large
(Bell Helicopter Co.)
convertiplone hovers a helicopter and then tilts its rotors

Bell XV-3 tilt-rotor like
forward to serve as propellers in cruising flight.

propellers in forward flight. Tilt-rotor convertiplanes have been built

and flown by two companies in the United States: Transcendental Air-
craft Corporation and Bell Helicopter Company. Most of this work
was done under joint Army-Air Force sponsorship.
Transcendental built four research machines of the tilt-rotor type
during the 1950's. The third of these research vehicles was a small
single-place aircraft which made its first flight in 1954 and later per-
formed over 1 20 flights including transitions up to about 5 miles 1 1
per hour with the rotors tilted forward 70 degrees and with the wings
sustaining over 90 percent of the weight of the machine. A larger and
more advanced configuration was built in 1956, but the contract for
this work was terminated and the machine was never flown.
The Bell XV-3 tilt-rotor machine has experienced a much greater
degree of success. It is a four-place aircraft designed for observation-
reconnaisance and rescue missions, and was also intended to provide
design and test data for the development of larger, higher performance
machines of this type. The XV-3 is powered by a single reciprocating
engine (Pratt & Whitney R985) which drives two 23-foot diameter
rotors throughout a two-speed transmission that permits the rotors to be
operated at lower rotational speeds for better performance in cruising
flight. The first XV-3 aircraft, built in 1955, had three-blade rotors
and relatively high rotor masts.Following an accident to this aircraft
during which was attributed to a combination of exces-
flight testing,
sive wing flexibility and a tendency of the oscillatory motions of the

rotor to build up, a second aircraft was built with "see-saw" type two-
blade rotors and a shorter rotor mast. This machine successfully com-
pleted transitions from hovering to forward flight in 1958, and since
that time has performed impressively in research programs conducted
by the contractor and the Air Force and by the NASA at its Ames
Research Center. Although certain deficiencies of the XV-3 have
been revealed in the hovering, transition, and cruising phases of flight,
nothing has been found that would indicate that a machine of this type
is not feasible as an operational VTOL aircraft. One unusual prob-
lem found in the cruising flight condition, is a surging fore-and-aft

motion of the aircraft (accelerations and decelerations along the flight
path). This problem, which is especially severe in rough air, is at-
tributed at least partly to the use of the large, lightly loaded rotors as
propellers.
Thrust-Deflection Type
The thrust-deflection rotor VTOL aircraft type is exempUfied by

the Kaman K-16 research airplane built for the Navy. This airplane
has a large full-span extensible wing flap to deflect the rotor slip-
stream downward and also has provisions for increasing the angle of
incidence of the wing with respect to the fuselage so that the fuselage
can remain essentially horizontal in hovering and low-speed flight.
As pointed out earlier in Chapter 4, research has indicated that large

wing flaps cannot efficiently deflect a slipstream more than about 50
or 60 degrees. Although the K-16 incorporates a form of the wing-
tilting principle, it is not classed as a thrust-tUting aircraft because, for
hovering flight, the wing is only tilted 50 degrees and the rest of the
slipstream turning is accomplished by the flaps. In Chapter 6 we will
consider another configuration that involves both wing tilt and slip-
stream deflection with flaps; but in this case we will classify it as a

thrust-tilting type because, for hovering flight, the wing is turned to
90 degrees incidence and the flap is retracted.
The K-16 is a 9,000-pound machine with two 15-foot diameter
rotors which are interconnected with cross shafting and powered by
two T-58 gas turbine engines. A basic feature of this configuration is
the use of helicopter-type cyclic-pitch control in hovering and low-
speed flight. The designers claim that this control system will give the
aircraft better control characteristics than those of most of the other
VTOL aircraft now being flown. Certainly this is a well-proven type of
control, and it does eliminate the necessity for the tail rotors and tail
jets that are required for pitch control (and in some cases, yaw control)
on the VTOL research airplanes that have been flown to date. The
disadvantage of the cyclic pitch control, of course, is that it tends to
be somewhat more complex than the other types of control. A force
testprogram on the K-16 will be carried out in the 40- by 80-foot
Wind Tunnel at the Ames Research Center of NASA before flight
testing is started.
Dual-Propulsion Type
Two types of dual-propulsion rotor VTOL aircraft have been

studied — the stowed-rotor convertiplane and the unloaded-rotor con-
(Kaman Aircraft Corp.)
Artist's drawing of the Kaman K-16 deflected-slipstreom type rotor VTOL research
airplane built for the U.S. Navy.
vertiplane. Work on the stowed-rotor type has been carried out by

Sikorsky Aircraft but has involved only analytical studies and wind-
first designs were
tunnel tests utilizing small-scale models. Sikorsky's
transport types powered by propellers in cruising flight; but later
studies included a supersonic delta wing configuration with a single-
blade stowable rotor and turbojets for propulsion in cruise. The
75
problem of stopping and stowing the rotor for cruising flight ap-
pears to be a formidable one, and to date no one has attempted
to build a craft incorporating this feature. We did note in Chap-
ter 2, however, that Herrick worked on the problem of starting and
stopping the rotor in cruising flight with his convertiplane. Appar-
ently, the problem of unloading the rotor in cruising flight is simpler

than stopping and stowing it, for a fair degree of success has already
been obtained with aircraft of the unloaded-rotor type. Several exam-
ples of unloaded-rotor convertiplanes have been built and flown the —
McDonnell XV- 1 in the United States, the Sud-Ouest Farfadet in
France, the Fairey Gyrodyne and Rotodyne machines in England, and
the Kamov Hoop convertiplane in Russia.
The unloaded-rotor convertiplane, sometimes called the com-
pound helicopter, has a rotor for vertical takeoff and landing and pro-
peUers for propulsion in cruising flight. After takeoff, power is shifted
from the rotor to the propellers and most of the weight of the aircraft
is supported by the wings. In cruising flight the rotor freewheels like
the rotor of an autogiro, and provides very little lift. This unloading of
the rotor and transfer of the load to the wing reduces the drag of the
rotor and permits the machine to cruise faster and more efficiently
than the helicopter. Let us see how this comes about.
The top speed of the high-performance helicopter is in most cases
limited by the drag of its rotor, which increases when the retreating
blade stalls or when the advancing blade experiences compressibility
effects. To understand these two phenomena we must first consider
what happens to the velocity of the blades on each side of the rotor
disk in forward flight. The advancing blade —
that is, the one moving
in the same direction as the helicopter, experiences an effective in-
crease in velocity with forward speed, while the retreating blade, on
the other side of the rotor disk, experiences an effective decrease in
velocity. As the forward speed is increased, the speed of the advancing
blade will eventually approach the speed of sound, where compres-
sibility effects in the form of high drag and erratic air flow occur. On
the other hand, the retreating blade loses more and more velocity with
increasing forward speed and has to operate at higher and higher
angles of attack to carry its share of the load. Eventually a forward
speed is reached where the retreating blade goes beyond its stall angle
of attack trying to produce the necessary lift. Then blade staU occurs
and the drag of the rotor is increased sharply. The unloaded-rotor

convertiplane affords a means of reducing both of these sources of
rotor drag at the higher speeds. By permitting the rotor to operate at
low-lift conditions and low rotational speeds in cruising flight, it de-
lays to a higher speed the occurrence of both rotor stall and rotor
compressibility effects.
The XV- 1 convertiplane was a two-place machine designed to de-
termine the feasibility of the unloaded-rotor principle for possible ap-
plication to larger aircraft. In hovering and low-speed flight, the
31 -foot rotor was driven by pressure-jet units at the rotor tips which
were supplied with compressed air ducted through the hub and rotor
blades. In cruising flight, the rotor autorotated and supplied only
about 15 percent of the lift. A Continental R975 reciprocating engine
powered the compressors for the rotor tip jets and also drove the
small pusher propeller used for propulsion in cruising flight. The
development of the XV- 1 was started in 1949 and the first successful
conversion from helicopter to airplane flight was accomplished in
April 1955. A maximum speed of 200 miles per hour was reached in
the Air Force evaluation program in 1956. Work on the configura-
tion was discontinued after this evaluation program although the re-
^^.-^^ M iiijiiiiH yiiii»iMimiiiPi|flii nyfiliiipfiiiini
(McDonnell Aircraft Corp.)
McDonnell XV-1 unloaded rotor convertiplane employed rotor for hovering and a
pusher propeller for propulsion in forv/ard flight.
(Kaman Aircraft Corp.)
Fairey Rotodyne, an unloaded-rotor or compound helicopter type, is now neoring

final stages of preparation as the first operational VTOL transport other than the
conventional helicopter.
search had indicated some promise for a machine of this general type.
Actually, the XV- 1 itself was not a very impressive machine, partly
because of certain incidental features such as the reciprocating engine
and the pusher-propeller arrangement. As a result of its work with the
XV- 1, McDonnell felt that an unloaded-rotor convertiplane with two
tractor propellers, powered by gas turbine engines would be an excel-

lent VTOL aircraft for certain operations. Although no work on such
a machine has been done in the United States, the Fairey Rotodyne of
Britain is an aircraft of this type.
The Sud-Ouest Farfadet, an unloaded-rotor type with a single
tractor propeller, was built in France in 1954. It had two independent
turbine power units —
one to drive the propeller and the other to
provide compressed air for the combustion chambers at the rotor
blade tips. This impressively clean-looking VTOL aircraft was never
developed into an operational machine.
Fairey's initial work on the unloaded-rotor principle was done
with the Gyrodyne, a small experimental craft powered by a single
piston engine. This engine drove two propellers in cruising flight and
a compressor which supplied air to the pressure jets at the rotor tips
78
Rotor VTOL Aircroft 79
in hovering flight. The work in the early 1950's with this machine
preceded Fairey's next ambitious undertaking in this field — the de-
velopment of the Rotodyne, a large transport aircraft. The Rotodyne
has been the subject of an intensive development effort since its first
flight in 1957, and it is now reported to be in the final stages of prepa-
ration as the first operational VTOL transport other than the heli-
copter. The prototype Rotodyne powered by two Napier Eland
is
turboprop engines which drive the propellers and power auxiliary

compressors which provide compressed air to the pressure-jet units on
the tips of its 90-foot diameter rotor. It is a 48-passenger machine
with a cruising speed of about 160 miles per hour and a top speed of
almost 200 miles per hour. Although this cruising speed is low com-
pared to that of conventional transport airplanes, the Rotodyne can
cut down the travel time from city center to city center by making
use of downtown heliports. For example, it now takes over three hours
to travel between downtown terminals in London and Paris by con-
ventional airplane and airport bus, but it is expected to take only
about two hours by a Rotodyne operating from heliports near the
center of the two cities.
The prototype Rotodyne has completed about 350 developmental
flights including over 200 transitions from hovering to cruising flight.
The production Rotodyne is to be a somewhat larger machine with a

rotor diameter of 109 feet, a gross weight of almost 60,000 pounds
and a passenger capacity of 60. It is to be powered by two Rolls-Royce
Tyne engines which are expected to increase the cruising speed to
about 200 miles per hour. New York Airways and British European
Airways have indicated that they plan to purchase at least 12, and
possibly up to 50, of these machines.
The Hoop unloaded-rotor convertiplane, designed by Kamov of
Russia, made its first official appearance at Moscow's Tushino air
show in 1961. It differs from other unloaded-rotor designs in having
two rotors, one at each wing tip. Also mounted at each wing tip are
the conventional propellers used for propulsion in cruising flight. A
4000-horsepower turbine engine is installed in each wing tip pod for
powering the rotors and propellers. The Hoop was designed to make
use of the AN- 10 transport fuselage which has an 80-passenger ca-
pacity. It has reportedly flown at speedsup to 233 miles per hour.
Although unloaded-rotor convertiplanes do offer sizable gains in
.
Russian Hoop unloaded-rotor convertiplone— first shown at Moscow's Tushino air
show in 1961
performance over the helicopter, they experience some rather serious

problems associated with the unloaded freewheeling rotor at the higher
flight speeds. Under some conditions there is a strong tendency for
the rotor to diverge from its desired attitude and to cause the craft to
go out of control. This tendency can be curbed by the use of artificial
stabilization devices, but of course the addition of gadgetry adds to the
complexity and cost of the machine. Another problem of serious con-
cern to those planning to use the Rotodyne as a civil transport operat-
ing from close-in heliports is the very high noise level associated with
the pressure jets which drive the rotor. Some progress has been made
toward reducing the noise, but this is likely to remain a pressing
problem for some time to come. The actual operating experience with
the Rotodyne during the next few years should provide an indication
of how well these problems have been solved and to what extent the
potential of this particular VTOL type can be realized.
PROPELLER VTOL AIRCRAFT
may seem
6 at first
CONVENTIONAL PROPELLER-DRIVEN AIRPLANES
glance to be readily convertible into VTOL aircraft
with the addition of some provision for turning the slipstream verti-
cally downward. Indeed, VTOL aircraft could be developed in this
way, provided enough additional power were installed to produce a
thrust equal to the weight of the craft. Such a procedure would not
yield a very satisfactory VTOL machine, however, because the pro-
pellers of conventional airplanes are not well suited to producing the
large amount of static thrust required for hovering. In general, a pro-
peller designed for good hovering performance should have a larger
diameter, more blade area, and greater camber or curvature of the
blade than the conventional airplane propeller which is designed pri-
marily for efficiency in cruising flight. Since a VTOL aircraft must be
made reasonably efficient in both hovering and cruising com-
flight,
promises must be made in its propeller design; and the design features
of the VTOL aircraft propeller are generally determined more from
consideration of static thrust in hovering than from consideration of
82
Propeller VTOL Aircraft 83
efficiency in cruising flight. In simple terms, the reason for favoring the
hovering condition in the propeller design compromise is that more
range can usually be obtained by designing a VTOL airplane to lift
a greater amount of fuel off the ground at takeoff than by designing it
to have especially good propulsive efficiency in cruising flight.
The VTOL aircraft propeller will usually be a few feet greater in

diameter than the propeller for a conventional airplane of the same
size. For example, a conventional transport airplane that uses 14-foot
propellers may need 20-foot propellers if it is transformed into a
VTOL airplane. The VTOL propeller will also have relatively wide-
chord blades for good static thrust effectiveness, and these blades in-
troduce a performance problem in cruising flight. In order to permit

the wide-chord blades to operate efficiently, it is usually necessary to
reduce the rotational speed of the propeller in forward flight.
The camber or curvature of the blade sections is another impor-

tant design feature affecting the efficiency of the propeller under vari-
ous operating conditions. A large amount of camber is desirable in
hovering since it permits the blade to produce a large amount of lift
for a given power and therefore good static thrust effective-

results in
ness. In cruising flight, however, the camber should be fairly small
for best efficiency. Again there must be a compromise and propellers
with a moderate amount of camber are usually chosen for VTOL
aircraft. After the various compromises and adjustments are made in
its design the VTOL propeller is certain to be less efficient in cruising

flight than the conventional airplane propeller. With careful design,
efficiencies of approximately 90 percent can be realized with conven-
tional propellers; but efficiencies of fixed-camber VTOL propellers in
cruising flight will usually range from about 70 to 80 percent, with
the lower values being obtained at the higher cruising speeds.
It appears highly desirable to have a propeller that can change its
camber in flight to give both good hovering and good cruising effi-
ciency. Various means of accomplishing this camber change have been

proposed, the most promising of which seems to be the variable-cam-
ber propeller being developed by the Hamilton Standard Division of
United Aircraft Corporation. Each blade of this propeller actually con-
sists of two narrow blades, closely spaced and arranged in tandem. For
hovering flight, the blade pitch angles are adjusted so that together the
two blades form what is effectively a highly cambered airfoil. For
Hamilton Standard variable-camber propeller has pairs of blades mounted in
tandem which can be set at different angles to give good efficiency in both hover-
ing and cruising flight.
(United Aircraft Corp.)
two blades are set parallel to each other to give

cruising flight, the
two individual low-camber surfaces. Although this variable-
effectively
camber arrangement has not yet been proved in flight, it does appear
to be promising on the basis of analysis and tests to date.
Aircraft-Tilting Types
Much of the early work on propeller VTOL aircraft was done in

the United States with machines of the aircraft-tilting type, exempli-
fied by the Convair XFY-1 and Lockheed XFV-1 airplanes built for
the Navy. These airplanes, popularly termed "Pogo" types, have usu-
ally been classified as tail-sitters because, for takeoff and landing, they
sit on their tails with their noses pointed skyward. Zimmerman's V-173
airplane described in Chapter 2 was intended
to be a machine of this
same general type but, as we pointed out earlier, it did not have
enough power to hover. Perhaps the work on the V-173 served to in-
crease the Navy's interest in VTOL aircraft of this type, however, for
(above) Position of blades for cruise,
(left) Position of blades for hovering.
it was not long after the cancellation of this project that the Navy
undertook the development work that eventually led to the XFY-1
and XFV-1 airplanes. In the early stages of this development the Navy
was assisted by the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics
(NACA), which carried out exploratory research with free-flying
models had indicated that VTOL
starting in 1949. After this research
airplanes of the tail-sitter type could be flown, the Navy in 1951 went
—
ahead with plans to obtain two prototypes the XFY-1 and the XFV-1
— in order to study the operational problems associated with such
machines.
The Convair XFY-1 was a 14,000-pound delta wing configuration
powered by the 5,000-horsepower Allison YT-40A turboprop engine
driving 16-foot counterrotating coaxial propellers. Conventional
control surfaces at the trailing edge of the wing and tails provided
control during vertical takeoff and landing as well as in forward flight,
since they were immersed in the high-velocity propeller slipstream and

were therefore effective even when the airplane was hovering. Flight
tests of the XFY-1 were started in 1954 in a special tethered-flight rig

installed in an airship hangar and a short
at MoflFett Field, California;
time later free hovering were made outside. In November,
flights
1954, the airplane performed a complete VTOL operation for the

first time. It took off vertically, tilted forward to perform the transi-
tion to cruising flight, cruised awhile as a conventional airplane, then

performed the transition back to hovering flight and made a vertical
landing.It was truly a magnificent performance, the first time in his-
tory that any VTOL had accomplished

aircraft except the helicopter
the complete VTOL operation. Several flights were made
more such
during the following year, but persistent trouble with the engine and
propellers finally led to a termination of the project in 1956. The air-
plane was moved to the air museum of the Smithsonian Institution in

1957.
Besides being plagued with engine and propeller problems, the
XFY-1 was considered by the services to be unsuitable as an opera-
tional aircraft because of its vertical attitude for takeoff and landing.
This feature not only made servicing the airplane difficult but also led
to piloting difficulties. Although the pilot had an adjustable seat that
rotated him forward a bit when the airplane was in the vertical at-
titude, he was still, in effect, lying on his back with his feet in the air.
As a result he had to make vertical takeoffs and landings while look-

ing back over his shoulder at the ground. It was a credit to the skill
of the pilot, "Skeets" Coleman, that under these conditions no serious
mishap marred the flight testing of the XFY-1. Actually, except for
this problem of pilot orientation during takeoff and landing, the ma-
chine was not very difficult to fly, and the pilot accomplished the
transitions from hovering to forward flight and back to hovering with-
out the benefit of any assistance from artificial stabilization devices.
The development of the Lockheed XFV- 1 proceeded concurrently

with that of the XFY-1. This machine had an upswept wing and four
tail surfaces arranged in the form of an X. These tail surfaces, operat-
ing in the propeller slipstream, provided control in hovering and for-
(top) The Convair XFY-1 tail-sitter VTOL airplane in cruising flight,
(bottom) The XFY-1 sat on its tail for takeoff and landing.
:^l^
^^ \
"". NAVY
"J I
UHHSHBSB-
(Convair Division, General Dynamics Corp.)
(Lockheed Aircraft Corp.)
The Lockheed XFV-1 was a tail-sitter VTOL airplane powered by a 5,000-horse-

power engine driving 16-foot-diameter counterrotating propellers.
ward The engine and propeller combination was the same as

flight.
that used on the XFY-1. The flight testing of the XFV-1, which
started in 1954, included 32 transitions from cruising flight to hover-
ing made at altitude; but no vertical takeoff s and landings were ever
attempted. The tail-sitter landing gear installed on the four tail sur-
faces had a fairly narrow tread which gave the impression that the
machine might have overturned rather easily during rough vertical
landings. The airplane was equipped with a special horizontal-attitude
landing gear to permit conventional takeoffs and landings for the
research flights. The XFV-1 project was terminated in 1956 at the
same time as the XFY-1 project and for the same basic reasons.
Aerial jeeps. Another propeller VTOL machine of the aircraft-
tilting type was the four-propeller aerial jeep or light combat aerial
vehicle built by the Aerophysics Development Corporation (later
known as the Santa Barbara Division of Curtiss-Wright). The work
on the aerial jeep aircraft was sponsored by the Army which had long
desired to possess a compact vehicle having the versatility of the
ground jeep combined with the ability to hover and fly forward at
moderate speeds a few feet off the ground. They felt that this added
capability would eliminate road and terrain restrictions associated
with ground vehicles without requiring clearings or landing strips of
the type needed for airplanes. The Army was seeking the ultimate
development of a general utility vehicle that could fly forward at
speeds up to 50 miles per hour, stay in the air for several hours, and
carry up to 1,000 pounds of weapons or equipment. In 1957, as the
first step towards this goal, they awarded three contracts for design,
construction, and testing of flying research vehicles of this type. These

contracts were with Aerophysics Development Corporation, Chrysler
Corporation, and Piasecki Aircraft Corporation. The latter two con-
tracts were for ducted-fan aerial jeep configurations which will be dis-
cussed in the next chapter.
(U.S. Army photo.)
Curtiss-Wright VZ-7 aerial jeep, a light VTOL utility vehicle built for the U.S. Army.
The Curtiss-Wright aerial jeep, designated the \7L-1 , was origi-

nally intended to be a ducted-fan or shrouded-propeller arrangement,
but in its form it had four unshrouded 80-inch-diameter pro-
final
pellers. It was powered by a Turbomeca Artouste II gas turbine en-

gine which provided about 425 horsepower. Having four propellers
arranged in a square pattern, the machine was able to make use of a
simple control system involving only changes in thrust of the indi-
vidual propellers. Additional yaw control was provided by a vane in
the engine exhaust and by vertical surfaces in the propeller slipstream.
The VZ-7 performed generally satisfactorily in its flight test program,
making flights as long as 25 minutes and giving the impression of
being an easily controllable machine. It was seldom flown more than
a few feet off the ground, however, and did not reach the desired
50-mile-an-hour top speed in the tests. The project was terminated by
the Army 1960 after the research program had provided the de-
in
sired information on this aerial jeep type. At the present time there
are no plans for the development of an operational machine, appar-
ently because the Army feels that, at the present state of the art, the
aerial jeep cannot quite be the simple and easy-to-fly machine they
had hoped for with the type of performance they require. Some addi-
tional points regarding the aerial jeep concept will be covered in the
discussion of ducted-fan machines in the next chapter.
A small VTOL machine similar in concept to the aerial jeep but
having the appearance of an "aerial motorcycle" was built and flown
in 1958 by Igor Bensen, the well-known sport gyroplane manufac-
turer.This aircraft designated the Model B-10 had tandem propellers,
each driven by a 72-horsepower McCulloch engine. The pilot sat
between the propellers and operated vanes in the slipstream to con-
trol the machine.
Thrust-Tilting Type
Propeller VTOL aircraft of the thrust-tilting type have been the

subject of extensive research in the United States during the last few
years. Some work on this type has also been done in Canada and
England, but the primary interest in such machines has been centered
in this country and now seems to be shared by a large segment of the
military services and the aeronautical industry. Perhaps the greatest
(NASA.)
Large six-propeller tilt-wing research model mounted in NASA Langley Full-Scale
Tunnel for force testing.
appeal ofthis VTOL type is that in cruising flight it can so closely re-
semble conventional propeller-powered airplanes both in appearance
and performance. It approaches the ideal arrangement mentioned
earlier— a conventional, efficient airplane with vertical takeoff and
landing capability added.
Two different types of thrust-tilting propeller VTOL aircraft have
been studied: the tilt-wing and the tilt-propeller types. In the tilt-wing
type, both the wing and propellers are tilted from the vertical to the
horizontal position to perform the transition from hovering to cruising
flight. The tilt-propeller type, on the other hand, involves no change in
wing incidence; only the propellers tilt to perform the transition.

