Post amazingly cool pictures of aircraft (Volume 3)

[Eric Mc]

mko9 said:

Voldemort said:

There are (were?) significantly more VTOLs than I thought.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_VTOL_aircraf...

The only ones that ever amounted to anything (?) are the Harrier variants, the current F-35, and the Yak-38. That last one is questionable

Since the early 1950s, there have been lots of experimantal amd protototype vertical take off and landing designs. The advent of the gas turbine engine in the 1940s was a game changer as it gave more power and thrust for lighter weight so made the possibility of thrust augmented lift a real opportunity. However, it took an awful of time for a practical VTOL aircraft to be developed - and that was the Harrier family.

In the mid 1980s, the only operational VTOL aircraft in service in the West were versions of the Harrier. As I mentioned above, the Yak 38 was in service with the Soviet Navy but they did not perform in any overseas air shows.

[RizzoTheRat]

I think there was also a lot of LSD being taken in the early days of VTOL









Somewhere I've got a book on unusual experimental aircraft and there's some mad ideas out there

[Eric Mc]

And many of them were very dangerous - with frequent accidents and a number of fatalities. Even the Harrier was notoriously tricky to handle, especially in the hover.

Even madder were the proposed vertical take of airliner and transport projects such as the HS141 -





The problem with most VTOL designs is that they needed separate engines for forward thrust and vertical take off/landing and hovering. The beauty of the Harrier was that it used a single engine for everything..

[DodgyGeezer]

mad ideas you say?

[RizzoTheRat]

The HS141's a new one on me, I can't see the economics working too well for that, and can you imagine the noise!

Eric MC said:

Even the Harrier was notoroiusly tricky to handle, especially in the hover.

Even the F35 has proven a bit tricky in that regard

[Eric Mc]

One of the most important instruments on a Harrier was the "weather vane" type device mounted on the nose just ahead of the cockpit. This was a physical indicator of how much sideslip might be developing in the hover and getting too much sideways motion could result in inversion - sometrimes with fatal consequences -

[5 In a Row]

Eric Mc said:

Since the early 1950s, there have been lots of experimantal amd protototype vertical take off and landing designs. The advent of the gas turbine engine in the 1940s was a game changer as it gave more power and thrust for lighter weight so made the possibility of thrust augmented lift a real opportunity. However, it took an awful of time for a practical VTOL aircraft to be developed - and that was the Harrier family.

In the mid 1980s, the only operational VTOL aircraft in service in the West were versions of the Harrier. As I mentioned above, the Yak 38 was in service with the Soviet Navy but they did not perform in any overseas air shows.

Looking through the list the Yak 38 looks the most likely - and closest to what I remember seeing - but very unlikely to have been where and when I saw it.

Perhaps there were some exhaust fumes in the car (a fairly aged Renault 16) causing hallucinations

[MartG]

RizzoTheRat said:

I think there was also a lot of LSD being taken in the early days of VTOL

That actually used two Harrier engines ( in the inner nacelles ) plus a load of lift jets in the tip pods

[Eric Mc]

There were also a number of propeller engined vertical lift designs none of which entered service but led, evenntually, to the V-22 Osprey.

[some bloke]

DodgyGeezer said:

mad ideas you say?

Dad had that magazine series about WW2 that came out weekly and went into big black folders; I remember seeing drawings of that and a few other ideas that didn't quite make it into pre-production.

[DodgyGeezer]

[MartG]

DodgyGeezer said:

Icing test rig

[DodgyGeezer]

[generationx]

DodgyGeezer said:

De-icing test rig?

[yellowjack]

DodgyGeezer said:

I'm not surprised. There might be allegations of animal cruelty if you relied on hamsters to turn wheels that big . . .

[wolfie28]

Talking of VTOL aircraft the Germans gave it a go with the VAK 191B. Only 3 made with a total of 91 flights. Two currently in museums with the other in storage. Not sure where this photo was taken but found it in the works archives. Maybe Hucknall if one of the aircraft came to the UK for rig testing.

[Scaleybrat]

wolfie28 said:

Talking of VTOL aircraft the Germans gave it a go with the VAK 191B. Only 3 made with a total of 91 flights. Two currently in museums with the other in storage. Not sure where this photo was taken but found it in the works archives. Maybe Hucknall if one of the aircraft came to the UK for rig testing.

You can see the front of a light blue VW Kombi on the RHS of the photo, so my guess is Manching.

[DodgyGeezer]

possibly not amazingly cool, but cool none-the-less




and whilst on the subject of Lightnings, an article about the U2 intercepts that were carried out

https://warhistory.org/article/surprise-surprise

[giveitfish]

Great article, thanks for posting that

[mko9]

Whoever wrote that should get slapped about. The opening blurb say the U2 was over the Arctic at 72,000ft, then the graphic shows it all happened south of Edinburgh at 60,000ft.