CL – 1 MAE 452
Introduction to VSTOL
V/STOL = Vertical / Short Take Off & Landing
This topic is really concerned with lift generation at low forward speed. This
does not refer to simply low wing loading, but rather use of a special device or
design.
Types of VTOL aircraft
• V22 Osprey Tilt wing rotor
• Helicopters (standard)
• Harrier Directed jets
• X-29 Directed fans + vectored jets
• Tail Sitters
• Coleopters
The Ryan X-13A-RY Vertijet, Ryan Model 69, was an experimental Vertical
Take-Off and Landing aircraft flown in the United States in the 1950s. The
main objective of the project was to demonstrate the ability of a pure jet to
vertically takeoff, hover, transition to horizontal forward flight, and vertically
land.
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The Ryan X-13 Vertijet was 23 ft 5 in (7.14 m) long. It was just large enough to
accommodate the single place cockpit (with a tilted seat) and the 10,000 lbf (45 kN) thrust
Rolls-Royce Avon turbojet. The high mounted delta wing of the aircraft had a wingspan of
only 21 ft (6.4 m) and was capped with flat endplates. The nose of the aircraft had a hook on
the underside and a short pole for gauging distance from the trailer. The hook was used to
hang the Vertijet from the vertical trailer bed landing platform. After the aircraft was secured
vertically, the trailer was lowered to horizontal and then used to transport the aircraft on the
ground. Pitch and yaw control in hover were provided by vectored engine thrust. Roll control
was provided by "puffer" jets (also known as 'jet reaction control') mounted outboard of the
wingtip endplates.
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The Convair XFY Pogo
tailsitter was an
experiment in vertical
takeoff and landing. The
Pogo had delta wings
and three-bladed contra-
rotating propellers
powered by a 5,500 hp
Allison YT40-A-16
turboprop engine. It was
intended to be a high-
performance fighter
aircraft capable of
operating from small
warships. Landing the
XFY-1 was difficult as
the pilot had to look over
his shoulder while
carefully working the
throttle to land.
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Coleopters A coleopter is a type of Vertical Take-Off and Landing aircraft design where
the fuselage is surrounded by an annular wing. The aircraft is intended to take off and land on its tail.
The term is an anglicisation of the French coléoptère (beetle) after the first actual implementation of
this design, the SNECMA Coléoptère of the mid 1950s.
While the SNECMA machine may have been the first of this type of aircraft to actually be constructed,
the approach itself was first put forward in Germany late in World War II as a possible layout for point
defense interceptors at a time when German airfields were under regular attack by Allied bombing.
SNECMA's experiences demonstrated formidable control problems, both with balancing the aircraft
during vertical flight, and in transitioning between vertical and horizontal flight and back.
The Coléoptère below is a jet engine, adapted to run in a vertical position while sitting on its tail, with a
small cockpit on the top. Several aircraft of roughly this form have been flying for some time in the
United States, but the Coléoptère is unique in that it has an annular wing; the aircraft stands inside it
like a salt cellar inside a napkin ring. What is stopping the Coléoptère becoming a successful vertical
take-off aircraft? The first difficulty has been to develop a precise and reliable method of balancing the
aircraft on the column of air from its jet pipe during take-off and landing and, more particularly, during
maneuvers out of the vertical.
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STOL aircraft generally utilize a high lift device such as
• Techniques for boundary layer control
• In-wing fans
• Blown flaps in which compressed air from the compressor is piped to channels
running along the rear of the wing. There it is forced, tangential to the airfoil surface,
through slots in the wing flaps when the flaps reach certain angles. Injecting high
energy air into the boundary layer produces an increase in the stall angle of attack and
maximum lift coefficient by delaying boundary layer separation.
• Ducted & CRP’s
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Rotary wing aircraft are those with configurations that derive their lift forces
directly from airscrews. These may include the need for a ground run way such
as the Autogiro.
Ref: http://www.centennialofflight.gov/essay/Dictionary/autogyro/DI8.htm
The Pitcairn-Cierva Autogyro. Note the rotor on the top of the aircraft and the
propeller at the front of the aircraft.
An autogiro is a rotary-wing aircraft that uses a propeller for forward motion
and a freely rotating, unmotorized rotor for lift. The Spanish aeronautical
engineer Juan de la Cierva invented it in the early 1920s and wrote several
fundamental papers on the design and operation of the autogiro.
The rotor looks like a helicopter rotor with three or four very long blades. This
rotor is mounted above the fuselage at the top of a vertical shaft. It is tilted back
so that if the craft taxies around on the ground, the air moving through the
overhead rotor starts it turning due to windmill action. This somewhat tilted,
mostly horizontal wind-milling rotor can lift the craft into the air if the forward
velocity is fast enough. The blades of the rotor spin horizontally around the
shaft, but except for a powered spin up with a prerotator for takeoff, the rotor
blades are free and spin by autorotation.