Research aircraft of these two types which have been flown include the
Vertol VZ-2 and Hiller X-18 tilt-wing machines and the Curtiss-
Wright X-100 tilt-propeller aircraft. NASA and its predecessor
NACA have also carried out an extensive research program on tilt-
wing configurations, and this work has to some extent been respon-
sible for the increasing interest of the services and industry in this
VTOL type. In addition to Vertol and companies which
Hiller, other
have shown interest in the tilt-wing type include Grumman, North
91
(NASA.)
Vertol VZ-2 tilt-wing aircraft, an Army machine used by NASA in VTOL flight
research.
American (Columbus Division), Chance Vought, Douglas, Canadair,

Ryan, McDonnell and Kaman. The Tri-Service V/STOL transport
airplane to be covered in Chapter 10 is a configuration of this type
being built by Chance Vought, Hiller, and Ryan.
Tilt-wing type. The tilt-wing type has one important basic prob-
lem that is inherent in its design: a tendency for the wing to stall at
high angles of wing incidence as the transition is performed. This wing

stall problem was discussed in Chapter 4. For tilt-wing configurations
it can become especially objectionable during steep, low-speed descents
with partial power and high wing incidence angles. Although the
wing-stallingproblem is a formidable one, research studies with tilt-
wing configurations have indicated some promising solutions. The
use of a larger wing chord and the installation of trailing-edge wing
flaps and leading-edge stall control devices have all been shown to be
beneficial in alleviating the stall. For a given wing chord, a beneficial

effect can be obtained by the use of a higher propeller disk loading
92
which means higher sHpstream velocities over the wing to help keep
it unstalled. Since it appears that the use of a moderately large wing
flap will almost certainly be required for satisfactory stall character-
istics on tilt-wing aircraft, we might consider that we have in this case
a combination of the tilt-wing and deflected-slipstream principles. We
will refer to this combination type as a tilt-wing-and-flap configura-
tion.
One aspect of the wing stall problem of the tilt-wing configuration

that requires some special attention is the stall over portions of the
—
wing that are not in the propeller slipstream for example, the inboard
portion of the wing that is over the fuselage. Possible means of allevi-
ating this problem include the installation of special fairings and the
use of wing slats or boundary layer control.
Most of the flight research on tilt-wing VTOL aircraft to date has
been carried out with the Vertol VZ-2, a machine which was financed
by the Army Transportation Corps and built under the technical cog-
nizance of the Office of Naval Research. The VZ-2 is a small air-
craft which was designed to explore the tilt-wing principle within a
very short time and at very low cost. It is powered by a single Lycom-
ing T-53 turbine engine mounted externally on top of the fuselage.
Power is transmitted by mechanical shafting to two three-blade pro-
pellers and to two tail control fans which provide yaw and pitch con-
trol in hovering flight. Roll control in hovering is obtained by varying
the thrust of the two propellers differentially. The airplane is equipped
with an artificial stabilization system that can provide additional
damping of motions about the and pitch axes when needed.
roll
The VZ-2 was first flown 1957 and since that time has been
in
flight tested extensively by the contractor and by the NASA at its
Langley Research Center. This research has revealed a number of

problems, some basic to the tilt-wing itself and some probably asso-
ciated only with the particular design of the VZ-2. One of the basic
problems encountered was the wing stalling discussed earlier. In its
original configuration, the VZ-2 had no flaps or slats installed and
experienced serious wing stall. During level flight transitions, this
stalling occurred at a wing incidence of 25 or 30 degrees and pro-
duced unsteady motions of the aircraft and buffeting of the structure.

During partial-power descents, the stalling became more pronounced
and occurred over a greater range of speeds and incidence angles.
The pilots considered that steep descents under such conditions were
hazardous operations that should be avoided. During the NASA re-
search program, the addition of a drooped leading edge to the wing to
delay and soften the stall provided a pronounced improvement in
flight characteristics in the transition range. Although some wing stall
was still present even in level flight, it appeared to cause no trouble,

and fairly steep descents could be made without encountering serious
difficulties due to stalling. These results plus the results of wind tun-
nel research studies provide encouraging proof that it should be pos-
sible to alleviate the stalling problems of future tilt-wing types by
careful design.
Another problem encountered by the VZ-2 in its flight test pro-
gram was a tendency towards rougher flights when hovering near the
ground. The pilot reported that the airplane was subject to the
"dithers" when flying at heights less than about 15 feet. The aircraft
experienced buffeting and random motions in these hovering flights,
apparently because of the recirculation of the two propeller slip-
streams. was explained earlier in Chapter 3 how two slipstreams

It
impinging on the ground can produce an upflow in the plane of sym-

metry of the airplane. The upflow in this case altered the inflow to
the propellers and, since the upflow was not a smooth consistent flow
there were erratic changes in the forces and moments produced by the
propellers.
Following completion of the flight test program on the VZ-2 in its
original configuration, the aircraft was tested in the NASA Langley
FuU-Scale Tunnel and is now being modified for further flight testing.
These modifications include the addition of trailing-edge wing flaps

to help minimize the wing stalling problem, and the alteration of the
aileron control surfaces on the wing to serve as a yaw control in
hovering flight.
The second tilt-wing research airplane, the Air Force-sponsored

Hiller X-18 was a much larger machine than the VZ-2. Its design
gross weight was about 32,000 pounds (or about 10 times that of
the VZ-2), and in some tests it weighed even more. The X-18 was
constructed largely from existing components of other airplanes. Its
power plant consisted of two of the engine-propeUer combinations
used on the XFY-1 and XFV-1 airplanes, and the fuselage and tail
assembly were modified components of a C-122 military transport
I
(Miller Aircraft Corp.)
Hiller X-18 tilt-wing airplane, a 32,000-pound research aircraft built for the U.S.
Air Force.
airplane. A J-34 jet engine was mounted at the tail of the airplane to
provide thrust for pitch control in hovering flight. Differential pro-
peller thrust was used for roll control in hovering, and the conven-
tional aileron surfaces, which were immersed in the propeller slip-
stream, were used for yaw control in hovering. Although the X-18
was not intended to represent an operational VTOL machine, it was
expected that it would provide useful research information regarding
the probable operating problems of such machines.
The X-18 was first flown in July 1959, but during its limited flight
test program over the following year, no transitions from hovering to
cruising flight were made. Most of the flight testing was done at
altitude following conventional running takeoffs. The highest wing tUt
angle achieved in flight was 33 degrees, but since the fuselage angle
of attack was 17 degrees at the time, the total wing angle was 50
degrees. The airplane experienced severe buffeting because of wing
stall in some flight conditions with the wing tilted, but the use of a
drooped wing leading edge similar to that tested on the Vertol VZ-2
reduced the severity of the buffeting. The flight program on the X-18
was terminated in July, 1960 primarily because of two basic features
which prevented the aircraft from performing the complete transition.
First, the roll control system for hovering and low-speed flight was
unsatisfactory because there was too much lag involved in changing
the propeller thrust with the particular engine controls used. Second,
there was no interconnection between the two engines, which meant
that a failure of one engine during hovering or low-speed flight could
produce a catastrophic asymmetry. These two features were the result
of trying to make use of existing airplane components with as httle
modification as possible. Of course, in an operational VTOL machine
it would be imperative to have good control of the propeller thrust for
adequate roll control, and it would also be essential to incorporate
some feature such as engine interconnection to insure safety in the
event of engine failure.
In addition to the limited flight test program with the X-18, a test
stand program to cover the hovering flight condition is also being
conducted. This test stand program is intended to provide full-scale
data on some of the problems mentioned earlier in connection with
ground interference and slipstream recirculation effects. One interest-
ing bit of information obtained in some of the early tests of the air-
plane was that during hovering flight near the ground at a weight of
35,000 pounds, there was an upload of about 10,000 pounds on the
bottom of the fuselage. This favorable ground effect on the fuselage
caused by the recirculating slipstream was explained in Chapter 3.
Tilt-propeller type. Now let us turn from the tilt-wing type to the
tilt-propeller type in which the wing remains fixed while the pro-
pellers tilt. The primary advantages of keeping the wing fixed are that
the structural problems are alleviated to some extent and that the
chances of wing stall during the transition are minimized. On the other
hand, there is a thrust loss in hovering and low-speed flight when the
wing is in the downward blast from the propellers, and the aircraft
is less efficient in transition flight and during STOL operation because
it does not have a lifting wing immersed in the high-velocity propeller
slipstream. Both the tilt-wing and tilt-propeller principles appear to be

feasible for application to operational VTOL aircraft. The choice
between the two willdepend upon the particular application involved
and the relative importance of the advantages and disadvantages for
the specific case at hand.
The only tilt-propeller VTOL aircraft flown to date was the
Curtiss-Wright X-100, a 3,500-pound machine powered with a T53
(Curtiss-Wright Corp.)
Curtiss-Wright X-100 tilt-propeller research aircraft in hovering flight. Only the

propellers tilted to perform the transition to forward flight.
turbine engine driving propellers at the tips of its small stub wings.
The propellers had blades of rather wide chord to take advantage of
the so-called radial lift of the propeller — that is, the lift force that a
propeller experiences at right angles to its thrust when it is inclined
to the wind. The wider the blade chord, the greater is the lift from
this source. It appears doubtful, however, that it is desirable to in-
crease the lift in this manner because the wide chord blades tend to
make the propeller less efficient as a thrust device in cruising flight.
The X-100 used differential propeller thrust for roll control in hover-
ing and had vanes in the jet tail for yaw and
engine exhaust at the
pitch control.The airplane was test flown quite extensively in 1960
and made numerous transitions from hovering to cruising flight. In
some respects its performance during these tests was impressive, and
most of the problems that arose appeared to be associated with the
particular design and not with the tilt-propeller type in general. Per-
haps the main conclusion that can be drawn from the work on the
X-100 is that a fairly simple, straightforward propeller VTOL aircraft
without serious wing-stalling problems can be built along these lines,
but it is likely to be a less efficient machine than the tilt-wing type for
most applications because it does not fully utilize wing lift in low-
speedflight. For propeller VTOL applications in which STOL opera-
tion is unimportant, the tilt-propeller type deserves serious considera-

tion.
As a follow-up to the work on the X-IOO, Curtiss-Wright is de-

veloping the Model 200, a small tilt-propeller VTOL transport of
unique design. This machine has four propellers in a tandem arrange-
ment, that is one on each side of the fuselage at the nose and at the
tail. A configuration of this type can have a simple yet powerful
control system, but it is inherently less efficient than a conventional
design in cruising flight because of its shorter wing span and therefore
greater induced drag. The Model 200 is intended to be a 6-place
machine with a design gross weight of about 12,000 pounds and
a top speed of about 400 miles per hour.
(Curtiss-Wright Corp.)
Curtiss-V/right Model 200 configuration has four tiltable propellers at the tips of its
tandem wings.
In Germany, Dornier has been working with a tilt-propeller con-

figuration, the Do 29 for several years, but this machine is not
designed for VTOL operation. It has two pusher propellers which
can be tilted downward to provide additional lift for short field
takeoff and landing. The airplane weighs about 5,300 pounds and
is powered by two Lycoming GO-480 engines.
There has been some consideration given by VTOL aircraft de-

signers to configurations in which the wing and propellers tilt inde-
pendently of each other. Although such an arrangement appears to
involve a substantial increase in complexity, it does offer the promise
of taking advantage of the best features of both the tilt-wing and tilt-
propeller types. That is, the benefits of wing lift can be realized with
less danger of encountering wing stall and its attendant problems.
One rather extreme suggestion that has been made along this line is
that the incidence of different portions of the wing be varied inde-
pendently to allow for the difference in angle of attack behind the
upgoing and downgoing propeller blades.
Thrust-deflection propeller VTOL aircraft have usually been re-

ferred to as deflected-slipstream configurations. In some respects,
such configurations are quite similar to conventional propeller air-
planes with high-lift flaps. The conventional airplane uses the flap to
produce greater lift on the wing so that takeoffs and landings can be
made at lower speeds. This flap turns a portion of the slipstream
downward a few degrees in the process of producing the extra lift.
The amount of extra lift produced increases as we increase the size
of the flap and its downward deflection and also as we increase the
propeller thrust. Thus, if we go to the extreme by using a very large
flap with a deflection of about 90 degrees and then increase the
propeller thrust to a value greater than the gross weight of the air-
craft, we have transformed the conventional airplane into a deflected-
slipstream VTOL airplane. Of course, there are a few odds and
ends, such as a hovering control system, which must be added before
we can claim true VTOL capability.
Interest in deflected-slipstream configurations dates back at least
to World War I when Dr. Zahm designed the machine described in
Chapter 2, but serious work on such machines was not started until the
early 1950's when the NACA initiated a basic research program on
the deflected-slipstream principle. The attractiveness of such a con-
figuration was in its close resemblance to conventional aircraft and
the fact that transition could be accomplished without any tilting of
wings or propellers. Unfortunately, research has revealed some
basic problems associated with this type of aircraft —problems that
have somewhat dimmed the hopes of its advocates that it would
prove to be the simplest and best propeller VTOL type. Let us first
look at some of these problems before discussing the various VTOL
research aircraft of this type that have been built.
One basic problem of the deflected-slipstream type is that it suffers
a substantial loss in thrust in turning the propeller slipstream down-
ward as pointed out in Chapter 4. If an attempt is made to turn the
slipstream a full 90 degrees so that the fuselage can remain level in
hovering flight, the thrust loss is so great that any consideration of
this type for VTOL operation must be completely ruled out. If the
flap is only required to turn the slipstream 50 or 60 degrees, with
the rest of the turning being accomplished by fuselage attitude or
wing incidence, the loss can be held down to about 10 percent. But
even this is a relatively serious loss when it is considered that other
configurations such as the tilt-wing suffer no thrust loss at all in
hovering. Moreover, this thrust loss will be even greater when the
airplane is near the ground unless a very steep nose-high attitude is
assumed by the aircraft for takeoff and landing. Another less serious
basic problem of the deflected-slipstream type is the nose-over pitch-
ing moment experienced as a result of the fact that the vertical lift
produced by deflecting the flap usuaUy acts at a point well behind

the center of gravity of the airplane. Of course, provisions can be
made to balance out this moment with the controls; but if a download
at the tail is used for this purpose, we have another loss in vertical
lift caused by the download. In transition flight, the deflected-slip-
stream type has a stall problem that is similar to, but generally less
serious than, that of the tilt-wing type. It is a more efficient aircraft
in transition flight and in STOL operations than the pure tilt-wing
type, but most of the advantage of the deflected-slipstream type in
this respect is lost when the tilt-wing machine is fitted with a moderate-
size wing flap. As pointed out earlier, when we add a flap to the
tilt- wing we are really just combining the tilt-wing and deflected-
slipstream principles.
Deflected-slipstream research aircraft. Three research aircraft of
the deflected-slipstream type have been built in the United States, two
of them financed by the Army and the third a private venture. The
Army machines are the Ryan VZ-3 and the Fairchild VZ-5, while
was built by Robertson Aircraft Corporation.
the other craft
The Ryan VZ-3 is a small single-place machine powered by a
T53 turbine engine which drives two 9-foot diameter propellers.
Slipstream deflection for hovering and low-speed flight is accomplished
by a large-chord, two-segment flap on a high wing with underslung
nacelles. For hovering flight, a swivelling turbine exhaust nozzle at
the tail provides pitch and yaw
control, and differential propeller
pitch is used for Although a thrust deficiency in ground
roll control.
effect prevented the airplane from making vertical takeoffs and land-
ings in its flight tests, hovering flight was achieved out of ground
effect following takeoffs made with a short ground run. Transitions
were also accomplished satisfactorily but close attention was required
(Ryan Aeronautical Co.)
Ryan VZ-3 deflected-slipstream research aircraft has large extensible flaps for
turning the propeller slipstream downward for hovering flight.
of the pilot to stay within the fairly narrow "corridor" of safe operat-
ing conditions defined by certain combinations of speed, power, flap
angle, and airplane angle of attack. When the airplane was operated
within this "corridor" of conditions the transitions were impressively
smooth and easy to make. In a checkout flight with a new pilot,
however, the machine was inadvertently allowed to depart from this
"corridor" during a transition and immediately went out of control.
It performed almost three-quarters of a loop, ending up in an in-
verted attitude diving toward the earth at a fairly high speed. The
pilot managed to eject himself from the cockpit and use his parachute
before the plane crashed. Although the machine was severely damaged,
it has been rebuilt by NASA for a research program to be conducted
at the Ames Research Center. The decision to rebuild the aircraft

was based on the impressive low-speed characteristics it demonstrated
during its earlier flights. The pilots felt that it was easier to fly at
low speeds than some of the other VTOL types. In the process of
rebuilding the VZ-3, changes were incorporated in the machine to
effectively widen the "corridor" of safe operating conditions in the
transition.
The Fairchild VZ-5 is a two-place machine powered by a single
T58 engine which drives four propellers through a system of shafting
the gear boxes and furnishes hydraulic power for the operation of
the flaps and tail control fans. The airplane has a strut-braced high
wing equipped with a 50-percent chord, full-span flap. Vertical takeoff
is achieved by using a ground attitude angle of about 30 degrees and
a slipstream turning angle of about 60 degrees. In hovering flight,

roll control is obtained by differential propeller pitch of the outboard
propellers while pitch and yaw control are provided by tail fans.
Numerous delays were experienced in the design and construction
of the airplane and in its preparation for testing. As a result, no tests
except ground tie-down tests and force tests in the NASA Langley
Full-Scale Tunnel have been run to date. Because of certain design
deficiencies revealed in the tunnel tests, the airplane may never be
flown.
The Robertson Aircraft Corporation deflected-slipstream con-
figuration was designed and built not primarily as a research aircraft
but as the prototype of an airplane which the company hoped to put
^^ # U.S. ARM
^^
(Fairchild Engine and Airplane Co.)
Fairchild VZ-5 deflected-slipstream research aircraft has four interconnected pro-

pellers driven by a single turbine engine installed in fuselage.
on the market. It was a fourplace high-wing airplane powered by two

340-horsepower Lycoming reciprocating engines, each driving a
three-blade propeller. It was equipped with a large-chord flap, a
leading-edge slat, and wing tip fuel tanks that also served as end-
plates to aid the slipstream turning. The airplane was underpowered
and had certain control deficiencies, but it did make a few brief
hovering flights and at least one transition from hovering to forward
flight in ground effect. Although the work on this machine did not
turn out to be very fruitful, it was a refreshing example of an attempt

to develop a VTOL aircraft with private rather than government
capital.
Deflected-slipstream STOL aircraft. Some mention should also
be made here of the various STOL aircraft of the deflected-slipstream
type which have received considerable attention during the last few
years. Although numerous so-called STOL aircraft have been built
and flown, only a few of them should really be classed as STOL ma-
chines. Of course, the term STOL means different things to different
people, but it would seem desirable to reserve its use for the really
high performance short takeoff and landing aircraft that are designed
to take full advantage of their installed power for producing high
103
(S. A. d'Ateliers d'Ax'iation Louis Breguet.)
Breguet 941 STOL airplane makes use of full-span wing flaps in the propeller
slipstream to take ofF and land with very short ground runs.
lift and that have the necessary features to permit controlled flight
at very low speeds of operation.
Perhaps the best example to date of a true STOL aircraft of the
deflected-slipstream type is the Breguet 940 "Integral," built by the
French firm, S. A. d'Ateliers d'Aviation Louis Breguet. The 940,
which Breguet calls a "blown-wing" configuration, weighs about
15,000 pounds and is powered by four 400-horsepower Turbomeca
engines driving four interconnected 12.6-foot diameter propellers.
The slipstream covers most of the wing and is turned downward
by full-span wing flaps. The control system is especially designed to
have good efl'ectiveness at low speeds. For example, roll control at
low speeds is provided by differential thrust of the outboard propellers.
First flown in 1958, the 940 has been tested extensively since that
time and has demonstrated a minimum speed of 38 knots. FuUy loaded
it can take and clear a 50-foot obstacle in about 600 feet, and it
off
takes only a little over 500 feet for the landing. To follow up their
work with the 940, Breguet has built the 941 a 45,000-pound machine
designed to carry 40 to 50 passengers. It is powered by four 1250-
horsepower Turbomeca Turmo III D engines driving 15-foot propel-
lers, and is said to have essentially the same short takeoff and landing
performance as the 940. One interesting feature of the Breguet 941 is

the provision for an unusual variation of propeller pitch to permit

making steeper landing approaches. On the approach, the outboard
propellers are put into low pitch to provide a braking effect while the
inboard propellers provide the necessary thrust. The resulting re-
distribution of the slipstream and wing lift permits relatively steep
landing approaches to be made without excessive loss of control.
Breguet has recently designed a military STOL transport, the 945,
with many of thesame design features as the 941 and has entered
this design in a French government competition for a military cargo
transport.
Another STOL airplane is the Lockheed C-130 Her-
interesting
cules with blowing boundary layer control recently tested by Lock-
heed Aircraft Corporation with some assistance from the Air Force.
By applying the boundary layer control (BLC) to the wing flaps and
to all the control surfaces, they reduced the minimum speed of the
airplane to 50 knots (with a gross weight of 100,000 pounds) and
retained fairly good control characteristics at this low speed. Since
the airplane did not have interconnected propellers and could experi-
ence a large asymmetric lift in event of the failure of an outboard
engine, its was somewhat higher than its mini-
safe operating speed
mum speed. With a gross weight of 100,000 pounds, the airplane
could perform takeoffs and landings over a 50-foot obstacle in dis-
tances of about 1 ,500 feet.
DUCTED-FAN VTOL AIRCRAFT
VTOL
7
aircraft types
BEFORE DISCUSSING THE VARIOUS DUCTED-FAN
it is appropriate first to explain the term ducted
fan as it is used here. The ducted fan may be defined generally as a
propeller or fan within a shroud or duct. Sometimes arrangements
consisting of a propeller within a shroud have been called shrouded
propellers or ducted propellers, while installations of highly loaded fans
within ducts submerged in the wing or fuselage have been referred
to as buried fans. Because of certain general basic similarities between
these two types, they have often been combined into a single propul-
sion type — the ducted fan. In this chapter we will consider all the
ducted-fan VTOL aircraft covered by this broad definition. As pointed
out in Chapter 1, the turbofan engine will not be classed as a ducted
fan, but as a variation of the turbojet engine covered in Chapter 8
because it involves the use of a very highly loaded fan integrated
into the design of the turbine engine.
The ducted fan had not seen much application as a propulsion
system for aircraft until the development of the turbine engine and
106
Ducted-Fan VTOL Aircraft 107
the accompanying surge of interest in VTOL aircraft designs of all

types. In competition with the propeller, the ducted fan offers the
advantages of compactness and the possibility of increased efficiency
but may have offsetting disadvantages such as greater drag and weight.
The duct also provides a desirable safety feature, serving as a guard
to prevent the fan from being damaged by surrounding objects and
to protect people from injury by the fans. This feature makes the
ducted fan especially attractive for applications involving flight in
confined spaces and "nap of the earth." The Army, for
flight in the
example, is particularly interested in these operations in the "nap

of the earth" —
operations that involve flying at very low altitude,
in and out among trees and generally taking advantage of terrain
features to avoid detection. In competition with the turbojet, the
ducted fan offers greater hovering efficiency and a slower, cooler
slipstream, but has the disadvantage of being a heavier and more
complex propulsion installation.
Let us take a closer look at the comparison of the ducted fan and
the conventional unshrouded propeller. One basic difference between
the two is that the slipstream behind a propeller necks down so that
its cross-sectional area downstream is only one-half the propeller
disk area, while the slipstream behind a ducted fan does not contract
but stays the same size as the exit of the duct. By preventing this
necking-down effect, the ducted fan is able to produce the same size
slipstream as that produced by a propeller having a much greater di-
ameter than the duct. Theoretically, it can be shown that for a given
The slipstream necks down behind a propeller, but the duct of the ducted fan
prevents any contraction of its slipstream.
amount of power a ducted fan will provide the same amount of thrust
as a propeller having a diameter 1.41 times the duct exit diameter.
The ducted fan can therefore be a relatively compact propulsion unit
compared to the propeller. In addition, the fan within the duct has
much smaller blade-tip losses than a conventional propeller because
of a beneficial end-plate effect of the duct walls, making it somewhat
more These two basic advantages of the ducted fan are
efficient.
realized at the expense of the added weight and structural complexity

of the duct and the extra drag it produces in forward flight. The
internal drag of the duct, including the drag of the struts and stator
vanes, must be kept very low if any over-all advantage is to be
realized by use of the ducted fan. Since we have not yet had any prac-
tical operational experience to evaluate ducted-fan configurations, it
remains to be seen whether the advantages will outweigh the dis-

advantages.
One fundamental design problem encountered with some ducted-
fan configurations is the design of the duct lip for good efficiency in
both hovering and cruising flight. A relatively thin inlet lip is desired
to keep the aerodynamic drag low when a ducted fan is used for
propulsion in forward flight, but such a lip is likely to cause separated
flow and loss of efficiency in hovering flight. For good efficiency in
hovering, a well-rounded inlet lip is required to permit a smooth
flow of air into the duct. Thus some compromise must be made in
the design of the inlet lip or provision must be made for a variable-
geometry inlet. A similar problem exists in the design of the exit
A well-rounded duct inlet lip is best for hovering, but a thin sharp lip is desired
for low drag in cruising flight.
or diffuser of the ducted fan. Since a large duct exit is desired in

hovering and a smaller one in cruise, variable geometry of the exit
as well as the inlet may prove to be desirable.
Ducted-fan VTOL aircraft of the aircraft-tilting type include

flying platforms, aerial jeeps, and a tail-sitter airplane type called
the coleopter. The first two are similar to the helicopter in that they
involve only a moderate forward tilt of the aircraft in cruising flight,
while the coleopter tilts almost 90 degrees in performing the transition
from hovering to cruising flight.
Flying platforms. The principle of the flying platform and the
history of its development were covered in Chapter 5 when the rotor
flying platform was discussed. The ducted-fan machine referred to at
that time was the Hiller flying platform developed for the U. S. Army
under the technical supervision of the Office of Naval Research. Hiller
firstbecame interested in the flying-platform principle in 1946 when
they made some preliminary studies with an early machine of this
type built by Zimmerman. Although this work was not fruitful, Hiller
did not lose interest in the flying platform. After the NACA research
in the early 1950's established the soundness of the principle, Hiller
accelerated their studies and submitted a proposal for a ducted-fan
machine to the Navy. In 1953 they were awarded a contract for a
flight test vehicle, designated VZ-1, which had two counterrotating
propellers installed in a 5-foot diameter duct and driven by two
40-horsepower engines. After a short period of preliminary testing
with an arrangement of tethering cables, the platform was flown free
for the first time in February, 1955. The kinesthetic control worked
fine in hovering flight. The pilot merely leaned in the direction he
desired to move and kept himself headed in the right direction by
differentially varying the torque being supplied to the two propellers by
the engines. The pilot found that the platform had a helpful stability
characteristic that made hovering flight easy. As soon as the machine
started moving in any direction there was a tendency for it to tilt
up and stop the motion. This tendency, however, turned out to be a
decided disadvantage in forward flight, for the machine seemed to be
fighting the efforts of the pilot to increase its forward speed. Even
(U.S. Army photo.)
First Hiller flying platform, the VZ-1, was a five-foot diameter ducted fan which
the pilot flew by kinesthetic control.
when he leaned over forward as far as possible, he could fly at a

speed of only about 15 miles per hour. Later, some vanes were added
in the duct slipstream to provide a nosing over moment to help the
pilot tilt the machine, but this did not increase the top speed very
much.
As a follow-up on work with the VZ-1, Hiller received a
their
contract for two larger, more powerful platforms to be used for field
evaluation by the Army. These platforms had 8-foot diameter ducts
no
and were powered by three interconnected engines to provide a mar-

gin of safety in event of engine failure. Tiiese machines proved to be
unsatisfactory, however, primarily because they were too big and
heavy for a pilot to control by shifting his body weight, and the top
speed that could be achieved was even lower than that reached with
the original smaller platform. This project was therefore terminated
and no further work has been done since on machines of this type.
Perhaps someday, after further advances in the state of the art, some
fresh approach will result in the successful development of machines
embodying the flying-platform principle.
Aerial jeeps. We have already covered in Chapter 6 the con-
cept of the aerial jeep as envisioned by the Army, and have described
the four-propeller machine of this type that was built and tested by
Curtiss-Wright. Ducted-fan aerial jeeps were developed by Chrysler
and Piasecki, starting in 1957. These research aircraft were of the
—
same basic type tandem, two-duct arrangements but differed in —
their method of control.
The Chrysler VZ-6 aerial jeep had two 8.5-foot diameter ducted
fans powered by a 500-horsepower reciprocating engine and was
designed for a gross weight of 2,300 pounds. Pitch control was pro-
vided by duct-inlet vanes and differential fan thrust, while yaw and
roll control were provided by duct-exit vanes. A limited flight test
program was conducted in 1959 with tethering lines attached to the

machine to prevent crashes. On the first takeoff attempt without
tethering lines, the machine overturned as a direct result of certain
faults in its control system. Since the damage incurred was quite
extensive and since the work up to that time had indicated a number
of basic problems with the particular control system being used, the
Army decided to terminate the project at that time.
The aerial jeep built by Piasecki Aircraft Corporation enjoyed a
much greater measure of success apparently because its designer,
Frank Piasecki, had a head start in VTOL know-how derived from
previous experience in the development of successful tandem heli-
copters. This machine, designated the VZ-8, had two 7.5-foot diameter
ducted fans powered by two 180-horsepower Lycoming reciprocating
engines. Pitch and roll control were obtained from total and cyclic-
pitch changes on the fan blades while yaw control was provided by
vanes in the slipstream. Vanes were also later used to supplement
(Chrysler Corp.)
(top) Piasecki VZ-8 aerial jeep, a tandem two-duct configuration, was the most
successful machine of this type built for the Army.
(bottom) Chrysler VZ-6 aerial jeep had 8.5-foot diameter ducted fans powered by
a 500-horsepower engine.
the cyclic pitch for roll control. After extensive ground and tethered
testing, the Piasecki jeep was flown successfully in free flight in 1958.
The flight test program was somewhat limited because the machine
was underpowered, but impressive demonstrations were made of
flight capability at low speeds near the ground. Although the VZ-8
in hovering flight with controls fixed had a tendency toward increasing

oscillations, it could be flown without the aid of artificial stabiliza-
tion. Because of the performance limitations with this underpowered

112
machine, the two reciprocating engines were later replaced with a

single 425-horsepower Turbomeca Artouste turbine engine.
In 1960 Piasecki was awarded a contract by the Army for the
construction of a slightly larger jeep similar to the VZ-8 but with
considerably more power installed. This machine is to be tested first
by Piasecki and then by NASA at its Langley Research Center prior
to undergoing field demonstrations for the Army.
Research with the original Piasecki jeep and studies by NASA
with small-scale models of similar configurations have revealed some
basic problems for this ducted-fan jeep type. In hovering flight, ma-
chines of this type have an inherently unstable rolling oscillation
which may require artificial stabilization in an operational machine
even though the oscillation can be controlled manually by experienced
test pilots. Problems experienced in forward flight include a large
nosing-up tendency that increases with increasing forward speed,

and a large forward tilt of the machines required for flight at even
moderate forward speeds. This type of aerial jeep has to tUt forward
about one degree for each mile per hour of forward speed. The angle
of tilt can be reduced somewhat by the use of vanes in the slipstream,
but a better solution might be to use an arrangement in which the
ducted fans can be tilted while the body of the jeep remains more or
less horizontal. Perhaps the most serious fundamental problem of the
jeep with fixed ducted fans is the fact that it does not experience the
beneficial drop off in power with increasing forward speed that is
typical of other VTOL

Because of this characteristic, it has
types.
a rather poor operating efficiency and uses too much fuel in cruising
flight. Although these problems are also experienced to some extent
by unshrouded-propeller jeep types, all the problems seem to be

generally worse for the ducted-fan configurations. This, of course,
suggests the possibility of eliminating the ducts as was done on the
Curtiss-Wright four-propeller arrangement. It would appear that
the advantages of compactness and safety offered by the ducted fan
jeep will have to be very great to outweigh the performance de-
ficiencies unless some provision is made for tilting only the ducts
in forward flight.
Some consideration has been given by designers to ducted-fan

tail-sitter VTOL aircraft types, but no machines of this type have
been built. Such configurations are sometimes called coleopters, a
(U.S. Army photo.)
Second Hiller flying platform was converted into a coleopter-type research aircraft
by lengthening the duct and adding a conventional control system.
name which has also been appUed to jet-powered VTOL machines

with ring wings as discussed in the following chapter. Design studies
of the ducted-fan coleopter type have been made by Hiller and
Fletchaire in the United States. Hiller's coleopter design was essen-
an adaptation of the ducted-fan flying platform, but was a larger
tially
machine with a conventional control system and an enclosure for the

pilot. Some experimental work applicable to the coleopter has been
carried out by Hiller with one of their ducted-fan flying platforms
modified to provide a stick-type control system and a seat for the
pilot on top of the machine.
Some work on ducted-fan VTOL aircraft of the thrust-tilting
114
type has also been conducted in Russia at the Moscow Aviation

Institute. Tests have been made on platforms having ducted fans at
each corner, and plans have been made for machines of this general
type with a large number of 6-foot diameter fans capable of lifting
a load up to 40 tons and hauling it for short distances. Apparently,
such machines are to serve the same purpose as the helicopter-type
flying cranes now being built in the United States by Sikorsky and
others.
Thrust-Tilting Type
Several companies in the United States have studied the thrust-

tilting ducted-fan VTOL type, commonly known as the tilt-duct
configuration, but only one aircraft of this type has been built — the
Doak Aircraft Company VZ-4. Other companies which have also
shown interest in tilt-duct configurations include Bell Aerosystems,
Hiller, Douglas, Lockheed, and Grumman.
The Doak VZ-4 is a research aircraft built for the Army and also
used in research by the NASA. It is a 3,000 pound machine powered
by a single Lycoming T53 engine which drives 4-foot diameter
ducted fans wing tips. The ducted fans point straight up for
at the
hovering flight and tilt forward to serve as propellers in cruising
flight. In hovering flight, pitch and yaw control are provided by
vanes in the turbine exhaust at the tail while roll control is obtained
by differential thrust on the two ducted fans. This differential thrust
is accomplished by varying the setting of the inlet guide vanes in the
1958 and has continued
ducts. Flight testing of the airplane started in
into the 1960's. After completion of preliminary testing by the
manufacturer the airplane was turned over to the Langley Research
Center of NASA for an extensive flight research program.
Although the VZ-4 exhibited some undesirable flight characteris-
tics, only a few were considered fundamental to the tilt-duct type and
these appear to be amenable to solution. For example, one basic

problem of the airplane is a nosing-up tendency caused by the ducts
during the transition from hovering to forward flight. Studies have
shown that this problem can be alleviated by placing vanes in the
fan exhaust and adjusting the position of the pivot about which the
duct rotates. In general, the research has indicated that the flight
(U.S. Army photo.)
Doak VZ-4 tilt-duct research airplane performs the transition from hovering to
cruising flight by tilting the ducted fans mounted on pivots at each wing tip.
characteristics of a tilt-duct VTOL airplane of this type can be made

satisfactory by careful design.
The tilt-duct type appears to be competitive with the tilt-wing-
and-flap type in most respects but does not offer as much promise for
short takeoff and landing operation. As pointed out earlier, this
deficiency in STOL operation results from the fact that at moderate
speeds with partial duct tilt, the load distribution across the span is
less uniform than that for the tilt-wing-and-flap type. This nonuni-
formity is a direct consequence of the fact that the ducts at the wing
tips provide a large part of the over-all lift, while the wing carries
a smaller and smaller proportion of the lift as the speed of the air-
craft decreases. It was shown in Chapter 4 that a nonuniform load
distribution such as this means more drag and therefore more power
required to fly at a given speed.
Although inherently inferior to the tilt-wing-and-flap type in STOL
performance, the tilt-duct machine does not have the basic wing
stall problem of the tilt-wing configuration. The feature of tilting
only the propulsion unit itself makes it possible, of course, always to
keep the wing at an attitude that will reduce the likelihood of stall.
With a tilt-wing-and-flap arrangement, one risks wing stall in the
transition in an effort to get better STOL performance, while with the
tilt-duct one obtains better stall characteristics at the expense of STOL
116
performance. Of course, these are not the only considerations in

selecting one or the other of these two types — there are a number of
other practical considerations involved in the choice that might well
prove to be more important than either of these. For example, the
requirement that the Tri-Service VTOL transport be "folded" to
fit on the elevator of an aircraft carrier tended to emphasize the ad-
vantages of greater compactness and ease of folding inherent in the
tilt-duct type. For such an application, one promising arrangement is
a tandem four-duct configuration that has a tiltable duct on each

side of the fuselage at the nose and tail. Configurations of this type,
however, are likely to experience stability and performance problems
in cruising flight.
(Bell Aerosystems Co.)
Tandem tilt-duct assault transport configuration designed by Bell Aerosystems

Company.
Several unique VTOL aircraft designs of the ducted-fan thrust-

deflection type have been proposed, and although these designs are of
the same basic type, their configuration details are quite different. It
seems that about the only things these designs have in common are
that they are powered by ducted fans and that they perform the
transition from hovering to forward flight by deflecting the slipstream.
some sponsored by the services, have
Studies of aircraft of this type,
been made by a number of different companies. The machines studied
include the CoHins Radio Company Aerodyne, the Piasecki Aircraft
Corporation Ring Wing, the Avro Aircraft Ltd. (Canada) Avrocar,
the Goodyear Aircraft Company Convoplane, and the Chance Vought
Aircraft Co. ADAM configuration.
The Collins Aerodyne
is but one of a family of deflected-slipstream
VTOL by Dr. A. M. Lippisch. Dr. Lippisch has

aircraft designed
used the term "aerodyne" to describe this whole family of machines
whose distinguishing feature is the utilization of the propulsion unit
to provide lift in forward flight as weU as in hovering. Most of his
designs are characterized by the absence of a wing so they may be
considered wingless VTOL aircraft or flying-fuselage types. This
concept appears to be basically sound, for there are many conditions
of flight in which the performance of an airplane would be improved
if it had much less wing area or even no wing at all. For example, in
flight at high subsonic speeds at sea level the fuselage and tail surfaces
of an airplane can provide all the lift needed for supporting the ma-
chine, and the wing just goes along for the ride, so to speak, but at
the same time adding to the weight and drag of the aircraft. The same
situation exists at progressively higher altitudes as we go to higher
and higher supersonic speeds. Of course, for conventional takeoff
and landing aircraft, this concept cannot be used because of the
excessively high takeoff and landing speeds that would be involved.
But for a VTOL machine, which does not depend on wing lift for
takeoff and landing, it seems quite natural to apply the wingless VTOL
principle.
A word of caution should be injected at this point, however, to
offset the impression that the wings of VTOL aircraft can be elim-
inated as a general rule. In most cases, the aircraft will benefit from
having some wing area, for it is likely to be operating most of the time
at combinations of airspeed and altitude where the wing will more than
pay for itself in added performance. For cruising flight at low and
moderate speeds, the fuselage and tails do not provide enough lift to
support the aircraft; and certainly under these conditions we are
likely to be much better off performancewise by using a wing to
provide the extra lift rather than depending on the vertical component
of the engine thrust. A wing is particularly needed for missions re-
quiring long range. In addition, there will be other factors such as
maneuverability and STOL capability that may dictate the use of a
wing. With this word of explanation, we can now go back to our
(NASA.)
Collins Aerodyne, a wingless ducted-fan VTOL type with vanes to turn the slip-
stream downward, was tested in the NASA Ames 40-by-80-Foot Wind Tunnel.
original premise that for some applications the elimination of the

wing of a VTOL aircraft can be a good thing.
The Collins Aerodyne, the only machine of this general type to
be built to date, was a 42-foot long research aircraft powered by two
Continental 200-horsepower engines driving two 7.5-foot propellers
inside the duct or fuselage. This machine, essentially a flying duct
with tail surfaces, had vanes at the duct exit for deflecting the slip-
stream downward for hovering flight. Control in hovering and low-

speed flight was accomplished by varying the direction of slipstream
diversion with several different sets of vanes.The Aerodyne was
on a hovering test stand and also in the NASA 40-
tested extensively
by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel at the Ames Research Center, but was never
flown because of a number of problems revealed in these tests. In
addition to having several stability and control deficiencies, the ma-
chine also appeared to have unimpressive performance capabilities.
It should of course be realized that this was only intended to be a
research machine to study the aerodyne principle, and it actually was
not very representative of any of the wingless VTOL types that show
promise for operational use. The attractiveness of the aerodyne prin-
ciple is probably greater for turbojet than for ducted fan applications
because of the higher design cruising speeds involved. Recent studies
made in both the United States and England indicate promise for a
wingless turbojet VTOL aircraft that might serve as a low-altitude,
high-subsonic-speed fighter or transport.
The Ring-Wing configuration studied by Piasecki Aircraft Corpor-
tion under a Navy contract had a large ducted fan on each side of
the fuselage with vanes in the duct exits to deflect the slipstream down-
ward for hovering. Piasecki has made wind-tunnel studies of small
models and static ground tests of large Ring-Wing units, but there
are no plans for building such an aircraft at this time. The name
Ring-Wing derives from the fact that the ducted fans themselves
serve as wings. Perhaps we are being a bit inconsistent when we say
that the ducted fans on the Ring-Wing are wings while the ducted
fan of the Collins Aerodyne is a fuselage, for actually the ducted fans
themselves are quite similar in the two cases. The significant point
in each instance is that a duct, not a wing, is providing lift in cruising
flight. The thrust losses suffered by both of these VTOL types in
deflecting the slipstream downward for hovering flight makes them
inferior to the tilt-duct type from the standpoint of hovering efficiency.
Perhaps the most unusual of all the ducted-fan thrust-deflection

types that have been studied to date is the Avro Aircraft, Ltd.
Avrocar, a diskshaped "flying saucer" built for the U. S. Air Force
and Army. The Avrocar, designated VZ-9, is 18 feet in diameter and
is powered by three Continental J69 turbine engines which drive a
large fan located in a duct in the center of the upper surface of the
machine. The flow from this fan is ducted to the rim of the disk and,
for hovering flight, is ejected downward and inward around the
periphery of the machine. Thus an annular jet is produced which
leads to a large beneficial ground effect such as that experienced by the
ground effect machines which are covered in Chapter 9. The Avrocar
is in fact a form of ground effect machine, but of course it is also
designed to fly out of ground effect. Although the annular jet of the
Avrocar gives excellent hovering efficiency near the ground because
of the beneficial ground effect, research has shown that a jet of this
type is not as efficient as an ordinary circular jet when operating out
(U.S. Air Force.)
Avro Avrocar VZ-9, a unique flying-saucer configuration, was supported in hover-

ing by an annular jet which produces a favorable ground cushion at takeoff and
landing.
.
of ground For propulsion in forward flight the annular jet

effect.
is deflected rearward
by an elaborate control system around the
perimeter of the machine. Control is accomplished by varying the
jet flow differentially at opposite sides of the disk.
The principles embodied in the Avrocar have been under study
by Avro for a number of years, and several different variations of
the machine have been proposed for a number of uses. Some of this
work has been sponsored by the Canadian government. The Avrocar
itself was intended to be a low-speed research machine that could
be used to check out some of the principles in flight and also a ma-
chine that might eventually be suitable for certain Army uses without
much further development. The work been very suc-
to date has not
cessful and the machine has not yet been flown out of ground effect.
It has, however, undergone extensive static ground testing and hover-
ing flight tests in ground effect by the manufacturer. It was also tested
in the NASA Ames 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel where some modi-
fications to its control system were indicated. Following these modifi-
cations, flight testing may be resumed.
One basic problem of a disk-shaped VTOL aircraft such as the
Avrocar is that it is inherently unstable in forward flight. In hovering
flight the center of gravity or center of weight of a VTOL aircraft
must be near the center of vertical lift — that is, near the center of the
disk. In forward center of lift moves toward the front of the
flight the
disk, ahead of the center of gravity, and this makes the aircraft un-
stable. This instability is evidenced by a very strong tendency for the
aircraft to nose up or down to very large angles and go out of control.
It is possible that a certain amount of such instability can be elim-
inated by artificial stabilizing devices, but considerable risk would

seem to be involved in depending on such a system. The normal
method of avoiding instability of this type on other VTOL aircraft
has been to either arrange for the center of gravity to be well forward
on the wing or to make use of horizontal tail surfaces at the rear of
the machine. The fundamental design principle for stability and trim
of VTOL aircraft may be stated as follows: The center of vertical
thrust in hovering flight should be at the center of gravity (to mini-
mize trim requirements), while the center of aerodynamic lift in
cruising flight should be behind the center of gravity (to provide
attitude stability of the aircraft)
The Goodyear Aircraft Company, under a contract with the

Army, studied a ducted-fan, deflected-sHpstream aircraft which they
called a Convoplane. It was similar to some of the fan-in-wing types
to be discussed later in that it had a fan submerged in the wing which
exhausted downward for hovering flight. Instead of having a separate
propulsion unit for forward flight, had provisions for
however, it
diverting the slipstream of the ducted fan rearward. Work on this

configuration was discontinued when wind tunnel research and other
studies indicated that it had several basic problems and little or no
chance for success.
Chance Vought Aircraft has been studying a ducted-fan thrust-
deflection VTOL concept which they call ADAM (Air Deflection And
Modulation). The first ADAM propulsion unit under consideration
consists of two forward-facing, side-by-side fans driven by turbines
located in the jet exhaust of two Pratt and Whitney J60 engines
that are mounted above the fans. The airflow from the two fans merges
in a single duct and exits through a rectangular nozzle. The upper
and lower surfaces of the nozzles are jointed to permit the exhaust
to be directed downward for hovering or rearward for cruising flight.
Control in hovering and slow-speed flight is provided by nozzle flaps
which redirect the slipstream to produce the desired control moments.