The autogiro differs from the helicopter in that the engine does not supply
power to the rotor, but is engaged, at most, upon takeoff. The small propeller at
the front of the machine pulls the autogiro forward as the propeller on an
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aircraft. The forward motion causes the rotor to turn automatically. This
phenomenon is key to rotary wing aircraft development.
Once in the air, the rotors are disconnected from the engine. The blades
continue to revolve because of the air pressure against the bottom of the blades.
These revolutions create sufficient lift to keep the autogiro aloft. This
phenomenon is called autorotation. It is akin to the spinning maple seed.
As the rotor turns, each blade moves forward on one side of the aircraft and
backward on the other, thus creating more lift on the advancing side. Cierva
joined each blade separately to the hub of the rotor so that each blade could rise
automatically to avoid producing too much lift or could fall automatically to
avoid producing insufficient lift. An autogiro is difficult to maneuver at low
speeds because they use airplane-like controls that were dependant on forward
speed to operate. Later machines had the wings removed and were controlled by
a tilting main rotor. An aircraft that is equipped this way can be directly
controlled by varying the pitch or speed of the rotor blades or by tilting the
rotors. Thus, it does not need conventional rudders, elevators, or ailerons. No
autogiro has ever had a tail rotor.
The autogiro can climb or descend very steeply and descend vertically.
However, it cannot climb vertically or hover over one spot like a helicopter.
EXAMPLES
The Pitcairn Cierva Autogiro, PCA-1A was first flown in late 1928, the PCA-
1A was the second of three experimental Autogiro models that were the first
successful American- built rotorcraft and the oldest existing U.S. built
rotorcraft. Harold F. Pitcairn, who founded Pitcairn Aircraft also founded
Eastern Airways (later Eastern Airlines).
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Pitcairn Cierva Autogiro, PCA-1A
The Gyrodyne QH-50C (Drone) DSN-3 was manufactured in 1964, this remote
controlled aircraft was used by the Navy's DASH (Drone Antisubmarine
Helicopter) program. It was controlled from a destroyer and was "flown" by
radar to the suspected location of an enemy submarine, where it would drop its
torpedo payload. Unfortunately, many of the drones were lost before they made
it back to shipboard.
Rotor Diameter: 20 ft.
Fuselage Length: 12 ft. 11 in
Maximum Speed: 92 mph
Cruise Speed: 58 mph
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Gyrodyne QH-50C (Drone) DSN-3
In principle, all VTOL configurations have the ability to hover, but
this would include rockets and the high energy consumption of
rockets excludes rockets from consideration. For consideration as
“VSTOL” we need
(1) low energy per unit of static thrust and
(2) relatively low downwash in the slipstream.
Energy considerations are by far most important.
Low energy consumption and low downwash for the static thrust occur in a
situation where there is low loading of the lift generating surface (disk area)
Thus, VTOL rotary wing craft have large rotors with relatively light loads.
The word “propeller” is usually used for higher loaded lifting and propelling
airscrews.
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Rotor loading w = T where T is the Thrust-per-rotor and A is the rotor disc
A
area. The thrust is usually about equal to the aircraft gross weight. The disc
loading has generally increased as the material capability has increases and w =
50 to 70 kG/m2 seems to be a reasonable number for medium and relatively
heavy machines up to 1980.
120 kG/m2
In summary, McCormick says ‘ V/STOL, is concerned with the
production of lift at low forward speeds’ This does not mean generally
low disc loading. This does mean the need for some sort of device or technique
for enhanced lift production.
In general, VTOL means helicopters, although the Harrier jet is another
example. This course will focus primarily on rotary wing configurations. There
are thus two main categories of rotary wing aircraft: the helicopter and the
autogiro.
The autogiro has no power supplier directly to the rotor during flight, but moves
in response to the airflow through the rotor disk
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The helicopter supplies power directly to the rotor.
By necessity, the rotor is large with significant drag as it rotates so a significant
amount of torque is required to turn the rotor, The autogiro does not have this
problem. To overcome the reaction torque in the helicopter a number of
solutions have been employed but the “tail rotor” is the most common solution.
This torque problem should not be underestimated.
To minimize the drag losses and hold the torque to lower and more
manageable values, it is necessary to operate only a few large rotor blades
at tip speeds below M=1. The limited speed and large diameter require
slow turning rotors. Since Power, P, is related to Torque, Q, by
P = Qω 1-1
.we can write this as Q = P/ω
Typical rotor tip speeds = ~ 600 ft/sec
So, for low rotational speed ω, and the necessity for high torque, we see that
the power requirements grow considerably. Also, there is a large reaction
torque that must be over come, and there is the need for a large
transmission that can convert the efficient rotational speeds of an engine to
the relatively low RPM needed at the main rotor. ( a consequence of the
low speed high torque requirements).
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