Chance Vought has made small-scale wind-tunnel studies of aircraft
configurations and large-scale static tests of the ADAM propulsion
unit, but to date no aircraft of this type has been built.
Ducted-fan VTOL aircraft of the dual-propulsion type have been

the subject of great interest in the last few years. These aircraft, which
have usually been referred to as buried-fan, fan-in-wing, or fan-in-
fuselage configurations, have one or more fans lying flat in the fuse-
lage or wings. The fans provide vertical lift during hovering and low-
speed flight and are then covered over in cruising flight, when a sep-
arate propulsion source, usually a turbojet engine, provides the forward
thrust. The same turbojet engines used for thrust in cruising flight
can be used to drive the vertical lift fans by means of a tip turbine
arrangement; or the fans can be driven through gearing and shafting
by a turboshaft engine.
The primary appeal of the buried-fan type has been that it affords
an attractive means of solving one of the basic design problems of
VTOL aircraft mentioned earlier: how to take care of the disparity in
power requirements between hovering and cruising flight. To illustrate
this point, let us take the case of our present-day jet transports which
cruise at high subsonic speeds. For efficient cruising flight, these air-
planes use four jet engines which can produce a total thrust equal
to about one-fourth the weight of the airplane. Therefore, if we try
to give these airplanes vertical takeoff and landing capability merely by
adding more jet engines, we will have to use at least four times as
many engines. If we install four large fans, each driven by one of
our four jet engines, we could efficiently provide the thrust we need
both in hovering and in cruising flight. This example is a bit over-
simplified, for the fans used in this case would be so large that they
would require a large increase in wing area before they could be
installed in the wing. But the point is made that the buried fan af-
fords us a means of obtaining a several-fold increase in the thrust
of a turbojet engine. We can get this increase in thrust with no increase
in power because we have changed from a small-diameter, high-
velocity jet exhaust to a larger-diameter, lower- velocity fan exhaust.
The basic advantage of such a change in terms of power required
to produce vertical lift was explained in Chapter 3.
For actual buried-fan installations in VTOL aircraft, the situation

is not quite as favorable as the foregoing illustration makes it appear.
For one thing, if we make the fans small enough in diameter to fit
nicely into the wing (or fuselage) we find that we do not usually
get the multiplication of thrust we desire. To get the desired thrust
it is necessary to increase the wing area by a substantial amount to
accommodate fans of the required size. In addition, the fan installa-
tion, including the fan itself and other items such as ducting, valves,
and cover plates, can be rather heavy, bulky, and complex. There
also appear to be some fairly serious performance and stability prob-
lems in transition flight for most buried-fan configurations problems —
that will have to be solved before successful machines of this type
are built. Basic problems of the type include a large increase in drag
and a pronounced nosing-up tendency during the transition.
A number of companies in several different countries have studied
buried-fan VTOL types, but the only aircraft of this type built to date
(NASA.)
Vanguard 2C fan-in-wing configuration, shown in wind tunnel at NASA Ames Re-

search Center, uses fans mounted horizontally in wing for hovering and vertically
mounted fan at toil for propulsion in cruising flight.
isthe Vanguard 2C, a small fan-in-wing machine designed and built

by the Vanguard Air and Marine Corporation. The Vanguard 2C is
quite different from most of the other fan-in-wing types that have
been proposed in that it has a pusher propeller rather than a jet for
propulsion in forward flight. It makes use of lightly loaded ducted
fans — fans with a relatively large diameter for the amount of thrust
they produce —and and stubby to permit
the wings are rather thick
installation of the fans. In cruising flight, each fan is covered over by
a flat lid on top and venetian-blind-like slats on the bottom. Prior
to its preliminary flight test program, the Vanguard 2C was tested in
the NASA Ames 40- by 80-Foot Wind Tunnel where certain de-
ficiencies were revealed that would have to be corrected before the
125
airplane could be flown. In their work with this machine, the Vanguard
Air and Marine Corporation is attempting to develop a small 200-
mile-per-hour business airplane that could operate from company
parking lots. This particular application of the fan-in-wing principle
does not appear to be as promising as the higher-speed types that
use jet propulsion in cruising flight.
Perhaps the most significant development in connection with

buried-fan VTOL aircraft types has been the work done by the
Flight Propulsion Laboratory of the General Electric Company on
hardware for such applications. They have developed for the Army
and Air Force a family of lift-fan systems. One of these lift-fans,
designated the G. E. X-353-5, consists of a 76-inch diameter fan
driven by tip turbines that are powered by the exhaust gas from a
J85 jet engine. The fan can produce a maximum thrust of about
7,400 pounds, or almost three times the thrust of the jet engine that
drives For cruising flight, a diverter valve closes off the jet exhaust
it.
to the fan and directs it rearward through the tailpipe. This lift-fan
arrangement has already been tested extensively in static ground
tests and has also been used in tests of a large-scale fan-in-fuselage
DIVE RTE R
VALVE
(General Electric Co.)
General Electric X-353-5 lift fan, designed for use in buried-fan installations, is
driven by tip turbines that are powered by the exhaust of a J85 turbojet engine.
(U. S. Army photo.)
Fan-in-wing research airplane being built for the Army under a contract with
General Electric and Ryan.
model in the large NASA Wind Tunnel at Ames Research Center.

For this fan-in-fuselage configuration, General Electric seems to
have solved one of the big problems anticipated with buried-fan
types in forward flight —
how to get the inlet flow smoothly around
the sharp turn must make to enter the horizontally mounted fan.
it
This problem might be more difficult to solve with the fan-in-wing

types where the fan unit must be thinner to fit into the wing. In ad-
dition to their work with this actual hardware, General Electric has
also made numerous studies of the application of such fans to VTOL
aircraft.
Fan-in-wing configurations have also been studied by Breguet in
France, Rolls-Royce in England, and by a number of companies in-
cluding Vertol, Ryan, North American and Bell in the United States.
Breguet's work in this field came quite early but has not yet led to
any aircraft of this type. Vertol and Ryan have conducted studies for
the services on fan-in-wing types which they call the Vertodyne and
127
the Vertifan; and later North American (Columbus Division) entered

this field with an interesting proposal for a flight propulsion evaluation
aircraft to explore the possibilities of the fan-in-wing type.
Since a fan-in-wing research airplane appeared to be needed to
speed the development of this VTOL type, the U. S. Army Transporta-
tion Corps in 1961 initiated plans for procuring a small airplane
to be fitted with the General Electric X-353-5 lift-fan system. Two
aircraft of this type are to be constructed for use in research and
operational evaluation work. General Electric is the prime contractor
and Ryan is to handle the airframe construction.
Fan-in-fuselage configurations have been studied by several com-
panies, including Boulton-Paul of England and Republic in the United
States. The Republic configuration, designated the AP-lOO was a
supersonic fighter-bomber design having a takeolT weight of 38,000
pounds. Hovering thrust was provided by three General Electric lift
fans spaced along the centerline of the fuselage. Each of the fans was
to be driven by two jet engines, and then for cruising flight the ex-
haust from all six jet engines would be diverted rearward by special
valves.Although the Air Force has shown some interest in such a
design, no plans have been made to build a machine of this type.
Research has indicated that one of the basic problems of a machine
of this general configuration is a very large nosing-up tendency during
the transition from hovering to forward flight.
TURBOJET VTOL AIRCRAFT
8 IN THIS
covered which obtain their vertical
CHAPTER ALL VTOL TYPES WILL BE
lift or thrust in hovering flight from
turbojet or turbofan engines. As pointed out in the last chapter, the
turbofan is being considered a form of turbojet rather than a ducted
fan because it involves the use of a very highly loaded fan that is an
integral part of the jet engine. The turbofan engine is also known by
other names such as by-pass engine, fan engine, and ducted-fan
engine. Its distinguishing design feature is a concentric fan, either at
the front or rear of the engine, which serves as a compressor to pro-
vide a high-pressure cold air exhaust to augment the thrust of the
hot jet-engine exhaust.
The turbofan appears to have a number of advantages over the
conventional turbojet engine for VTOL applications. Since its exhaust
is and of lower velocity than the turbojet exhaust, its
cooler, quieter,
problems of slipstream impingement, surface erosion and noise should
be less severe. In addition to alleviating these operating problems,
the turbofan has certain performance advantages over the turbojet
129
(Rolls-Royce, Ltd.)
Rolls-Royce Flying Bedstead, a simple and crude-looking hovering research craft,
was powered by two Nene turbojet engines and controlled by means of air nozzles
mounted on outriggers.
because of its lower weight and its lower fuel consumption in both
hovering and cruising flight. The primary disadvantage of the turbo-
fan is its greater bulkiness, which may increase the difficulty of obtain-
ing a good low-drag The bulkiness of the turbo-
aircraft configuration.
fan results from the fact that consumes several times as much air
it
as a turbojet and therefore must have larger inlets and, usually,

greater frontal area than the turbojet.
VTOL machines of the aircraft-tilting type have

Several turbojet
been and flown, but some of these were only simple hovering
built
craft used for preliminary research. The best-known example of these
hovering research machines was the Rolls-Royce Flying Bedstead,
flown in 1954 for the first time. Several years later a similar machine
was built and flown in Russia. The only two complete VTOL aircraft
of this basic type that have been flown are the Ryan X-13 built for
130
Turbojet VTOL Aircraft 131
the U. S. Air Force and the SNECMA Coleopter, a French machine.

The Rolls-Royce Flying Bedstead was, as the name implies, just a
crude framework of tubing to support two Nene jet engines which
provided vertical thrust for hovering. The two engines could produce
a total thrust of about 8,100 pounds — about 1,000 pounds more than
the gross weight of the machine. The engines were mounted hori-
and the exhaust
zontally with their tailpipes pointed toward each other
from both engines was turned down 90 degrees through vertical
tailpipes. To fly this contraption, a pilot sat on top and operated
controls connected to air nozzles mounted on booms fore and aft.
Automatic stabilization devices were used to aid the pilot in con-
trolling the machine. Although the Flying Bedstead was never flown
very high off the ground or at speeds more than 15 miles per hour,
it served its purpose as a hovering research machine very well and
was used extensively in this work over a period of several years.

As for the similar turbojet VTOL testbed aircraft built later on
in Russia, photographs were released to show the machine in hover-
ing flight but few details of its performance were made public. This
Soviet machine, the Turbolot, differed from the Rolls-Royce Flying
Bedstead in was powered by a single jet engine mounted
that it
vertically in the It was controlled by deflector vanes in the

framework.
jet exhaust and compressed air jets at the ends of four outriggers. It
Russian turbojet research machine, the Turbolot, was used for hovering flight re-
search.
-.T*'
(U.S. Air Force.)
Ryan X-13 had a nose hook which engaged "clothesline" wire on a special trailer
for vertical takeoff and landing. Entire machine tilted over to a normal horizontal
attitude to perform the transition to cruising flight.
is rather surprising that only two or three VTOL machines other

than the heHcopter have been pubHcized by the Russians. Although
they have made rapid strides in progress with the helicopter and other
132
rotor VTOL aircraft, the Soviets have given no real indication that
they are seriously interested in the higher performance propeller,
ducted fan, and turbojet VTOL types.
The Ryan X-13 turbojet VTOL research airplane has demon-
strated perhaps the most impressive performance of any VTOL air-
craft to date. The successful flight testing of the X-13 in 1957 cul-
minated ten years of jet VTOL research by Ryan that started with a
Navy contract to investigate jet reaction control. This early work on
controls led to the development of a vertical-attitude engine test rig
which in 1950 lifted off the ground under its own power and was
controlled remotely by a pilot on the ground. Later, a pilot seat and
controls were mounted on top of the test rig, and in 1953 this vehicle
made the first piloted hovering jet flight. It was at about the same
time that Ryan received an Air Force contract for construction of
the X-13 airplane. The first hovering and transition flights of the
airplane were made in 1956 by test pilot Pete Girard using a special
landing gear; and finally in 1957, the complete operation of the ma-
chine, including the use of the nose hook for takeoff and landing on
the special ground service was demonstrated. One particularly
trailer,
spectacular demonstration flight was made in which the airplane

took off from its trailer parked on a roadway in front of the Pentagon
building in Washington, and then returned for a landing on the
trailer after performing a transition to forward flight and another
transition back to hovering.

—
The X-13 was a fairly small airplane 24 feet long and with a
—
wing span of 21 feet and was powered by a Rolls-Royce Avon tur-
bojet engine which could produce a thrust of almost 10,000 pounds.
Because of its unique takeoff and landing system, it was more aptly
termed a "wire-hanger" than a tail-sitter type. Pitch and yaw control
in hovering flight were provided by a swivelling tailpipe while roll
controlwas obtained from wing-tip nozzles supplied with compressed
air from the jet engine. A rather elaborate automatic stabilization
system was used to provide adequate stability in all flight conditions.

There were two basic deficiencies of the airplane requiring the use of
this artificial stabilization.
First, the jetengine produced large gyroscopic coupling effects

since was relatively large and heavy for use in an airplane of this
it
size. The rotating mass of the engine acted just like a rotating gyro-
scope —when the airplane pitched nose up or nose down, the

gyroscopic precession caused undesirable yawing motions from side
to side. Similarly, when the airplane yawed from side to side, large
pitching motions resulted. The pilot would not have been able to cope
with these distractions without the aid of the automatic stabilization
devices; but with the devices in operation, he had no difficulty. This
gyroscopic coupling effect of a jet engine is something that all turbo-
jet VTOL machines will have to contend with to some extent unless
they have engines with counterrotating components. (Gyroscopic
effects are virtually eliminated when haff of the rotating components
are rotating in one direction and half in the other. ) Actually, the
X-13 represents an extreme case. Turbojet VTOL aircraft of the fu-
ture will be using engines with a much higher thrust-weight ratio so
that the engine weight will be a much smaller percentage of the
gross weight of the aircraft. The use of several small engines instead
of a single large engine will also tend to alleviate the gyroscopic
coupling problem.
The second problem requiring the use of automatic stabilization on
the X-13 was the wing stall in the transition from hovering to forward
flight. no slipstream over the X-13 wing, the angle of
Since there is
attack of the wing increases up to 90 degrees as the transition from

cruising to hovering flight is performed. The highly swept delta wing
stalls at an angle of attack of about 30 degrees and remains stalled
as the angle increases on up to 90 degrees. As pointed out earlier,

when a wing stalls and the flow separates from the upper surface,
erratic and sometimes uncontrollable motions are produced by ran-
dom changes in the separated flow. These motions were difficult
to control in the case of the X-13 unless the pilot was assisted by
automatic stabilization. Although a number of VTOL types have
wing stalling problems in the transition, the aircraft-tilting turbojet
type is probably worst in this respect.
Despite these problems that required the use of automatic stabili-
zation, the X-13 completed its preliminary flight test program suc-
cessfully, making numerous complete VTOL operations from its
landing service trailer. At the termination of the X-13 project by the
Air Force, however, there was no continuation of work on an opera-
tional machine of this basic type, apparently because the services had
come to feel that a horizontal attitude at takeoff and landing was
(SNECMA.)
SNECMA Coleopter, a French turbojet design with a ring wing, sat in a vertical
attitude for takeofF and landing.
mandatory for any VTOL aircraft. A machine that could take off
and land in a conventional attitude using its own landing gear seemed
much more attractive in that no complicated auxiliary equipment
such as the landing service trailer would be required for operations
would appear, however, that for some operations
in front line areas. It
such as from ships, the use of the nose-hook landing system em-
ployed on the X-13 would be acceptable. A configuration of this gen-
eral type seems to be well-suited in some respects to use as a high-
performance interceptor.
135
One of the more interesting VTOL developments in recent years

was the SNECMA
Coleopter of France. This was a machine with a
ring wing developed along lines originally suggested by Helmut
Zborowski. The wing itself resembled a big open-ended barrel; and
the fuselage,which housed the Atar jet engine used for propulsion,
was located in the middle of the wing. A long period of development
with simple flying mock-ups preceded the construction of the air-
plane itself. In fact, the SNECMA Flying Atar, which was essentially
just the jet engine of the Coleopter fitted with some auxiliary jets for
control and a pilot's seat on top, received world-wide publicity when

it put on an amazing performance of hovering maneuverability at the
International Aeronautical Salon at Le Bourget Field, Paris, in 1957.
The airplane was completed and flown for the first time a little over
a year was equipped with an elaborate automatic stabilization
later. It
system generally similar to that used on the X-13 airplane. During

some of the early flight testing in July, 1959, the Coleopter went out
of control and crashed as the pilot, Auguste Morel, was preparing for
a vertical descent and landing. Fortunately, Morel was able to eject
himself and was only slightly injured. The airplane had performed
the transition for hovering to forward flight and back to hovering on
several occasions before the crash terminated the program.
An interesting aircraft-tilting VTOL type, an individual lift de-
vice powered with hydrogen peroxide rocket motor, is being de-
a
veloped for the U. S. Army Transportation Research Command by
Bell Aerosystems Company. This machine, which is similar in concept
to the flying platforms covered earlier in Chapters 5 and 7, is strapped
to the back of the pilot and is flown in pitch and roll by body move-
ments. An experimental machine has already been flown as high as
30 or 35 feet and for distances up to 360 feet.
Thrust-Tilting Type
Most of the work on jet VTOL airplanes making use of the

been done by the Bell Aerosystems Com-
thrust-tilting principle has
pany (formerly Bell Aircraft Corporation). Their first work with
this type was started in 1954 with a machine which, for lack of a
better name, they called simply Air Test Vehicle. It was a crude
aircraft constructed largely of parts taken from a helicopter, a light
airplane, a glider, and a motorboat; but it served its purpose of pro-

viding some early flight experience with jet VTOL machines. The
Air Test Vehicle was 21 feet long with a wing span of 26 feet, and
it weighed about 2,000 pounds over-all. Thrust was provided by two
J-44 engines mounted on pivots on each side of the fuselage so that
they could be tilted to a vertical position for hovering flight or to a
horizontal position for forward flight. Control in hovering flight was
provided by compressed air jets at the wing tips and tail, and the air
supply for these control jets came from a third jet engine installed
in the fuselage. Although the machine was admittedly an ugly duck-
ling, it flew surprisingly well and provided Bell with some valuable
Individual lift device powered by

hydrogen-peroxide rocket motor
and strapped to pilot's back is
being developed for Army Trans-

portation Command by Bell Aero-
systems Company.
(U.S. Army photo.)

Bell Air Test Vehicle, an early turbojet research aircraft, had a jet engine mounted
on pivots on each side of the fuselage.
flight experience on jet VTOL aircraft. One thing it clearly demon-

strated was that, under favorable conditions at least, jet VTOL
airplanes of this type could be flown without the aid of automatic
stabilization. Being a simple machine, it had no gadgetry of this kind.
Following completion of its flight test program, the Air Test Vehicle
was placed in the air museum of the Smithsonian Institution.
Bell later made a number of studies of fighter-type jet VTOL air-
craft with tiltable engines at the wing tips. This work culminated in the
D-188A, a supersonic eight-engine design having two J85 engines
in tiltable pods at each wing tip and four more of the same engines in
the fuselage to assist in takeoff and landing. Two of the fuselage
engines were mounted vertically in the forward part of the fuselage
and used only for vertical lift, while the other two were mounted
horizontally in the aft portion of the fuselage with deflectors that
could either turn the jet exhaust downward or direct it rearward for
added thrust in supersonic flight. It is obvious from this description
that the D-188A actually was not just a thrust-tilting VTOL type but
also made use of the thrust-deflection and dual-propulsion principles.
The development of this airplane was initiated by the Navy in 1958
138
with the Air Force later joining in the sponsorship. The work on the
D-188A proceeded through prehminary design and wind tunnel
the
test stages, but the project was terminated by the Navy and Air Force
when it reached the mock-up stage in 1959. The reasons for can-
were not revealed, but there were indications
cellation of the project
that theproblems encountered on the configuration up until that time
were probably not serious enough to have been a primary cause for
stopping the development. The Navy dropped their support first, pre-
sumably because of a lack of funds to continue such projects. After the
Air Force dropped their support of the project in 1959, they took
Bell D-188A, a Mach 2 fighter designed for U.S. Navy and Air Force, had eight
jet engines, four of which were installed in tiltable wing-tip pods.
in this same direction in 1960 by dropping their plans

another step
development of a Mach 2 VTOL fighter. At that time they
for an early
announced a requirement for a 3,000-foot-takeoff STOL fighter,
indicating that they felt a few more years of research and development
would be required before they could have a supersonic VTOL fighter.
Deflected-jet configurations, both VTOL and STOL, have re-

ceived considerable attention during the last few years. Deflected-jet
STOL configurations under study include those incorporating the
jet-flap principle.
Deflected-jet VTOL aircraft. The Bell X-14, an Air Force

research airplane, is the only deflected-jet VTOL airplane that has
been flown to date in the United States. It is a small research machine
having a span of 34 feet and a takeoff weight of about 3,500 pounds.
It was powered originally with two Armstrong-Siddeley Viper turbo-
jet engines which were mounted in the nose of the airplane with the
tailpipes exhausting under the wing. Thrust diverter vanes in the
tailpipes direct the jet exhaust straight downward for hovering or
backward for cruising flight, and control in hovering and low-speed
flight is provided by air jets at thewing tips and tail. Transitions from
hovering to cruising flight with the X-14 are made by slowly de-
flecting the jet exhaust rearward with the diverter vanes until a high
enough speed is reached for the wing to support the weight of the
aircraft. Then the exhaustis turned straight backward. Transitions
from forward flight to hovering are made in a somewhat different

manner. During the landing approach with the engines throttled back,
the diverter vanes are operated to turn the exhaust straight downward.
Then as the aircraft slows down, the thrust of the engines is gradually
increased so that the vertical lift provided by jet thrust assumes support
of the aircraft as the wing becomes less effective for producing lift at
the low speeds.
The X-14 was first flown in 1957 and, after a flight test program
conducted by Bell, it was turned over to Ames Research Center of
NASA in 1959 for extensive use in flight research. In 1960 the air-
plane was converted into a variable stability airplane by NASA. In
addition to the installation of special equipment required for artifi-
fig
^ : i„..<^{f<i'.f-,'"\v:.»fflSr*«&.
(Bell AcTosystems Co.)
(Hawker Aircraft, Ltd.)
(top) Bell X-14, an Air Force research machine, uses thrust-diverter vanes in the
tailpipes of its two jet engines to turn the jet exhaust downward for hovering.
(bottom) Hawker P.I 127, a small transonic strike aircraft built for the Royal Air
Force, is powered by a Bristol-Siddeley BS 53 turbofan engine which has four
rototable exhaust nozzles, two on each side of the fuselage.
daily varying the flight characteristics of the airplane, more powerful

jet engines (General Electric J85-5's) were installed to give a greater
margin of and to provide a greater source of compressed
vertical lift
Research on the X-14 to date has revealed

air for the control jets.
no really serious problems that are basic to the type or that cannot
be solved with some development. The airplane does experience a
substantial loss in lift when hovering near the ground, but as pointed
out in Chapter 3, this problem can be eliminated by the use of a
perforated takeoff and landing platform. The airplane also exhibited
gyroscopic cross-coupling effects such as those experienced on the
X-13, but the effects in this case were much smaller and did not
require the use of automatic stabilization. The simple straightforward
141
design of the X-14 would seem to be well suited to military applica-

tions that call for a small, high-speed, short-range VTOL machine.
A second jet VTOL airplane of the thrust-deflection type, the
Hawker P. 1127, made its initial flights in England in 1960. A small
transonic strike aircraft built for the Royal Air Force by Hawker
Aircraft Ltd., the P. 11 27 is powered by a turbofan lift-thrust engine,
the Bristol-Siddeley BS 53 Pegasus. This engine was developed es-
(Bristol-Siddeley Engines, Ltd.)
Bristol-Siddeley BS 53 lift-thrust turbofan engine, designed especially for use in
VTOL aircraft, has four rotatable nozzles for directing the exhaust either down-
ward or rearward.
pecially for use in VTOL aircraft and received the support of the
Mutual Weapons Development Program for NATO. It has four ex-
haust nozzles, two on each side, which can be rotated by an elbow
arrangement to direct the thrust backward or downward as desired.
The two forward nozzles are supplied with high pressure air by a fan
at the front of the engine, while the hot jet exhausts through the two
rear nozzles. The fan and compressor shafts of the engine rotate in op-
posite directions so that their gyroscopic cross-coupling moments al-
most cancel out. After some development, the BS 53 is eventually sup-

posed to provide a total thrust of about 15,000 pounds, with about
half of this thrust being produced by the cold jets.
As on the X-14, control of the P. 11 27 in hovering is achieved with
compressed air jets at the wing tips and tail. The procedures for per-
forming the transitions from hovering to forward flight and back to
hovering are also similar to those described for the X-14. In the over-
load condition, running takeofTs can be performed by directing the
nozzles rearward at the start of the takeoff run and then turning them
downward about 60 degrees when takeoff speed is reached. The
P. 1127 is not intended to be a research airplane but rather an opera-
tional machine which the Royal Air Force hopes to use in the near
future. In its present form, it is only capable of flight at subsonic
and low transonic speeds but, if it proves to be a success, later versions
with advanced models of the BS 53 engine might well be designed
for supersonic speeds.
Because of the attractive features of the BS 53 turbofan engine,
including the basic simplicity of the conversion from vertical to hori-
zontal thrust, other companies arenow designing aircraft built around
advanced versions of the engine. Fokker of Holland and Republic
Aircraft in this country are now collaborating on the design of a
supersonic fighter for possible NATO use which is expected to in-
corporate a variable-sweep wing and an advanced engine of the BS
53 type.
Deflected-jet STOL aircraft. Two different types of deflected-
jet STOL aircraft have been studied to date: those which have pro-
visions for tilting the tailpipe downward to provide additional lift
and those which incorporate the jet-flap principle.

The principle of deflecting the jet exhaust downward at some
modest angle by means of a swivelling tailpipe has been recognized
for a number of years as a method of reducing takeoff and landing

speeds. Early work along this line was done in England with a Meteor
aircraft, and more recently applications of this type have appeared
in the United States and Italy. An early version of the Grumman
A2F new carrier-based low-level attack bomber being
Intruder, a
built for the U. S. Navy had adjustable tailpipes which could be
turned downward about 30 degrees to provide some improvement
in takeoff and landing speeds. In Italy, Fiat appears to be making a
major effort to develop a STOL fighter from its conventional jet
fighter, G.91 built for NATO use. Their latest STOL design,
the
called the G.95/2, has provisions for deflecting the tailpipes of the
two main propulsion engines 45 degrees and also has two auxiliary
engines installed with tailpipes that can be turned down as much as
60 degrees. Since this machine could fly at speeds below the minimum
control speed, provisions are included for VTOL-type jet control noz-
zles for pitch and roll control. Calculations indicate that the G.95/2
could take off and clear a 50-foot obstacle in 850 feet compared to
3,500 feet for the G.91. It should be noted, however, that this spectac-
ular performance is obtained only by going to a thrust-weight ratio
of almost one and by making use of a VTOL-type control system.
Fiat's latest design in the G.95 series, the G.95/3, is a combination
deflected-jet lifting-engine configuration having VTOL as well as
STOL capability.
The second type of deflected-jet STOL aircraft makes use of
the jet-flap scheme — an arrangement which the exhaust from jet
in
engines is flattened into a thin jet sheet and blown over a flap at the
trailing edge of the wing to produce very high lift and thereby permit
large reductions in takeoff and landing speeds and runway lengths.
There is a basic difference in the mechanism by which the lift of an
aircraft is increased when using a downwardly deflected tailpipe and
when using a jet flap. The deflected tailpipe provides a "brute force"
method of increasing lift; that is, the additional lift is just the vertical
component of the engine thrust. The jet flap, on the other hand, pro-
vides a much greater increase in lift than the vertical component of
engine thrust since the jet sheet acts just like a large wing flap and
gready augments the lift of the wing.
Three basically different forms of the jet flap have been studied:
the internal-flow, external-flow, and upper-surface types. In the

internal-flow type, the jet engines are installed within the wing and
their exhaust is ducted through the wing and over the flap. The exter-
nal-flow type is an arrangement which the jet exhaust from a pod-
in
mounted engine is flattened out and directed through a slotted flap at

the trailing edge of the wing. In the upper-surface type, the engine
is mounted on top of wing with a flattened tailpipe exhausting
the
over the upper surface of the wing and flap. Although the principle in-
volved in the operation of the jet flap had been known for a number of
years, it was not until the excellent work in this field by I. M. David-
son of England and Ph. Poisson-Quinton of France in the mid-1950's
that interest was stimulated in applying the principle.
We can understand better how a jet flap works if we first consider
a related subject —boundary layer control, or BLC. Many of our

present-day military aircraft make use of BLC to delay wing stall
to higher angles of attack and therefore lower flight speeds. This

boundary layer control is achieved in some cases by taking compressed
air from the engine and blowing it over the wing flaps at the trailing
edge of the wing. This small amount of air blown over the flap permits
INTERNAL FLOW EXTERNAL FLOW UPPER SURFACE

Three different jet flap arrangements have been proposed for making use of jet-
engine exhaust to provide large increases in wing lift for STOL operation.
the wing to produce more lift by maintaining a smooth flow of air

over the top of the wing and thereby delaying the Now, if we
stall.
blow harder and harder over the flap we still keep getting more and
more lift. Then, if we go to the extreme and, instead of just using
compressed air from the engine, we blow the entire jet exhaust of
the engine over the flap, we have in effect a jet flap. The amount of
lift that can be produced by a jet flap depends on how much jet
engine thrust is available on the airplane. Current jet transports do

not have enough jet engine thrust installed to make good use of the
jet flap, but it is possible that later, higher performance aircraft will
have. Our larger present-day jet transports have a total engine thrust
equal to about one-fourth the weight of the airplane at takeoff.
Increasing this thrust by 50 percent and making use of the jet flap
could result in takeoff and landing distances less than half those now
required.
To no manufacturer has seriously considered installing jet
date,
flaps on probably because a number of problems remain
jet airplanes,
to be solved. In England, however, the Hunting jet flap research

aircraft is being built to explore the jet flap principle in flight. This
isan airplane with a thick unswept wing of high aspect ratio (about
10). A thick wing is being used to accommodate the ducting which
carries the exhaust from the jet engine in the fuselage to the slots
The airplane, which weighs about 10,000 pounds,
in the wing. is pow-
ered by an Orpheus jet engine which can produce a thrust of over
4,000 pounds. It is expected that the airplane will be able to fly at
lift coefficients of 7 or more, which means that the jet flap will be
providing a lifting capacity about three or four times that of a wing
fitted with a conventional landing flap.
Three problems of concern to designers considering the jet flap

include the structural problem of dealing with the flow of high-tem-
perature jet exhaust through the wing and over the flap, the problem
of providing for safety in event of engine failure during jet flap
operation, and the means of balancing out the large nose-down
pitchingmoment produced by the jet flap. The recent development of
the turbofan engine may provide a means of solving the first two
of these problems. The relatively cool flow from the fan should
eliminate the need for a special high-temperature structure, and it
should then be more feasible to have ducting in the wings to inter-

connect the flow of all the engines so that if one engine fails the
others can take up the slack and keep the jet sheet symmetrical across
the wing.
Most aircraft of the dual-propulsion turbojet VTOL type are re-

ferred to as lifting-engine configurations, since they have special
lightweight engines installed for use during takeoff and landing. These
lifting engines can be relatively simple, light, and efficient because
they are used only for takeoff and landing and therefore have to be
designed only for a limited range of operating conditions. Configura-
tions of this type were first given serious consideration by the British,
but recently interest has spread to other countries. The only machine
of this type flown to date is the SC. 1 research aircraft built by Short
Brothers and Harland, Ltd. Other companies working on dual-pro-
pulsion configurations include Rolls-Royce and Boulton-Paul in Eng-
land, Hiller and Lockheed in this country, Dassault in France, and a
combine of three companies (Messerschmitt, Heinkel, and Bolkow)
in Germany.
The Short SCI is a small airplane weighing about 7,300 pounds
and is powered by five Rolls-Royce RB.108 jet engines which have
a relatively high thrust-weight ratio. Four of the engines are mounted
vertically in the fuselage and used only for hovering and low-speed
flight, while the fifth is mounted conventionally at the rear of the
aircraft for propulsion in forward flight. The SC.l has an automatic

stabilization system installed in triplicate to insure safety in case
one part of the system fails. This is a feature which the British feel
will be essential for safe all-weather operation of VTOL transport
aircraft of the future. The SC.l was first flown in 1957 but did not
perform the transition from hovering to forward flight until three years
number of problems had been solved. One of these prob-
later after a
lems was a nosing-up tendency in the transition similar to that experi-
enced by the buried-fan configurations discussed in the last chapter.
In addition to their successful and impressive work with the SC.l,
Short has also been studying various operational lifting-engine VTOL
types such as light strike aircraft and propeller-driven transports with
removable pods of lifting engines under each wing.
(Sliort Brothers and Harland, Ltd.)
Short SC.l dual-propulsion turbojet research aircraft had four engines mounted
vertically in fuselage for hovering, another engine at the tail for propulsion in
forward flight.
The lifting-engine principle also appears attractive for large jet

VTOL transports such as those contemplated by Dr. A. A. Griffith of
Rolls-Royce. Dr. Griffith's studies of the lifting-engine VTOL type
were initiated in the early and since that time Rolls-Royce
1950's,
has continued its preliminary analysis and design work on a super-
sonic commercial transport of this type having a highly swept delta
wing planform. This configuration has a large number of special
lightweight lifting engines (either turbojets or turbofans) installed
vertically in its relatively thick wing and has separate engines for
propulsion in forward flight. In some variations of the design, diverter
valves are installed in the propulsion engines to permit the exhaust of
these engines to be directed downward to assist the lifting engines in
supporting the aircraft in hovering flight.
When Dr. Griffith first proposed configurations of this type, there

was considerable skepticism regarding the possibility of getting light
enough engines to make such machines feasible. Conventional jet
engines at that time could produce a thrust only about 3 or 4 times
their own weight, while satisfactory lifting engines would have to
148
produce a thrust at least 10 times their weight. Development work

on small lightweight turbojet engines during the last few years has
now resulted in engine thrust-weight ratios of about 8 to 1, and recent
design studies on both turbojet and turbofan lifting engines indicate

that we may see thrust-weight ratios of 15 or more within
a few years.
Other engines in addition to the RB.108 which can produce a thrust
equal to about 8 times their own weight include the General Electric
J85 and the Rolls-Royce RB.145. General Electric has recently re-
vealed plans for relatively minor modifications to the J85 which will
give it a thrust-weight ratio over 10. Certainly, these engine develop-
ments make the future look bright for lifting-engine VTOL configura-
tions.
Work in the United States on the dual-propulsion turbojet type
has not been nearly as extensive as that in Britain, and until recently
little consideration seems to have been given to the use of small,
lightweight lifting engines. We have already described earlier in this
chapter one U. S. configuration which employed lifting engines — the

Bell D-188A, which was classed as a tilting-thrust type because half
of its eight engines were in tiltable pods at the Another very
wing tips.
interesting configuration involving the use of lifting engines has been

proposed in this country by Lockheed. Extensive design studies have
(Rolls-Royce, Ltd.)
Supersonic VTOL transport configuration with a large number of lifting engines on

each side of the fuselage, designed by Dr. A. A. Griffith of Rolls-Royce, Ltd.
been made of arrangements in which the Lockheed F-104 fighter

would be fitted with wing-tip pods containing a number of Hfting
engines to provide the airplane with VTOL capability. Such a con-
figuration appears to have a number of attractive features — particu-
larly with regard to stability and control and ground interference
effects — but the cost of installing and maintaining 10 to 14 lifting
engines in each airplane may slow the development of machines of

this type.
Lockheed and Hiller have both made design studies and have
done some experimental work on dual-propulsion systems in which
the thrust for hovering is provided by an ejector or jet pump. In
arrangements of this type, the jet exhaust from the propulsion engine
is turned downward through open tubes in order to entrain more air
and thereby provide an increase in thrust. These schemes are still in

the early stages of development. It appears that one basic problem of
such systems will be cutting down their extremely large volume. In
1961 the U. S. Army Transportation Research Command awarded a
contract to Lockheed (Marietta Division) for an experimental air-
plane employing the jet pump principle. This aircraft, called the
"Hummingbird," is a two-place machine powered by two 3,000-
pound-thrust turbojet engines mounted horizontally along each side
of the fuselage. For hovering flight, the jet exhaust is directed down-
ward by a system of nozzles through mixing chambers located in the
fuselage, where air is entrained to provide thrust augmentation.
General Aeronautique Marcel Dassault of France has received
support from the French government for the development of the
prototype of a VTOL combat aircraft based on the Dassault Mirage
3, a single-place Mach 2 fighter. Plans call for the installation of
eight RB.108lifting engines in the fuselage for hovering and a single
Bristol Orpheus engine for propulsion in forward flight. In developing

this VTOL fighter from a proven conventional airplane, Dassault
'
is using much the same approach as that suggested by Lockheed in
their VTOL version of the F-104.

A tilting-engine design generally similar to the Bell D-188A is
now under study by a combine of three German aircraft companies

— Messerschmitt, Heinkel, and Bolkow. No details have been released
concerning the particular design under consideration except that it
does make use of some of the features of the D-1 88A.

GROUND EFFECT MACHINES
vehicle
9 THE GROUND EFFECT MACHINE, OR GEM,
which operates very close
IS A
ground supported by a
to the
cushion or bubble of high-pressure air. It was shown in Chapter 3
how some types of VTOL aircraft can experience an increased lift
in ground efifect. The GEM takes full advantage of this phenomenon to
lift loads a short distance off the ground with only a fraction of the
power required by a VTOL aircraft. The GEM is also inherently
stable when hovering close to the ground — an especially valuable
characteristic which should make it possible to use pilots without any
extensive training. In order to obtain its increased lifting abUity and
inherent hovering stability, however, the GEM must stay very close to
the ground. The higher it flies, the more power it requires; and it
becomes unstable at the greater heights. Thus, the GEM may be

considered a special type of VTOL aircraft with certain inherent ad-
vantages, but also with certain limitations which keep it from being
directly competitive with other VTOL machines.
The cushion of air which supports the GEM is formed by pumping
151
air beneath the machine at a fast enough rate to replace the air which
leaks out around the periphery. The lifting capability of this cushion
is a function of the air pressure beneath the machine and the area of
the bottom of the machine. For example, if we pump air under the
machine fast enough to build up a pressure 10 pounds per square
foot greater than atmospheric pressure, and if the machine has a base
area of 1,000 square feet, a vertical lift of 10,000 pounds will be
produced by the cushion. The total lift of the GEM will be the sum
of this air cushion lift and any direct vertical lift produced by its
thrust units.
Although ground effect machines have taken a wide variety of
\ \ /
:^^
W7777777777777777777777777777777777Z
AIR BEARING
\ i /
PLENUM CHAMBER
\l /
777777777777777777777777777777777777777Z
ANNULAR JET
Schematic diagrams of three basic types of ground effect machines.
Ground Effect Machines 153
forms, only three different basic principles appear to be involved.

All GEMs developed to date can be classed as either air-bearing,
plenum-chamber, or annular-jet types or some variation of these types.
The air-bearing GEM is one that glides on a thin film of air over
a smooth surface such as a floor or rails. The film of air prevents
direct contact between the machine and the surface and therefore
reduces the friction between them. In this case, the air might be con-
sidered a sort of lubricant rather than a cushion. Proposals incor-
porating the air-bearing concept have been limited to applications
involving very smooth surfaces and very low operating heights. For
example, Ford Motor Company has proposed a high-speed monorail
system making use of the air-bearing principle.
The plenum-chamber GEM is supported by an air cushion that
is produced by pumping air open-bottom chamber which
into a large
serves as the base of the machine. As the machine rises, air leaks
out around the edges until a condition of equilibrium is reached. The
height at which equilibrium is achieved depends on the weight of
the machine and the pressure in the plenum chamber. If the weight
is kept constant and more air is pumped in to increase the pressure
in the plenum chamber, the machine will rise until the leakage around
the edge has increased enough to drop the air pressure in the chamber
back down to its original value. On the other hand, if the pumping
rate is held constant and the weight of the machine is increased by
adding more cargo, the operating height of the machine will have to
drop so that there will be less leakage around the edges and therefore
a greater pressure in the plenum chamber to support the greater
weight. Thus the operating height increases with increasing pumping
rate and decreases with increasing weight. Although the simple
plenum-chamber GEM can operate at greater heights than the air-
bearing type, it is still limited to heights of 2 or 3 percent of its
diameter, and it should operate at even lower heights for good effi-
ciency.
The annular-jet GEM differs from the plenum-chamber type in
that it has a curtain of air around its periphery to help contain the
air cushion beneath its base. This curtain of air is produced by
ejecting air downward and inward from an annular nozzle, that is,
a nozzle which extends all around the edge of the machine. The
downwardly directed nozzle also provides a small amount of vertical
thrust or lift which adds to the cushion lift to support the machine.
The curtain of air provided by the annular jet reduces the leakage of
air from the cushion beneath the machine and thus makes possible
much greater efficient operating heights than can be obtained with
the plenum-chamber GEM. Heights up to 10 percent of the diameter
of the machine are perfectly feasible for the annular-jet GEM, and
even greater heights can be achieved if sufficient power is installed
and adequate stability provided.
Two variations or refinements of the annular-jet GEM are the
labyrinth-seal type proposed by Carl Weiland of Switzerland and the
diffuser-recirculation system being studied by Hiller. The labyrinth-
seal configuration has annular channels or labyrinths in the bottom
of the machine near the periphery which help prevent air leakage from
the ground cushion by turning downward and inward a portion of the
outward flow of air between the bottom surface and the ground.
Although in some respects the labyrinth-seal configuration is quite
different from other annular-jet machines, it is included in this cate-
gory because it involves the use of a downward flowing curtain of air
near the periphery to help seal in the air cushion.
Still another variation of the annular-jet GEM is the catamaran

configuration which operates only over water. As name catamaran
the
implies, the sides or skegs of this configuration extend down into the
water and serve as side walls to help contain the air cushion between
the water and the bottom of the machine. Air jets or water jets are
used to form curtains across the bow and stern to complete the con-
tainment of the air cushion. The primary advantage of the catamaran
design is that less power is required in hovering and low-speed flight
because the jet curtain is used around only a portion of the periphery.
The catamaran is not suited to high-speed operation, however, be-
cause of the high hydrodynamic drag of the skegs.
The practical operating heights of the various GEM types serve as
another means of classifying them. The air bearing is, of course,
measured in fractions of an inch. Simple
limited to operating heights
plenum-chamber machines appear to be limited to operating heights
less than 2 or 3 percent of their diameter. In this range of heights,
the annular-jet and plenum-chamber types are competitive for so-
called high-augmentation GEM configurations— that is, configurations
which operate close enough to the ground to lift very large weights
with relatively small amounts of power. The annular-jet principle

can also be employed in low-augmentation configurations that operate
at much greater heights — perhaps up to 50 percent of the diameter
of the machine. These low-augmentation configurations, of course,
require much more installed power. The GETOL, or ground effect
takeoff and landing aircraft, to be discussed later falls in this low-

augmentation category. The annular-jet principle has also been em-
ployed in VTOL aircraft designed with enough power to hover out
of ground effect, but also incorporating provisions for taking ad-
vantage of the air cushion when near the ground. The Avrocar dis-
cussed in Chapter 8 is intended to be a machine of this type.
Performance
Hovering performance. Now let us consider some of the perform-

ance characteristics of the two most common GEM types the —
annular-jet and the plenum-chamber. A basic performance parameter
10
LIFT 8
AUGMENTATION
RATIO 7
7777777777777777777^
SIMPLE PLENUM CHAMBER
I 2 4 6 8 10 20 40 60 100
HEIGHT ABOVE GROUND, PERCENT DIAMETER
Variation of augmentation ratio with height for an annular jet, a simple plenum
chamber and a modified plenum chamber.
is the augmentation ratio which can be defined as the ratio of the lift
of the machine in the presence of the ground to the thrust that could
be produced out of ground effect by the flow of air involved. The
variation of augmentation ratio with height above the ground in terms
of GEM diameter is of particular interest in that it provides a rather
clear-cut comparison of the annular-jet and plenum-chamber prin-
ciples. For the annular jet, the augmentation ratio starts increasing
at a height equal to about one-half the diameter, and at a height of

10 percent of the diameter the ratio has increased to a value of almost
four. With further decreases in height the augmentation ratio increases
very rapidly and reaches a value of ten between 1 and 2 percent of
the diameter.
The variation of augmentation ratio with ground height is quite
different for the simple plenum chamber which first experiences a
decreasing rather than increasing augmentation with decreasing
height because of a vortex flow set up inside the plenum chamber.
Negative augmentation ratios are actually obtained at some inter-
mediate heights, which means that the lift of the machine is acting
downward rather than upward. With further decreases in height the
lift eventually becomes positive at a height of about 3 percent of the

diameter, and fairly large augmentation ratios are then obtained at
very low heights. Recent research by the NASA has indicated that
the unfavorable vortex flow in the plenum chamber can be eliminated
by careful design, so that the negative lift condition can be avoided
and the augmentation ratios increased to values almost as large as
those produced by the annular jet. The annular jet does retain some
margin of superiority, however, and most GEM designers have turned
to the annular-jet principle even though the plenum chamber does
seem to offer the advantage of a simpler, lighter, and less expensive
structure.
The hovering performance of the annular-jet GEM is improved by
turning the jet inward as well as downward. The best augmentation
is obtained with a machine having a circular planform, but the loss
in augmentation resulting from the use of an elongated planform
does not become very large until the ratio of length to width becomes
greater than three.

Forward flight performance. The ground effect machines tested
to date have had rather unspectacular performance inforward flight.
They have not only been hmited to fairly low speeds and to flight
over reasonably level terrain but have been inefficient in operation.

If the GEM
must continue to use power in forward flight to produce
its aircushion as well as to provide forward propulsion, it will never
be a very efficient craft in forward flight. One important contributing
factor to this inefficiency is the large amount of momentum drag pro-
duced at the fan inlet in the process of taking aboard the air to be
used in maintaining the air cushion in forward flight. A promising
method of improving the efficiency of the GEM in forward flight is
therefore to minimize this momentum drag by gradually shutting

off the air curtainand making use of aerodynamic wing lift to help
support the machine. For this type of operation, the GEM should
have an airfoil shape to produce lift efficiently and should be
well streamlined so as to produce the minimum amount of parasite
drag. Of course, incorporation of these features means that we are
effectively obtaining a marriage of the and GEM the airplane. Such
a machine could be designed to operate at high enough speeds near
the ground so that aerodynamic lift alone would support the craft in
cruising ffight, and the ground cushion would only be used for
hovering and low-speed flight. In this connection, it should be pointed
out that the efficiency of a conventional airplane wing increases as
it approaches the ground because of a reduction in induced drag. Re-
search has shown that the wing operating very close to the ground
has only a fraction of the drag that it normally has when operating
out of ground effect. It certainly appears desirable to take advantage
of this phenomenon when designing a GEM for high-speed operation.
One designer who has already given considerable thought to
forward flight Toivo J. Kaario
operation of ground effect machines is
of Finland. As early as 1935 he was working on machines embodying

the so-called "ram wing" principle. These machines were designed
to glide along the surface on a cushion of air produced by the ram
pressure resulting from forward motion. Air entering a forward-
facing opening was trapped between the machine and the surface to
build up the pressure of the air cushion and lift the craft. Kaario
claims exceptionally high efficiency in forward ffight operation for a
machine of this type.
We have just indicated how the features of a GEM and a con-

ventional airplane may be combined to obtain better efficiency of
158 Vertical Takeoff and Lending Aircraft
PROPELLER VTOL AIRPLANE
NNULAR JET
GEM
Comparison of power required by GEM and other vehicles having same gross
weight. Note reduction in power required for GEM at higher speeds when it is
supported by wing lift rather than cushion lift.
GEM
the in forward flight. The combination of the features of a
GEM and a V/STOL airplane to produce a GETOL (ground-effect
takeoff and landing) aircraft may result in a machine with potentially
greater versatility in short takeoff and landing operations. The
GETOL aircraft differs from other V/STOL aircraft in that it uses
a ground cushion rather than a landing gear for takeoff and landing.
The principal advantage claimed for such an aircraft is that it can
perform short takeoff runs with overload from much rougher terrain
than can be negotiated by V/STOL aircraft with conventional land-
ing gear. This capability, however, is obtained at the expense of
added complexity and a loss in hovering efficiency out of ground
effect. Before the feasibility of GETOL aircraft can be ascertained,
considerable additional research will be required to provide informa-
tion on such items as the transition from cushion lift to wing lift and
the instability experienced in some conditions of operation. The
Vertol Division of Boeing Airplane Company has an Army contract
for research on the GETOL principle, and the NASA is also con-
ducting research in this field.
Overwater performance. The performance of a GEM flying over

water is somewhat different from that over land. First of all, in hover-
ing flight the GEM pushes the water underneath it downward until
the water displaced is equal to the weight of the machine. In this

respect the GEM is just like a ship or any other floating object. This
displacement of the water beneath it means that the GEM will not
fly as high above the free water level as it does above the ground
with the same amount of power. One problem experienced by the
GEM in hovering or flying slowly over water is the spray it produces.
Tests of some machines have indicated that this may well be a very
serious especially when operating at low speeds over
problem,
salt water. A quarter-inch crust of salt formed on the engine of one
GEM after a couple of hours operation over the sea, and the machine
had to be washed down with fresh water after every test. Special spray
deflectors consisting of horizontal strips around the periphery of the
GEM have been found helpful in reducing the spray problem.
})}j>))})))n))i))})))>>)))})))))})))
With a given amount of power, a GEM does not hover as far above the free
v/ater level as it does above a hard surface, because of the water displaced be-
neath the machine.
Although the GEM produces a hole in the water in hovering flight,

it does not continue to drag this hole along with it at high forward
speeds as a ship does. Of course, the GEM must effectively climb
out of its hole as it starts forward from hovering flight, but after it
exceeds a certain critical or "hump" speed, it skims over the water

without perceptibly displacing the surface. The fact that it causes
very little displacement of the water at higher forward speeds is at-
tributed to the short time that the air cushion pressure acts on each
particle of water it passes over. That is, the pressure just does not
have enough time to push on the water to depress it very much.
Since the GEM
skims over the surface, it does not have to contend
with the so-called wave drag —
the drag produced by the water
which a ship must push out of the way. The GEM therefore has a
much higher potential top speed than the ship and has consequently
been receiving considerable attention for applications requiring high-
speed over-water operation.
Stability and Control
It was shown in Chapter 3 that VTOL aircraft in hovering flight

are inherently unstable and will not fly themselves unless they are
equipped with automatic stabilizing devices. The GEM, on the
other hand, is usually quite stable at very low heights and will fly
itself hands-off. As pointed out earlier, this is an important advantage

of the GEM for it means that relatively inexperienced operators can
be used as pilots. Unfortunately, the stability decreases with increas-
GEM usually becomes unstable at heights
ing height so that the
somewhere between 5 and 10 percent of its diameter. Limited im-
provements in stability can be obtained by modifications in the
geometry of the bottom of the GEM and in the jet arrangement. For
example, the use of two concentric annular jets and the addition of
radial-slot jets in the bottom have been found to be beneficial from
the standpoint of stability. Research to date has indicated that the
stability of a given configuration over water might be greatly differ-
ent from that over land, but no consistent trend in the differences has
been noted. In forward flight, the GEM will be unstable unless some
special provisions are made, such as the addition of stabilizing tail
surfaces. For flight at low speeds, a certain amount of instability may

be acceptable provided the craft has powerful controls; but at high
speeds the GEM must be stable, since it is operating very close to
the surface where there is little margin for error.
AH ground effect machines built to date have had relatively weak
controls and have therefore been deficient in maneuverability. This
deficiency is an inherent problem of the GEM for several reasons:
first, because the machines operate very close to the ground they can-
not bank or pitch to large angles as aircraft do to turn sharply or

stop quickly; second, although they are effectively surface machines
they have no parts in contact with the surface, like the wheels of an
automobile or the hull of a ship; and third, they require so little
installed power for hovering on their ground cushion that they turn
out to have an insufficient source of thrust for adequate maneuvering.
The GEM has only a fraction of the maneuvering capability of a

helicopter, an airplane, or an automobile. Its ability to turn and stop
is more like that of a boat. For low-speed, overwater operation such
maneuverability may prove to be acceptable, but for overland opera-
tion and for high-speed operation over water it is likely that better
maneuvering capability will be required. Possible means which have
been suggested for improving the GEM in this respect include the use
of an extensible centerboard for operation over water and the use of
an extensible braking surface to contact the ground or water for rapid
stops.
Propulsion and control of ground effect machines has usually
been achieved in one of three ways: tilting the whole machine, de-
flecting the annular-jet curtain, or using a separate thrust unit for
control. Tilting thewhole machine appears to be a simple, straight-
forward system but it has not proved to be very satisfactory for opera-
tion at very low heights because the machine cannot be tilted to a
very large angle before one edge contacts the ground. This system
may prove to be more satisfactory for use on the high-powered
GEM types that will fly on thicker ground cushions. Deflecting the
annular-jet curtain to provide a push in the desired direction is a
fairly effective means of obtaining control at moderate heights, but
it becomes much less effective at the lower heights because of the
smaller thrust required in the annular jet to maintain the air cushion.
The use of separate thrust units, of course, makes it possible to obtain
any amount of control desired at any altitude at the expense of added
power. It may well turn out that ground effect machines designed
to have adequate controls for maneuvering will not be the very
low-powered craft originaUy envisioned when only the power re-
quired to maintain the ground cushion was being considered.
T777777777T777777777T /////////////////// /////////////////////

SEPARATE THRUST UNIT TILTING OF MACHINE JET CURTAIN DEFLECTION
Schematic diagrams indicating the three basic methods of providing propulsion and
control for the GEM.
Possible GEM Applications
Numerous applications for ground effect machines have already

been proposed, but many problems remain to be solved before satis-
factory operational machines can be built. Perhaps the most pub-
licized application for the GEM is the large cross-channel ferry
proposed by Saunders-Roe Division of Westland Aircraft. Follow-
ing the successful crossing of the English Channel with their 4-ton
Hovercraft SR-Nl research machine on July 25, 1959, they have gone
ahead with the construction of a 25-ton machine incorporating the
same principles as the SR-Nl. This larger machine, designated the
SR-N2, is an operational research craft which will cruise at a speed
of 70 knots and will accommodate 54 to 66 passengers. Its construc-
tion is to be completed in the spring of 1962. Although it should
prove to be useful general-purpose load carrier itself, the main func-
tion of the SR-N2 will be to provide information on which to base the
design of a 100-ton high-speed cross-channel ferry. The SR-N2 is to
be powered by four Blackburn A. 129 turbine engines which will drive
compressor fans for the annular jet and aircraft propellers for for-
ward propulsion. The high-speed ferry application certainly appears
to be a logical one for the GEM; it will not be surprising to see large
machines of this type in successful operation within a few years.
Ground effect machines have been the subject of considerable in-
terest to the U. S. Navy and Army for the last few years. Some of the
GEM applications of special interest to them include an amphibious
assault boat, an antisubmarine warfare platform, a cargo-lighter, a
large oceangoing transport, and a small reconnaissance car. Let us
see what some of the requirements would be for such vehicles.
The amphibious assault boat would transport troops and equip-
ment from ship to shore and would be capable of crossing the beach
and unloading inland. It would have a speed of at least 60 knots and
would operate three or four feet off the surface. The Office of Naval
Research is contracting for a design study on an amphibious assault
GEM of this type which is to be a 30-ton machine capable of carry-
ing a 15-ton payload. This study will probably be followed by the
construction of one or more test bed machines for use in operational
evaluation work.
The antisubmarine warfare platform would be a machine designed

to float on the water and then on command to rise to a height of three
or four feet above the surface and dart out at speeds up to 100 knots
to perform the duties of a submarine "hunter" or "killer." The ma-
chine to fulfill this mission would probably have a payload of about
5 tons and a range of about 200 miles and could be designed to
operate as either a manned or an unmanned vehicle.
The cargo-lighter differs from the amphibious assault boat in that
it would be required to operate only about a foot above the surface
since it would be designed for use in sheltered waters such as lakes and
rivers and over relatively flat terrain. A machine of this type would
probably have a cruising speed of about 60 knots, a range of 200 to
300 miles, and a payload of 15 or 20 tons.
The oceangoing transport is an application that seems to be a bit
farther in the future than the others. It would be a very large machine,
perhaps 300 to 400 feet in diameter and weighing as much as 2,000
tons, designed to cruise at speeds over 100 knots at heights of about
15 or 20 feet. Nuclear propulsion would probably be required to make
such a craft feasible because the fuel consumption with conventional
propulsion would be so great for a transoceanic voyage that very little
payload could be carried. The development of a successful machine
of this type is also likely to involve the use of an airfoil-shaped con-
figuration which will take advantage of aerodynamic wing lift to ob-
tain greater efficiency in high-speed cruising flight. The Maritime Ad-
ministration is interested in large overwater GEM's and has plans for
a 50-ton machine for research use.
The reconnaissance car would be a small machine designed to
carry a payload of 1 ,000 pounds at heights up to four or five feet and
speeds up to 100 knots. It would be intended for use over inland
waters and over moderately rough terrain and roads that have been
damaged so that conventional surface vehicles cannot use them. A
small machine of this type operating at heights of four or five feet
would require a considerable amount of power and would no doubt
require some form of artificial stabilization for it would be flying in a
region where the GEM is inherently unstable.
One GEM application known to be under consideration in Russia
isan air-cushion river boat reported by Pravda to be under develop-
ment by the Central Technical Design Bureau of the Ministry of the
mSm ^*mf> ~<HRiC '•(«^ 'imf ''*m'f ^u'' '" Ui
(Courtesy of Saunders-Roe, Ltd.)
164
River Fleet for use on small shallow streams. A twin-pontoon con-

figuration having a 34-milc-per-hour maximum speed and provisions
for 38 passengers will be built for experimental purposes. Studies of
other GEM applications have also been undertaken by the Russians.
A number of other specialized applications for the GEM, both
military and commercial, have been proposed and one in particular
seems assured of early success. It is the "Flying Saucer," a small one-

passenger machine designed by National Research Associates, Inc.
for use as an amusement park ride. The rider sits on top of this ma-
chine, which is powered by a 6-horsepower engine, and controls it
merely by leaning in the direction he desires to go. It is expected to
be a feature attraction at Disneyland in the near future.
Machines Flown to Date
A large number of ground effect machines have been built and

flown either as research craft or as prototypes of possible future opera-
tional machines. Most of these machines have been of the annular-jet
type, but a few plenum-chamber machines have also been built. Let
us take a look at some of the more interesting configurations, starting
with the annular-jet types.
have already mentioned the most impressive of the GEMs
We
flown to date —
the Saunders-Roe Hovercraft SR-Nl, which made the
Channel crossing in 1959. The Hovercraft is a fairly large machine,
weighing about 9,000 pounds and having a length of 32 feet and a
width of 25 feet. It has two concentric annular jets three feet apart
which are directed inward about 60 degrees from the vertical. The
maximum hovering height at the all-up weight is slightly less than a
foot. Compressed air for the jets is provided by a fan driven by a
450-horsepower Alvis Leonides engine, and a portion of the com-
pressed air is exhausted rearward through twin ducts to provide pro-
pulsion in forward flight up to a maximum speed of about 25 knots.
Directional control is obtained from vanes located in the propulsion
ducts. Additional directional control in forward flight is provided by
The Saunders-Roe SR-Nl Hovercraft was the first GEM to cross the English Channel.
Air is taken in through the vertically-mounted ducted fan and exhausted dov/n-
v/ard around the periphery of the machine to produce the air cushion which sup-
ports it.
vertical rudder surfaces. In its Channel crossing, the Hovercraft cov-

ered the 25 miles from Calais to Dover in a little under two hours and
carried a crew of three including its designer, C. S. Cockerell. A Mar-

bore jet engine was installed on the aft deck of the SR-Nl in later
tests to provide additional thrust for somewhat higher speeds.
tests at
Another impressive machine of the annular-jet type was built by
Carl Weiland, formerly of Zurich, Switzerland, but now living in the
United States. Weiland's craft, named the "Hen," is a seven-ton ma-
chine powered with two Oldsmobile engines that produce a total of
about 700 horsepower. It is almost square in planform, having a
length of 35 feet and a width of 30 feet, and its compressor fans are
located in six forward-facing ducts which are lined up across the front
of the machine. In some of its early trials on Lake Zurich, the "Hen"
was fitted with two air propellers powered by two additional engines
and reportedly reached speeds as high as 60 miles per hour. It was
later sold to the U. S. Navy and brought to the United States where
it is being used in a research program. Weiland's latest GEM design,
the Everglade buUt by Reynolds Metals Company, is a two-ton annu-
lar-jetmachine measuring 30 feet by 15 feet. It is powered by two
150-horsepower engines and has reached speeds as high as 75 miles
per hour in test runs on the Ohio River.
An annular-jet GEM of very unique design, the Cushioncraft, has
been England by Britten-Norman, Limited. The jet curtain on
built in
this machine is produced by an annular impeller rotating in a slot
above the peripheral nozzle of the machine. The annular impeller has
no hub but is held in place by a number of rubber-tired wheels and is
driven by a friction wheel that is powered by a sports car engine. This
propulsion arrangement not only avoids the ducting problems of the
other annular-jet types which use conventional compressors or fans,
but it also provides a much thicker and lower-velocity air curtain, a
feature which could prove to be a definite advantage of an arrange-
ment of this type. On the other hand, the relatively large inertia of the
annular impeller is likely to lead to troublesome gyroscopic effects.
Propulsion for forward and maneuvering is provided by two

flight
helicopter tail rotors mounted on top of the craft. Financed by Elders

and Fyffes, Limited, a firm engaged in banana growing and shipping,
the Cushioncraft was designed and built as the first stage in the de-
velopment of an amphibious utility craft that might be suitable for
transporting bananas over jungle trails and down shallow streams to

the shipping docks.
Other annular-jet GEM's are being developed in England by

Folland and Vickers-Armstrong. Both companies have built and
tested research craft and have plans for commercial applications.
A number of annular-jet machines have been built and flown in
the United States but some of these have been small, special-purpose
machines David Taylor Model Basin, Princeton
for use in research.
University, and the Langley Research Center of the NASA have all
done research with man-carrying machines of this type. Others who
have built annular-jet types in this country include National Research
Associates, Bertelson Manufacturing Company, and the Gyrodyne
Company. Catamaran overwater GEM configurations have been flown
by Hughes Tool Company and Bell Aerosystems Company.
National Research Associates has built two annular-jet machines
for the U. S. Marine Corps. The first machine, designated GEM-I,
weighed about 1,100 pounds, measured approximately 14 by 8 feet
and was powered by two 40-horsepower engines. It was controlled
by differential engine thrust and deflection of its jet curtain. The
second machine, the GEM
III, is somewhat larger, weighing about
1,800 pounds empty and measuring 22 by 12 feet, and is powered
by two 80-horsepower Solar gas turbine engines. National Research

Associates has also built another machine called the AquaGEM,
which is designed especially for overwater operation. It is 28 feet
long and 8 feet wide and is intended to serve as a small test model
of a lOO-passenger, high-speed ferry.
Dr. William R. Bertelson of the Bertelson Manufacturing Com-
pany is an Illinois physician who entered the GEM field initially to im-
prove transportation to rural patients. He has built several machines,
the latestand largest of which is the Aeromobile 200, a 1 6-foot by 8-
foot craft powered by a 200-horsepower aircraft engine which gives
it an operating height of about eight inches. An improved version of
the Aeromobile 200 was purchased by the U. S. Department of Com-

merce for demonstrations at the U. S. International Trade Fair in
Tokyo, Japan, held in April, 1961, and for similar demonstrations in
other countries later.
The Bureau of Ships of the U. S. Navy has run tests on two
(Hughes Tool Co.)
Hughes XHS-1 Hydrostreak, a catamaran-type GEM, makes use of water jets at

the bow and stern to contain air cushion which is supplied by air from duct in
center.
catamaran-type GEMs: the Hughes Tool Company XHS-1 Hydro-

streak and the Bell Aerosystems Company XHS-3. On each of these
machines, the sides or skegs extend down into the water to prevent
lateral leakage of the air cushion.Leakage is prevented fore and aft
b)r water jets on the XHS-1 and by air jets on the XHS-3. The XHS-1
is 21 feet long and 11 feet wide and weighs about two tons empty.
Three 80-horsepower engines are installed in the machine one for —

pumping air into the ground cushion and two for pumping water to
the water jets and driving water propellers for forward propulsion.
168
'^mmmsim^
(Berlelson Manufacturing Co.)
U.S. ARMY
II
(U.S. Army photo.)
(top) Bertelson Aeromobile 200-2, an annular-jet GEM purchased by the U.S. De-
partment of Commerce for display at international trade fairs.
(bottom) Curtiss-Wright Model 2500 GEM, used by the Army in operational evalua-
tion tests.
The XHS-3 is XHS-1 and has a

a slightly smaller machine than the
large fan fixed horizontally amidships to supplycompressed air for the
air cushion beneath the hull. An outboard motor is used for forward
propulsion. In 1961, the Bureau of Ships awarded a contract to Bell
to build a 20-ton research craft of the catamaran type similar in con-
cept to the XHS-3. The Navy terms this GEM type a "hydroskimmer"
because it is intended for overwater use.
Although the plenum-chamber principle has not received nearly
as much attention as the annular-jet, a number of machines of this
type have been built in the United States. Among the companies
which have worked with plenum-chamber GEM configurations are
the Curtiss-Wright Corporation, Spacetronics, Inc., Bell Helicopter
Corporation, and the Fletchaire Company.
After testing a small plenum-chamber machine, Curtiss-Wright
built a larger four-place annular-jet GEM weighing about 2,800
pounds. Two of these machines, designated the Model 2500, were
purchased by the U. S. Army Transportation Corps for evaluation
work. Propulsion and control of the Model 2500 are provided by
louvers in the sides of the machine.
Other organizations involved with work on ground effect ma-
chines include Convau: Division of General Dynamics Corporation
which has made studies of very large ocean-going craft, Aerophysics
Company which has made a number of studies for the U. S. Navy,
Aeronutronic Division of Ford Motor Company, Hiller Aircraft Cor-
poration, and the Aero-Space and Wichita Divisions of The Boeing
Company.
MILITARY VTOL
APPLICATIONS
VTOL
10 THE POTENTIAL VALUE OF AIRCRAFT WITH
capability has long been recognized by planners in all branches
of the military services. The question never has been one of whether
VTOL aircraft could prove to be militarily useful but rather whether
VTOL capability could be built into an aircraft without overly com-
promising its payload, speed, and range capabilities. It is generally
agreed that sacrifices must be made in one or more of these aspects
of performance in order to achieve the ability to take off and land
vertically; but this is not to say that VTOL aircraft are inherently
inferior to conventional aircraft in the capability to perform certain
missions. For many missions VTOL capability is important enough to
justify large deficiencies in other aspects of performance. The heli-
copter, for example, is used for a number of liaison, observation and

rescue missions because the utility afforded by its VTOL capability
is more important than its deficiencies in speed and range. Sometimes
171
no real comparison of VTOL and conventional aircraft can be made

simply because VTOL capability is essential for the particular ap-
plication. In applications where VTOL capability is desirable but not
necessarily essential, its cost in terms of performance compromises
becomes a determining factor in the choice between conventional and
VTOL aircraft.
When we speak of military applications of VTOL aircraft, we are

of course looking into the future except for the heUcopter — the only
military VTOL aircraft type to be placed into operational use up
to this time. Other types have been the subject of lengthy studies and
prototype evaluations, and some of these now appear to be nearing
possible operational status; but the services have been extremely cau-
tious in their deliberations regarding the development of VTOL serv-
ice aircraft from research and prototype machines. Occasionally there
have been serious deficiencies in the particular VTOL concepts under
study, but at other times there seemed to be no especially serious
technical problems involved. Rather, it has appeared in these latter
cases that other factors such as budgetary limitations and lack of a
clear-cut over-all plan of VTOL development and use have led to a
slowdown or termination of projects. At times, the services have no
doubt been confused regarding the mission capability to be expected
from various VTOL schemes because of the claims and counter
claims of the proponents of the different schemes. Perhaps, in the
United States at least, there has been too much exploratory work
with a great number of types both promising and unpromising, and
not enough effort aimed at the eventual development of a few really
promising types. In Britain, by contrast, there has been a more con-
centrated effort on a few selected types.
Now let us look at the various VTOL applications which have
been considered by the different branches of the service in the United
States and Europe. For completeness, we will cover not only the
applications of current interest but also some of those which have
been seriously considered during the last few years but are no longer
under consideration. No attempt will be made to describe the many
uses that have been found for helicopters, although some indication
will be given of applications in which helicopters may eventually be
replaced by other VTOL aircraft.
Military VTOL Applications 173
U. S. Military VTOL Applications
Requirements have been indicated from time to time by the U. S.
miUtary services for a variety of VTOL or STOL aircraft types such

as light tactical and assault transports, light observation aircraft,
rescue aircraft, antisubmarine warfare (ASW) aircraft, surveillance
aircraft, VTOL and STOL fighters, and light utility vehicles. A mu-
tual interest in some of these types has been shown by the Air Force,
Army and Navy. For example, all three services are interested in a
light VTOL transport machine that might serve as either a tactical
transport for the Air Force and Army, an assault transport for the
Marines, or a rescue and search aircraft for the Navy. Because of this
common interest, a design competition was held for a VTOL proto-
type transport aircraft to be used by the services in operational evalu-
ation work. The primary military mission of the operational aircraft
eventually to be developed from this prototype is combat
to transport
troops, support equipment, and supplies in both and logisti-
tactical
cal operationsfrom unprepared areas in the combat zone and from
amphibious assault ships under all weather conditions.
This Tri-Service transport prototype is to be a 35,000 pound
machine with a payload of 4 tons, an operating radius of 200 to 300
miles, and a ferry range of 2,200 to 2,600 miles. It is to have a cruis-
ing speed of at least 250 knots (preferably 300 knots) and a top
speed of at least 300 knots (preferably 400 knots). It was originally
required to meet a variety of other specifications to satisfy the needs
of all three services. For example, one of the original specifications
required that the transport be designed to fit on the elevator of an
aircraft carrier, which meant that some folding features had to be
incorporated. Later, it was decided that the Navy requirements for
carrier use would probably slow the development of the aircraft,
so only the Army and Air Force requirements had to be satisfied.
Some consideration is to be given to the Navy's needs during the de-
velopment of the transport, however, so that it may later be adapted
for carrier use with a minimum of revisions.
A number of different VTOL types were entered in the Tri-
Service transport competition, including unloaded-rotor and tilt-rotor
A variety of VTOL designs were entered in the Tri-Service VTOL transport
competition.
RIGHT:
(top) Winner of the competition, a tilt-wing-and-flap design proposed by Vought-
Hiller-Ryan.
(center, left) Tilt-wing-ond-fiap design proposed by North American.
(center, right) Tilt-rotor design proposed by Bell Helicopter Company.

(bottom) Tandem tilt-duct design proposed by Bell Aerosystems Company and
Lockheed.
THIS PAGE:
(below) Tilt-wing-and-flap design proposed by Boeing-Vertol.
(bottom) Tilt-wing-and-flap design proposed by Grumman.
(Boeing Airplane Co.)
(Grumman Aircraft Engineering Corp.)

(Chance Vought Corp.)
(Bell Helicopter Co.)
(North American Aviation, Inc.)

configurations, two-propellerand four-propeller tilt-wing configura-

tions, and four-duct tandem ducted-fan configurations. The winner
of the competition was a team of three companies: Chance Vought

(a subsidiary of Ling-Temco-Vought), Ryan and Hiller, with Chance
Vought being the prime contractor. The Vought-Ryan-Hiller con-

figuration is a tilt-wing-and-flap design powered by four General Elec-
tric T64 turboprop engines driving four 15-foot diameter
propellers.
A horizontally mounted 8-foot diameter tail rotor is used for longi-
tudinal control in hovering flight. Cross-shafting connects all the
propellers and the tail rotor so that flight can be safely maintained
with an engine out.
Present plans an initial production of five prototype air-
call for
craft, but a large production order will presumably follow if the

field trials with these first five machines are successful. Although
this will be the first operational VTOL transport prototype to be
built for the services, a number been built
of research aircraft have
and development
flown as a preliminary step in the of a machine of
this general type. These research aircraft include the Hiller X-18,
Vertol VZ-2, Ryan VZ-3, and Fairchild VZ-5 propeller aircraft,
and the Doak VZ-4 ducted-fan aircraft.
At the present time, helicopters or conventional airplanes are

being used to fill the requirements for light observation aircraft,
rescue aircraft, ASW aircraft, and surveillance aircraft, but serious
consideration has been given to other VTOL types for some of these
uses. In the early 1950's the Air Force and Army initiated the de-
velopment of the McDonnell XV- 1 and Bell XV-3 rotor converti-
planes as prototypes of possible operational aircraft for observation-
reconnaissance and rescue missions. This development, however, was
not pursued beyond the prototype evaluation stage. The Army re-
cently decided to continue to use helicopters for the light observation
mission after obtaining opinions from industry regarding the best type
of aircraft to meet this requirement in the near future. They are
now
proceeding with plans to obtain a new light observation helicopter
which be a four-place machine having a gross weight of 2,450

will
pounds, a top speed of 1 1 knots, and an endurance of 3 hours. Hiller,
Bell, and Hughes, selected as finalists in this competition, are build-
ing prototypes which will be evaluated by the Army in 1962
to de-
for 4,000 helicopters of this type.

termine the winner of the contract
Although the hehcopter is a good machine for some types of res-

cue operations, its speed and range Hmitations have caused the services
to consider the use of higher performance VTOL aircraft, perhaps in

combination with conventional aircraft, for the longer rescue missions.
The Air Force has a requirement (SOR-187) for a "piggyback" rescue

system in which a large airplane such as the C-130 would carry a small
VTOL aircraft to the scene of an accident to obtain increased speed
and range in the rescue operation. Bell Aerosystems Company has
proposed a tilt-duct machine as the VTOL rescue aircraft in such a
system. Helicopters are now being used for some ASW missions but
consideration is being given higher performance VTOL aircraft as pos-
sible replacements. At present, the surveillance mission is being carried
out by conventional aircraft or so-called STOL aircraft such as the
Grumman Mohawk, but there are strong indications that VTOL air-
craft with their greater operational versatility will eventually take over
this role.
The U. S. Navy showed an early interest in VTOL fighter aircraft
with their initiation in the late 1940's of work on the tail-sitter type
propeller VTOL machines, the XFY-1 and XFV-1, and on the tail-
sitter turbojet type, the X-13. The Air Force became interested later
on and took over the X-13 project when the Navy found itself short
of funds. After completion of work with these research aircraft, how-
ever, neither service showed any inclination to continue with the de-
velopment of tail-sitter types because of the operational problems
involved. In 1955, the Air Force started funding work on the disk-
shaped VTOL aircraft being proposed by Avro Aircraft, Ltd. of
Canada with the hope that some supersonic fighter configuration would
eventually result from this work. After several years of study and
experiment, this concept appears even further from successful de-
velopment into a fighter airplane than it did in the beginning. In 1958,
the Navy took a much more logical step toward the development of a
VTOL fighter when they initiated work on the Bell D-188A, a multi-
engine supersonic configuration which appeared to have a reasonable
chance of being developed into an operational machine. The Air
Force later joined the Navy in the support of this project, but in 1959
both services withdrew support of the project, apparently primarily
because of a lack of funds. At the time of its termination, this project
had reached the mock-up stage and had cost about $10 million.
Later in 1959 the Air Force appeared to be ready to start a pro-

gram leading development of a VTOL fighter by 1967. Defense
to the
Department funds were supposedly available to initiate this work in
1960 as soon as the development plan for the aircraft could be formu-
lated. In early 1960, however, the Air Force decided to drop these
plans for a VTOL fighter and to develop a STOL fighter instead.
They apparently felt that the VTOL fighter could not be developed
for operational use in the mid-1960's, while the STOL fighter could
be. The VTOL machine was therefore relegated to the study phase,
with the development to operational status presumably pushed back
to the late 1960's or early 1970's. The STOL TFX fighter now under
consideration would have a 3,000-foot maximum takeoff and landing
distance and would be designed for a reasonably long range when
flying at speeds around Mach 1 at very low altitude. In the strict sense
of the word, this machine would not be a STOL aircraft, for it would
have no provisions for using its thrust to increase its lift. It would
actually be a more or less conventional jet fighter airplane with im-
proved takeoff and landing performance, probably provided by a
variable-sweep wing. The wing would be set at low sweep for takeoff
and landing and at high sweep for high-speed, low-level flight. A
VTOL fighter of generally similar variable-sweep design may be the
follow-on to this STOL fighter.
The U.S. Army has for some years felt the need for simple, easy-
to-fly VTOL utility vehicles as part of their development of the "sky
cavalry" concept. In the 1950's they initiated the development of two
types of aircraft in this category: the flying platform and the aerial
jeep. The Chapters 5 and 7, was to be a
flying platform, discussed in
smafl, one-place machine that would be controlled by kinesthetic con-
trol. It was hoped that it would be a simple and easy-to-fly machine
which could be used by the average foot soldier for increased mobility.
As pointed out earlier, however, experiments to date on this concept
with the deLackner rotor-powered Aerocycle and the Hiller ducted-
fan flying platforms have not been considered promising enough to
warrant continuation of this work. In the aerial jeep, the Army was
seeking a compact vehicle having the versatility of the ground jeep
combined with the ability to hover and fly forward at moderately high
speeds. It would be suitable for operating "in the nap of the earth" to
avoid detection but could also fly at altitude when necessary. The
aerial jeep was not intended to be a ground effect machine. It was to

be a true VTOL aircraft which would not depend on an air cushion
for sustentation. We have already covered in Chapters 6 and 7 the
work done on the aerial jeep concept with the Curtiss-Wright, Pi-
asecki, and Chrysler machines. The Army has not been too impressed
by the results obtained to date, and only a limited effort is still being
carried on in this field with a new ducted-fan machine built by
Piasecki. Another Army-sponsored project, which is not part of the
aerial jeep program but which has some of the same general goals, is
the Avrocar. This saucer-shaped craft, a cross between the aerial jeep
and the ground effect machine, is a rather comphcated and expensive
configuration for general Army use in its present form and is not likely
to see service use unless some drastic changes are made in its design.
Although the flying platforms and aerial jeeps built to date have not
been very successful and little work is now being done on such air-
craft, the Army still has a strong interest in the general concepts in-
volved and will probably resume development work in this field when-
ever new and especially promising configurations are uncovered.
European Military VTOL Applications
Within the last two or three years the interest in miUtary VTOL
applications has appeared to be growing much more rapidly in Europe
than in the United States, perhaps because of a difference in the type
of military operations anticipated. While the U. S. Air Force and Navy
are apparently having a difficult time convincing themselves of our
need for a VTOL fighter, the European countries are generally agreed
on their need for a close-support or strike aircraft with VTOL capabil-
ity. The shorter range missions involved in European operations make
it easier to build a successful VTOL aircraft.The British already have
an operational VTOL strike fighter prototype flying the Hawker —
P. 11 27 described in Chapter 8. This aircraft has been built for service
in the Royal Air Force which has a requirement for such a machine
for use in ground attack and tactical reconnaissance and also as a two-
place trainer. It will probably be obtained first in limited quantity for
pilot trainingand operating experience. Other European countries
have also shown interest in the P. 1127 and some of the higher-per-
formance follow-on versions being considered, and Hawker had hoped
that it would eventually be accepted by NATO as the subsonic VTOL

strike fighter covered in the NATO general operating requirement,
GOR-2. This requirement, however, has been scrapped in favor of a
new requirement (BMR-3) for a higher-performance aircraft that is
to at altitude and at least high subsonic
have supersonic capability
capability"on the deck." Recent studies have indicated that such
performance can be obtained by resorting to the variable-wing-sweep
principle. One problem of the NATO planners at SHAPE (Supreme
Headquarters of the Allied Powers in Europe) has been whether to
obtain fairly soon a relatively simple, straightforward subsonic VTOL
fighter which might be obsolescent by the time it is operational or to
obtain much later a higher-performance supersonic fighter which
would be much larger and more sophisticated, and much more expen-
sive to buy and operate.
Another aircraft to be obtained for NATO use is a medium-range
V/STOL transport to fulfill the requirement BMR-4. This is to be
a somewhat larger and longer-range aircraft than the U. S. Tri-Service
transport. Such a transport appears to be essential for support of the
VTOL combat aircraft being planned for NATO use. In the initial
competition for this aircraft, a large number of American and Euro-
pean companies entered a wide variety of VTOL configurations, in-
cluding rotor, propeller, ducted-fan, and turbojet types.
Included among European countries which have shown a
the
strong interest in VTOL Great Britain, West Germany,
aircraft are
France, Italy, and Holland. There have been several recent examples
of cooperative effort between two or more of these countries for the
purpose of developing specific VTOL types either for their own use or
for NATO. Perhaps the most active of the countries in the planning
of military VTOL aircraft has been West Germany.
In starting out from scratch to rebuild its air force, West Germany
has apparently decided to concentrate on VTOL aircraft for its next
round of machines. Three types are presently under consideration: a
Mach 3 interceptor, a close-support aircraft capable of supersonic
speeds at low level, The design group
and a small transport aircraft.
of the Messerschmitt-Heinkel-Bolkow combine has been working on

the Mach 3 interceptor and has consulted a number of American com-
panies in connection with this project. West Germany and France
have announced that they are going to work jointly on a supersonic
fighter and they are expected to be joined later by Britain and Italy.
Interest in VTOL military aircraft in Britain appears to have been

mainly centered in the strike and interceptor types already discussed
and more recendy in STOL tactical transport aircraft. The Fairey
Rotodyne, which has been developed primarily for civil use, is also
likely to find a number of military applications if it proves to be a

successful machine. The British have concentrated on turbojet and
rotor VTOL types to the almost complete exclusion of propeller and
ducted-fan types. Some of their aircraft designers have indicated that
the potential of turbojet machines is such as to rule out the need for
propeller and ducted-fan types which others feel are necessary to fill
the gap in the speed spectrum between low-speed rotorcraft and high-
speed machines. Whether this is sound reasoning remains to be
jet
seen. In any event, by concentrating their efforts on a few types the

British have come up with three promising VTOL configurations: the
Rotodyne, the Hawker P. 11 27, and the Short SCI. The SCI is only
a research machine, but plans are already being made for operational
aircraft incorporating some of its design features.
Most of the work in VTOL
and STOL military applica-
France on
tions has been on the supersonic and propeller-driven STOL
fighter
transport. Prior to their present working agreement with West Ger-
many on a supersonic VTOL fighter, the French worked on another
jet interceptor configuration with some German support. This con-
figuration, described in Chapter 8, was a tail-sitter with a ring-wing,
called a coleopter. The first step in its development was a research
machine built and tested by SNECMA. Following the crash of this
research aircraft in a test flight in 1959, this project was dropped.

Recently, Dassault has been working on the development of a VTOL
combat airplane prototype from its Mirage III, a conventional Mach 2
fighter. In addition to its single Bristol Orpheus propulsion engine,
this prototype would have eight lightweight lifting engines mounted in
the fuselage for hovering. The work done by Breguet in developing
propeller-driven STOL transport aircraft was covered in Chapter 6.
The French government is expected to place an order for a number

of STOL transport aircraft, and Breguet has a new configuration, the
945, which is considered a leading contender in the competition.
An interesting VTOL configuration is now under study by Fokker
of Holland in conjunction with Republic Aircraft which owns one-
third interest in Fokker. This configuration, which is reported to in-

corporate an advanced hft-thrust engine and a variable-sweep wing, is
said to have an "on-the-deck" speed of Mach 1.2 as well as supersonic

capability at altitude. It has been designed with the NATO require-
ment BMR-3 in mind.
V/STOL COMMERCIAL
TRANSPORT AIRCRAFT
11
aircraft will
THE FUTURE V/STOL COMMERCIAL TRANSPORT
probably be closely related to future developments in air-
port size and location. Experience has shown that airports built well
outside the heavily populated area of cities are often in the midst of
urban development within a few years, and there are already airports,
such as Newark and LaGuardia in New York and Midway in Chicago
which are surrounded by built-up metropolitan areas. This situation
is likely to become more common in this country and abroad in the
next few years. The so-called population explosion is expected to

eventually produce a 600-mile-long city along the east coast of the
United States from Boston to Norfolk. Such a development will cer-
tainly increase the cost of land and will make it very desirable to keep
the size of airports to a minimum. In addition, there will be a need to
expand and improve the service now being provided by helicopters
from downtown heliports and close-in airports. These factors should
lead to steadily increasing demand for commercial transport aircraft
with V/STOL capability.
183
Perhaps a word of explanation is in order regarding the use of the

term V/STOL rather than VTOL to describe the transport aircraft
under consideration in this chapter. Earlier it was explained that a
V/STOL aircraft is a combination VTOL/STOL configuration. That
is, it can take off and land either vertically or with short takeoff and
landing runs. The V/STOL transport is a machine that would be de-
signed with enough power to hover or take off and land vertically
whenever necessary, but in most operations it would probably use
short takeoff and landing runs for improved economy, better handling
qualities, and greater safety in event of engine failure.
The development of commercial V/STOL transport aircraft will
in most cases follow the development of similar aircraft for military
use. For example, if the Tri-Service military transport now under de-
velopment in the United States proves to be a machine with promise
for civil application we will no doubt see commercial transports of the
same general type in service within a few years. One exception to this
line of development has been the Fairey Rotodyne, the compound
helicopter built in Britain primarily for commercial transport applica-
tion. It is unlikely that we will see commercial V/STOL developments
of this type in this country in the near future unless a military develop-
ment has preceded it, or unless the sale of a military version of the
machine seems assured. Although the eventual widespread use of
commercial V/STOL transports appears inevitable, their introduction
into service to either complement or replace conventional transports
will not be an overnight operation. On the contrary, such a change-
over is likely to take place very gradually, particularly in the early
stages.
Although this chapter deals primarily with commercial V/STOL
transports for airline use, some of the configurations to be discussed
will also be well suited for use as business aircraft. Surveys have indi-
cated a fairly large potential market for such aircraft in the 15,000-
to 20,000-pound class. Following the successful development of mili-
tary VTOL aircraft of this type, we can expect to see the conversion
of some of these designs to business aircraft use.
The first commercial V/STOL transport operations were started
in the 1950's when a number of helicopter airlines were formed for
the purpose of providing airport-to-airport and downtown shuttle serv-
ice in metropolitan areas. In the United States, three cities —Los An-
V/STOL Commercial Transport Aircraft 185
geles, Chicago, and New York — now have well-established local air-
lines of this type and the San Francisco—Oakland and Washington,
D. C. areas are beginning the development of such service. Similar
airlines are in operation in other parts of the world. Perhaps the best
known of all the helicopter commercial transport operations is that
conducted by Sabena Airlines between cities in Belgium, France,
Germany, and the Netherlands.
The shortcomings of the helicopter as a transport aircraft were
indicated in earlier chapters. Basically a hovering machine, it lacks the
speed and efficiency in cruising flight required of a transport. For the
short hops of local and feeder-line operation, however, these defi-
ciencies are not important enough to rule out its use. In fact, even
when higher-performance VTOL aircraft more suitable for general
transport use are developed, the helicopter is likely to remain the best
machine for short local flights where efficiency in hovering and low-
speed flight is more important than a high cruise speed. Assuming
that the helicopter continues to provide local service, what are the
other V/STOL transport types that are likely to see service in the
future? With a little crystal gazing, we can come up with an entire
family of V/STOL transports that could one day result in substantial
savings in the time required to travel from city center to city center,
V/STOL Transport Configurations

As the first step in forming our family of V/STOL transport types,
we should decide upon the types of service we will expect from these
machines. One generally accepted method of differentiating between
the various types of service is to use a classification based on the
operating range of the aircraft involved. Operating range is usually
indicated by such terms as local, feeder-line, short-range, medium-
range, and long-range. Since thereno generally is agreed upon defini-
tion for these terms, we them more or less arbitrarily as
shall define
follows: local —
operating range up to 200 miles; feeder-line 200 to —
—
400 miles; short-range 400 to 800 miles; medium-range 800 to —
—
2,000 miles; and long-range 2,000 to 3,500 miles. These values of
operating range refer to the distance the transport can fly without
refueling. Ordinarily the individual flights will be much shorter than
the distances indicated, particularly for the shorter ranges. For exam-
pie, amachine in local-service operation may make a number of hops

of 10 to20 miles before making a refueling stop. Now let us see which
of the various V/STOL configurations we have discussed in earlier
chapters are included in these five different categories.
Local-service V/STOL transports. We have already indicated
that local service will continue to be provided by the helicopter even
when higher-performance V/STOL aircraft become available. Local
service involves very short hops from one airport to another, from
the airport to downtown heliports, and between heliports in various
parts of the city and surrounding area. The helicopter is well suited
to this type of operation which calls for extensive hovering and low-
speed flight and does not require a very high cruising speed. Within
the next few years the helicopter should become a much better ma-
chine for this operation than it is today. With multiengine reliability,
with improved design giving greater freedom from vibration, with re-
duction in its noise levels, with improved performance resulting in
cruising speeds of 150 to 200 miles per hour, and with the addition of
all-weather capability, the transport helicopter of tomorrow should
indeed be well adapted to continuing its role as the local-service
V/STOL transport aircraft.
Two new 25-passenger helicopters with some of these features
were introduced into helicopter airline service in the United States
in 196L The twin-turbine-powered Boeing Vertol 107, a tandem-
rotor configuration with a cruising speed of 155 miles per hour, is to
be used by New York Airways, and the Sikorsky S-61, a single-rotor,
twin-engine machine with a 140-mile-per-hour cruising speed, is being
purchased by both Chicago Helicopter Airways and Los Angeles Air-
ways. The prototype of the Vertol 107 recently flew from a heliport in
mid-Philadelphia to the West 30th Street heliport in New York City
in 32 minutes. This was the forerunner of helicopter service be-
flight
tween the two cities which are two hours apart by express bus service
and an hour and a half or more apart by train. Helicopters of this type
(top) Prototype of Boeing Vertol 107, a 25-passenger tandem helicopter being

purchased for airline service by New York Airways.
(bottom) Sikorsky S-61L, a 25-passenger, turbine-powered helicopter being put

into airline service by Chicago Helicopter Airways and Los Angeles Airways.
(Boeing Airplane Co.)
(United Aircraft Corp.)
187
will no doubt be pressed into service for feeder-line as well as local-

service operations, at least for the next several years.
Feeder-line V/STOL transports. The feeder-line V/STOL trans-
port of the more distant future is not likely to be a helicopter because
it will require somewhat more speed and range than the local-service
transport. One candidate for the feeder-line job, however, is a de-
velopment of the helicopter — the compound helicopter or unloaded-
rotor convertiplane discussed in Chapter 5. The Fairey Rotodyne is a
machine of this type which is now nearing operational status but
which still has a serious noise problem to overcome. Cruising speeds
of 200 250 miles per hour and eventually even higher are expected
to
with such machines, and the ride they provide should be smoother
than that of the helicopter. Since the extra performance is obtained
at
the expense of additional weight, complexity, and cost, the
compound
helicopter will have to be a definite improvement over the helicopter
to justify its continued development. With the Rotodyne about ready
V/STOL airliners of the tilt-wing-and-flap type may someday operate from heli-
ports built on piers only a short distance away from the city center.
to go into service, we should know within a few years how well this
type will fill the bill as a feeder-liner. Other configurations which may
well see service as higher-performance feeder-line transports are the
tilt-rotor, tilt-propeller, With the two
and tilt-wing-and-flap types.
propeller types the cruising speeds could be 300 or 350
upped to
miles per hour —
an increase which may prove to be desirable on the
longer feeder-line hops. The choice between these two propeller ma-
chines could depend on how important the STOL capability of the
V/STOL feeder-liner proves to be. If the STOL capability is found to
be a desirable feature, then the tilt-wing-and-flap machine will prob-
ably win out.
Short-range V/STOL transports. The first form of short-range
aircraft likely to see service is the tilt-wing-and-flap machine. This
will be a higher performance craft than that used in the feeder-line op-
eration and will probably have a cruising speed of 350 to 400 miles
per hour. A transport of this type will require about twice as much
power as a conventional propeller-driven transport having the same
payload, cruising speed, and operating range; and it will be heavier,
more complex, and more expensive both in first cost and in operating
compete with the conventional
costs. In order to transports, therefore,
the V/STOL transport must bring about great savings in the time
required to travel from city center to city center. Perhaps the savings
in time plus the savings resulting from the elimination of the bus or
limousine fare to and from remotely located conventional airports will
eventually make the V/STOL transport competitive. Other configura-
tions which may someday see service as short-range transports are the
tilt-duct and fan-in-wing ducted-fan types and the lifting-engine turbo-
jet type. The fan-in-wing and lifting-engine types, which are both
powered by turbojet engines in cruising flight, offer the possibility of

higher cruising speeds, but both of these developments appear much
farther in the future than the tilt-wing-and-flap propeller transport.
Actually, at the present time, the subsonic jet V/STOL transport does
not appear too promising for commercial use because of its noise and
downwash and because of the tremendous increase in

characteristics
engine thrust required to provide the vertical takeoff and landing
capability, but this situation could change with the development of
advanced turbofan engines designed especially for use in VTOL air-
craft.
Medium-range V/STOL transports. The use of V/STOL aircraft

as medium-range transports with operating ranges from 800 to 2,000
miles does not appear to be very attractive at first glance because for
the longer hops the time saved by flying directly from city center to
city center is not as great percentagewise as for the shorter feeder-line
and short-range flights. Recent studies made by the NASA, however,
indicate that a tilt-wing-and-flap propeller V/STOL machine may
actually be more competitive with conventional transports on the
medium-range operation than on the shorter-range operations. The
improved relative position of the V/STOL transport in this case re-
sults from the fact that longer range aircraft usually have higher cruis-
ing speeds and therefore require greater installed power. Thus the
conventional turbojet transports of today used for medium-range and
long-range operations need a large amount of power to cruise at high
subsonic speeds —
enough power to provide vertical takeoff capability
for a turboprop-powered aircraft of the same size. To illustrate this
point, a study was made in which a large high-speed 220-passenger
V/STOL transport of the tilt-wing-and-flap type was compared with
a conventional jet transport of the same size. It was assumed that the
V/STOL aircraft had the same size turbine engines as the conven-
tional jet transport but that the engines were modified to drive large
propellers. Although the cruising speed was somewhat greater for the
conventional jet transport, the block speeds of the two aircraft were
about the same because of the lower cruise altitude and better rate of
climb of the V/STOL transport. For a range of about 2,000 miles,
calculations indicated that the two aircraft could carry about the same
payload and that the operating costs were only slightly greater for the
V/STOL machine. Perhaps the results of this study are somewhat
optimistic, but they do serve to indicate that in the future V/STOL
transports could conceivably be competitive with conventional trans-
ports even in cases where there are no large savings in time realized
by operating from close-in airports.
Long-range VTOL transports. Although the long-range super-
sonic VTOL transport such as that proposed originally by Dr. Griffith
of Rolls-Royce appears to be a development we shall not see for at
least 15 or 20 years, it has some very interesting features that make it
worthy of study. A machine of this type would probably have a large

number of small turbojet or turbofan lifting-engines installed for take-
off and landing and would also have provisions for deflecting the jet
exhaust of the main propulsion engines downward to help provide the
necessary vertical thrust. Despite the large number of engines in-
stalled, this VTOL transport would probably weigh little more than a
conventional supersonic transport having the same payload, cruising
speed, and range because it could have a lighter landing gear and a
much smaller wing. The and smaller wing are permissible
lighter gear
on the VTOL machine because is not fixed by the re-

their design
quirements for a conventional takeoff and landing. Although such

transports will no doubt be technically feasible at some time in the
future and may indeed prove to be competitive with conventional
supersonic transports, their introduction into service will require the
solution of some serious inherent operating problems such as noise
and jet blast effects. Perhaps some solutions for these problems, as
well as for the sonic boom problem which is currently of concern in
connection with the design of conventional supersonic transports, will

be found well before the industry starts seriously considering super-
sonic VTOL transports such as this.
Development of a V/STOL Transport System
It is apparent that the rapidly developing technology in the

V/STOL aircraft field will soon establish the technical feasibility of
a number of V/STOL transport types. Whether we shall see any of

these aircraft in service anytime soon will depend on a number of
factors such as economic feasibility and the particular path by which
the aircraft enter commercial transport operation.
At the present time it is rather difficult to make a good case for
the V/STOL transport on the basis of economic feasibility. The cur-
rent helicopter airline operations require large subsidies, and even the
introduction of faster and more efficient helicopters into service is not
likely to eliminate theneed for some subsidy payments. Some interest-
ing comparisons of helicopters and conventional transport airplanes
have been made regarding efficiency of operation and need for sub-
sidies. Present-day helicopters are said to correspond to airplanes such
as the old Ford Tri-Motor transport, while the newer helicopters now
coming into service are said to be equivalent to the DC-3. The sig-
nificance of this comparison becomes evident when it is realized that
(Neui York Airways, Inc.)
(New York Airways, Inc.)
192
it was not until tiie introduction into service of tiie DC-6 that the
trunk hnes were able to operate without subsidies.
The higher-performance V/STOL transport types are expected to
require more power and weigh more than their conventional transport
counterparts. We should assume, therefore, that both the initial cost
and the operating costs of the V/STOL transport are likely to be
substantially greater than those of the conventional transport, at least
on the basis of current technology. Before we rule out further con-
sideration of the V/STOL transport on this count, however, we
should take a look at what happened to the jet transport airplane. Al-
though studies made only 10 or 15 years ago indicated that the jet
airliner would not be economically feasible, it has proved to be a
tremendous success in operation, partly because of improvements that
have come about because of its impor-
in the state of the art, partly
tant speed advantage, and perhaps partly because of the glamour
associated with this sleek new form of transportation. It is not too
difficult to imagine that the V/STOL transport may emerge in similar
fashion and for much the same reasons.

What form is the development of a V/STOL transport system
likely to take? Although it is a bit too early to make a prediction that
will be anything more than a guess, we can give an indication of some
possible trends. First, we should consider what is likely to happen to
the already established helicopter airlines which are now providing
local and feeder-line service in many areas. This type of service is
almost certain to see rapid growth with the introduction of larger,
higher-performance helicopters. The establishment of local-service
operations in more and more metropolitan areas will probably be
followed by the linking of different neighboring metropolitan areas
with feeder-line service from the same heliports. A good example of
this is the New York-to-Philadelphia operation mentioned earlier. As
this development of intercity operation progresses and the distances
(top) Rooftop heliport design being studied by New York Airways for possible
future use.
(bottom) Wall Street Heliport in New York City, constructed on a pier extending
well offshore, is a promising type of heliport for high-performance VTOL aircraft
of the future.
covered become greater, it will be natural to turn to the higher-

performance V/STOL transports.
The introduction more advanced transports and the over-
of these
all growth in V/STOL no doubt require some changes
service will
in heliport location and design. The heliport will have to be larger,
primarily to accommodate the expansion in terminal facilities required
as a result of the increase in traffic. This requirement for an increase
in size of the heliport may also resuh in change in location in some
cases. One promising location for the larger heliports that will be
built for the higher-performance V/STOL transports is along the
shore line of a large body of water whenever such a location is close
enough to the center of the some other potential source of air
city or
traffic. Construction of the heliport on a pier extending well offshore
appears especially attractive.One rather unusual proposed location
for a heliport which seems to have some merit is the rooftop of a
railroad station. Such an installation would take advantage of the
central and usually convenient location of the station and would
make use of all the existing service facilities. The climb-out after
takeoff and the approaches for landing would be made directly above
the railroad tracks leading into the station in order to provide the
least objectionable flight patterns from the standpoint of noise and
slipstream downwash. Those advocating such a heliport location point
out that people living or working near the railroad station or near the
tracks would be well-hardened to the passage of noisy vehicles and
would not be so likely to complain about the noise of low-flying
V/STOL transports.
We have indicated how a V/STOL transport system may develop
from the present helicopter airlines operating from heliports. A second
possible line of development is in operations from conventional air-
ports. As airports such as Newark, LaGuardia, and Midway become
closely surrounded by urban development, more and more demands
are likely to be made by the community for reductions in noise and
in the hazards usually associated with low-flying aircraft. One possible
solution to these problems would be the use of V/STOL aircraft
which could have very short takeoff and landing distances and very
steep flight paths. With such machines, virtually all the low-altitude
flight during climbout and descent could be done over the airport. In
addition, the vertical or short and slow takeoff and landing operations
of the V/STOL aircraft should reUeve the traffic control problem to

some extent and make it possible for the airport to handle a greater
volume of traffic. The first use of V/STOL transports from conven-
tional airports may be in operations similar to those now performed
with the helicopters in their airport-to-airport service. V/STOL take-
off and landing areas could be placed in the corners of the airport
away from the conventional runways. Since it would be necessary to
segregate the V/STOL and conventional transport airplane traffic in
order to make the best use of the V/STOL transport, it has been sug-
gested that the V/STOL aircraft operate below the conventional air-
craft traffic when approaching or leaving the airport. In one proposed
plan, the V/STOL transport would climb to an altitude of only 1,500
feet after takeoff and would then fly out under conventional aircraft
traffic for whatever distance is required —
perhaps 40 miles before —
starting the climb to cruise altitude. Approaching its destination, it
would descend to the 1,500-foot altitude again 40 miles or so from
the airport to avoid the conventional aircraft traffic. Of course for
the shorter-range flights the V/STOL transport would probably op-
erate at low altitude during the whole flight.
A LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
12 MAKING PREDICTIONS OF DEVELOPMENTS

the field of aviation can be a risky business. From the days of the
IN
Wright Brothers, experts in the field have time and again been embar-
rassed by predictions which did not take into account very rapid de-
velopments in the technology or the introduction of revolutionary new
concepts. It is not hard to understand why some of the "experts" in
the early 1900's could see no future for the Wrights' crude biplane,
particularly as a practical means of transportation; or why some in the
early 1920's pointed out certain inherent limits to further increases
in airplane wing loading and top speed (which were soon exceeded
despite their predictions); or why virtually all the "experts" in the
1930's foresaw no way of "breaking the sound barrier"; or why, after
the development of the turbojet engine in the 1940's so many
saw still
no future for the civil jet transport. All of these predictions proved to
be wrong because they were based on overly conservative assumptions
with insufficient allowance for progress in the state of the art. Of
course, overly optimistic predictions have also been made at times
196
A Look Into the Future 197
in the past. There were certain helicopter enthusiasts back in the

1940's who assured us that 1960 would see "a helicopter in every
garage."
Perhaps the lesson to be gained from predictions of the past is
that it is equally unwise to put a definite ceiling on the possibilities or
to give confident assurance of miraculous things to come. The best

approach for predicting the future of VTOL seems
aircraft therefore
to be to indicate the progress that should be expected with normal

development in the state of the art but at the same time to emphasize
that some revolutionary new development or concept may change the
picture completely at any time. As an example of the need for this
qualification, consider what might have been said in a book on VTOL
aircraft in the early 1940's before the introduction of turbine engines.
No doubt the helicopter would have been the only configuration given
any chance of success, because the relatively heavy reciprocating
engines then available were not suitable for other VTOL types. In
making our predictions of things to come in the VTOL field we will
therefore try to extrapolate past and present experience as reasonably
as possible, but we will place no definite ceiling on the possibilities
for we feel that it is not only possible but very likely that the future
will bring more revolutionary new developments and concepts.
Let us now review the various VTOL types that have been dis-
cussed, starting with those having the greatest hovering capability and
proceeding to those which have progressively less hovering capability
and higher cruising speeds. Thus we will begin with the helicopter
and take up in turn the compound helicopter, the tilt-rotor converti-
plane, the tilt-wing-and-flap and tilt-propeller configurations, the tilt-
duct, buried-fan and other ducted-fan configurations, and the turbo-
fan and turbojet configurations of various types.
The helicopter is likely to remain the best VTOL machine for
hovering and low-speed flight operations. Although increases up to
perhaps 200 miles per hour can be made in its cruising speed by ap-
plication of known principles, it will probably never be able to com-
pete with the higher-performance VTOL types as a transport machine
except where only very short range is required. The flight character-
istics and performance of the helicopter should show steady improve-
ment during the next few years; and in view of the concentrated effort
in some quarters toward improvement of the helicopter, it would not
HOVERING
CAPABILITY
-^^3
200 400 600

CRUISING SPEED, MPH
Relative hovering capability and cruising speeds of various VTOL aircraft types.
be surprising to see a real breakthrough in this area sometime in the

near future. Although we still do not seem to be very near the "heli-
copter-in-every-garage" era, we are likely to see within the next few
years developments which will make the helicopter a much easier
machine to fly and perhaps at the same time a cheaper machine to
buy and maintain.
The compound helicopter or unloaded-rotor convertiplane retains
most of the hovering capability of the helicopter while enjoying a
definite speed advantage. It is expected to achieve a degree of success
in the near future before other higher-performance VTOL machines
are developed, but later it may well be supplanted by other types. Im-
provements in the helicopter plus the development of propeller VTOL
aircraft could eventually so limit the range of applications for which
the compound helicopter is superior that it may prove to be only an
interim type. On the other hand, if means are found for realizing
the advantages of the unloaded-rotor principle while minimizing the
complexity, instability, and cost involved, the compound helicopter
may enjoy a longer period of use. The intriguing possibility also re-
mains of stopping and stowing the rotor in cruising flight in order to
eliminate the speed limitations imposed by the rotating rotor.
The tilt-rotor convertiplane is a third rotor VTOL type which has
somewhat less hovering capability and somewhat greater cruising
speed potential than the other two. AUhough research to date has re-
vealed some problems associated with the use of lightly loaded rotors
as propellers in forward flight, it is believed that further advances in
the state of the art will make this configuration feasible as an opera-
tional machine. Like the compound helicopter, however, it is likely to
be caught in the squeeze between better helicopters and higher-per-

formance VTOL types. Of course, the cruise speed of the tilt-rotor
machine can be increased at the expense of hovering performance by
decreasing the rotor diameter to increase the disk loading. Extreme
changes in this direction will lead to a configuration closely similar
to the tilt-propeller type.
Of the various propeller VTOL configurations which have been
studied to date, only the tilt-wing-and-flap and the tilt-propeller types
appear to offer promise at this time. The tail-sitter configurations have
been ruled out on the basis of the operational problems involved with
the vertical attitude of the fuselage at takeoff and landing; the pure
tilt-wing configurations have exhibited unsatisfactory wing stalling
characteristics in the transition from hovering to forward flight; and
the deflected-slipstream configurations have experienced excessive
thrust losses in hovering flight. The tilt-wing and deflected-slipstream
principles have been combined in the tilt-wing-and-flap configuration
to produce a promising VTOL type that also has good STOL capabil-
ity. This configuration, which is quite similar to a conventional pro-
peller transport airplane in cruising flight, is expected to see extensive
service in the future both as a military transport and as a civil airliner.
There are some designers of jet VTOL aircraft who see little future for
the propeller VTOL transport because they feel that eventually heli-
copters and turbojet VTOL
machines will provide all the service
needed. Although we agree that such a situation may exist in the dis-
tant future, we are certainly not ready at this time to write off the
need for propeller VTOL
machines in the foreseeable future. The tilt-
propeller configuration appears to have some promise for specialized
uses where STOL capability is not required. In such cases its advan-
tage over the tilt-wing-and-flap configuration lies in the fact that its
wing can be designed solely for efficiency in cruising flight since there
isno problem of wing stalling in the transition.
Although a great number of different ducted-fan VTOL types have
been studied during the last few years, only a very few have shown
enough promise to warrant further development. Perhaps the most

promising to date has been the tilt-duct configuration which is a rela-
tively simple, compact design that may very well find some application
in the near future as an operational military type. The future of buried-
fan arrangements is still somewhat in doubt because of lack of flight
experience with these types and because of a number of problems yet
to be solved. It does appear, however, that with certain advances in
the technology some of these buried-fan configurations may eventually
find application for missions requiring cruising flight at high subsonic
or perhaps supersonic speeds. Some of the other ducted-fan types
such as aerial jeeps and flying platforms have shown only limited
promise, and apparently some new design approach will be required
to warrant further work along this line.
With regard to some of the other even less successful ducted-fan
types, it appears that the designers have often been the victims of
their own ingenuity. That is, in an effort to make an entirely new ap-
proach to the VTOL problem, they have carefully avoided aU the
straightforward, proven principles and have striven for something
radically different. As a result, the primary (and perhaps sole) virtue
of some of these ducted-fan configurations has turned out to be
uniqueness. This does not imply that original approaches to the
VTOL problem should be discouraged, for certainly at the present
stage of development in the VTOL aircraft field there are still very
promising new configurations and concepts yet to be revealed. The
point is that effort should not be wasted on obviously unpromising
configurations just because they are different.
Of all the VTOL types, those that most excite the imagination
as to future possibilities are the turbojets and turbofans. A number
of jet VTOL types appear to have promise, particularly for military
applications. The most appropriate arrangement for fighter and strike
aircraft now appears to be the deflected-jet configuration in which the
same engine provides both hovering and cruise thrust by means of
swivelling exhaust nozzles. The tilt-engine and lifting-engine schemes
are also being considered for some applications of this type. For
transport aircraft, the lifting-engine configuration appears most prom-
ising at this time, but designs making use of the deflected-jet and tilt-
engine principles are also receiving attention. At the present time in
England a "great debate" seems to be in progress regarding the rela-
tive merit of the lifting-engine concept embodied in the Short SC.l
and the deflected-jet concept exemplified by the Hawker P. 11 27 with

its BS 53 turbofan lift-thrust engine. The adversaries generally agree
that the lifting-engine is best for very large transports and that the
lift-thrust engine is superior for the small strike aircraft, but there the
agreement ends. The intense activity expected in the turbojet and
turbofan military VTOL field during the next few years should pro-
vide some of the answers to this and other similar unanswered ques-
tions. In view of the recent shift by the U. S. Air Force from the de-
velopment of a VTOL to a STOL fighter, most of these answers
regarding jet VTOL aircraft will, in the near future at least, be coming
from abroad —from Germany, and France. One reason the
Britain,
future appears to be especially bright for turbojet and turbofan VTOL
aircraft is that marked improvements in engine performance are al-
ready in sight, and there will almost certainly be further gains as more
effort is put into building engines designed especially for VTOL use.
Is it not also reasonable to anticipate that revolutionary changes in
the VTOL field will be brought about someday by the introduction of
entirely new jet propulsion concepts?
The development of VTOL aircraft to date has no doubt been
slowed by the general de-emphasis of manned military aircraft brought
about by the advent of the missile. For example, turbojet VTOL ma-
chines appear to be well suited to frontline operation as high-altitude
interceptors, but there now seems to be little interest in manned air-
craft for this mission. On the other hand, we can expect that the con-
tinuing threat of either a limited or global atomic conflict and the
almost-certain continuation of "brush-fire" wars in trouble-spots
throughout the world will now provide a strong impetus to the develop-
ment of military VTOL aircraft during the next few years. True, there
may be no need for high-altitude interceptors and certain other types
of manned aircraft —but there will still be many missions for which
VTOL aircraft will be ideal.
There appears to be a basic requirement for a VTOL strike air-

craft to operateon the nuclear battlefields of a limited atomic war.
Such machines will have to be VTOL aircraft because a constant shift-
ing of operating bases will be required to prevent destruction of the
machines on the ground. Another VTOL type for which there is a
basic requirement is the transport which will support strike aircraft
at their dispersed and mobile bases and which will be able to move
into trouble spots at remote points on the globe quickly and without
the need for airfields or prepared landing sites. Such aircraft are made
to order for operations of the type carried out in areas such as Korea,
Laos, and Indo-China, where terrain features hinder the use of con-
ventional aircraft. The Army will no doubt continue to seek appro-
priate VTOL aircraft to implement the "sky cavalry" concept, and it
appears that this is an area where there is considerable opportunity
for ingenuity on the part of VTOL aircraft designers. The future of
military VTOL seems bright indeed because of these and
aircraft
other equally promising applications. Although it will be at least five
and probably eight or ten years before large numbers of operational
VTOL machines are brought into service, we should certainly see
large-scale use of military VTOL aircraft in the 1970's.
As we have indicated in the preceding chapter, the future of VTOL
aircraft for commercial use does not appear quite as bright as that for
military application at the present time. This difference in outlook is
attributable not to any great difference in the potential usefulness of

the civil and military VTOL aircraft but rather to financial considera-
tions. The development of commercial V/STOL transports in the
United States will apparently not get underway until the development
of similar military types financed by the government. Even after de-
velopment and introduction into commercial V/STOL
service, the
transport will still be faced with a much greater problem of economic
feasibility. It must pay its own way, so to speak, while the military
VTOL machine will be judged not so much on its economy as on its

performance and usefulness. Except for the helicopter and compound
helicopter, therefore, commercial V/STOL transports are not likely
to go into operation in substantial numbers until the 1970's, with
really large-scale changeovers to VTOL service probably taking place
in the 1980's. This prediction is based on current trends in develop-
ment. As we have indicated earlier, it would not be surprising to see
a greatly accelerated pace of development which could bring us into
the VTOL Age much sooner.

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ROTOR PROPELLER

sketches by Joseph S. Denn

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be re-

produced in any form without permission in writing

Library of Congress catalog card number: 62-8553

The Macmillan Company, New York

Printed in the United States of America

During the last 10 years, however, a

Having been engaged in VTOL aircraft research at the Langley

Newport News, Virginia

cant trend has been developing. In addition to the emphasis on higher

types from low-speed helicopters to rocket-powered space craft that

different types of propulsion systems — rotor, propeller, ducted fan,

control in hovering flight, the device is a rotor; if not, it is a propeller.

Now if we make means of classification, each of

has received no attention at all. Later we will take a detailed look at

appropriately, the helicopter, which is the forerunner of all other

than the helicopter.

craft-tilting type have been the tail-sitter or "Pogo" airplanes, the

nose. To perform the transition to cruising flight the airplane merely

of the beneficiallift augmentation produced by the ground cushion.

Although there is some controversy as to whether the GEM is actu-

sibilities that warrants some consideration in this discussion of unique

Emile and Henry Berliner's twin-rotor helicopter (1924).

The nineteenth century saw a number of other experimenters

carrying helicopters. PaulCornu of France constructed a two-rotor

Breguet, made some fairly impressive flights in a four-rotor helicopter.

a coaxial helicopter having counterrotating rotors. Later he and his

minute and a half. The made notable contributions to heli-

Heinrich Focke's record-breaking twin-rotor machine (1937).

course of his pioneering work on the autogiro, revealed a number of

important contributions with their coaxial types. In his machine,

later he developed an entirely new helicopter configuration, called the

Igor Sikorsky's VS-300, the first successful single-rotor helicopter (1939).

feet,a speed record of 75 miles per hour, an endurance record of one

Probably the first man to attempt to combine the features of the

likewings to support the aircraft in forward flight. Separate propellers

Dr. Zahm's deflected-slipstream VTOL airplane design (1921).

1940 1950 I960

weight of the airplane could not be produced by the piston engines in

It was primarily this lack of a suitable powerplant that discouraged

wing configuration was made in 1937. The problems associated with

convertiplane designs in which the rotor is stopped and stowed in the

Perhaps the most interesting VTOL airplane development before

VTOL type because it sat in a tail-down attitude with the propellers

perform the transition from hovering to cruising flight. Zim-

Charles H. Zimmerman's V-173, the "flying pancake," was originally intended to

the design were not to be developed; instead, development of a high-

Thrust and Slipstream Velocity

First, we should consider briefly the physics involved in this pro-

100 200 300 400

thrust ^= mass X velocity

For rotors and propellers, the slipstream dynamic pressure is theo-

Power Required and Fuel Consumption

power ^ Vi mass X ( velocity )-

Now if we combine the two expressions for thrust and power, we

power ^ V2 thrust X velocity

That is, the produce a given amount of thrust in-

c^£^ DUCTED FANS

power means a comparable increase in the rate

200 400 600 800 1,000 1,200 1,400

increasing slipstream velocity, we find that the relative hovering effi-

Hovering Problems and Requirements

When an aircraft is provided with VTOL capability, there are a