Artwork circa 1983 depicting a one-man combat tiltrotor tearing up a column of Soviet armor. At this time the Light Helicopter – eXperimental program included the possibility of tiltrotors as well as conventional choppers. In the end the RAH-66 won… and was then cancelled before series production. Tiltrotors showed promise, but also promised to be incredibly challenging for a single pilot to manage.
A late 1950’s project from Fairchild Aircraft for a STOL aircraft, the M-232. The propulsion system was fixed, but the wings were given large flaps that would direct the bulk of the propwash more or less downwards. Coupled with the extreme nose-up attitude on the landing gear, this would almost be enough for vertical takeoff and landing. An aircraft like this would be used in a role much like that of the OV-10 Bronco.
This came from a series of articles that have been scanned and made available as “Extras” to APR Patrons and subscribers at the $11 and up level. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
Sadly not a lot of info on this. The Vulcan Aircraft (Houston, TX) “Starfire” concept from the mid/late 1980s used lift vans and vectored thrust for VTOL. Both military and civilian uses planned. Seems kinda reasonable, if perhaps a bit light on power, The basic design seems like it might be more practical today, though of course someone would try to make it all-electric.
A cutaway illustration of the Bell D188A VTOL strike-fighter from the late 50’s/early 60’s. This Mach 2 aircraft would have used 8 small turbojets… two lift/cruise in the tail, two vertically mounted in the forward fuselage for lift and two each in wingtip nacelles that could tilt for VTOL or horizontal thrust. Often referred to as the XF-109, it was only called that in Bell PR material.. it never officially received that designation. The artwork below was scanned years ago at the Jay Miller archives.
There is more available on the D188A in two sources I highly recommend (because I wrote them):
1: Aerospace Projects Review issue V2N4. Jam-packed with info, diagrams, artwork of this and several variants.
2: US Supersonic Bomber Projects Vol. 2, which uses the D188A as the cover image.
If you’d like the full resolution version of the cutaway artwork, it has been uploaded to the 2023-07 APR Extras Dropbox folder, available to all $4 and up Patrons/Subscribers. If you would like to help fund the acquisition and preservation of such things, please consider signing on either for the APR Patreon or the APR Monthly Historical Documents Program.
My next book, released for pre-order and to be shipped in a few weeks:
“The threat posed by the Soviet Union throughout the postwar period coincided with an explosion of innovation and can-do attitude among America’s aircraft manufacturers. Challenging requirements and experimentation resulted in a huge variety of designs for aircraft powered by nuclear reaction, aircraft capable of flying faster than Mach 5, advanced bombers able to land and take-off from the surface of the ocean, VTOL fighters and bombers, and many others. Aerospace engineer Scott Lowther collects some of the most radical and beyond-the-state-of-the-art ‘secret projects’ in this – the second volume of his US projects series.”
The first US Aerospace Projects in *years* is now available. Cover art was provided by Rob Parthoens, www.baroba.be
US VTOL Projects #3 is now available (see HERE for the entire series). Issue #2 includes:
While this issue covers the usual eight designs, note that it’s about 50% longer than similar, earlier issues. The delay in publication was due in large part to working on several book… and working on several books seems to have led me to be more verbose in my descriptions. So hopefully this means a better product!
USVP #3 can be downloaded as a PDF file for only $5.25:
——–
After a delay of several years, I’m back to working on my own little publications. Since the delay was caused by working on actual published *books,* I like to think that I’ve gotten a bit better. Thus the next issue of US VTOL projects has about twice the text of the prior issue, and the diagrams are a bit better. To get best use of the diagrams, I’m reviewing how they are being incorporated into the final text. The link below is a test PDF with four pages… each page has the same illustration, but with variations in resolution, line weight, etc. I’m interested in what looks “best.” So take a look and let me know which page – if any – looks best on screen, and if possible printed out.
Circa 1980 Lockheed jumped on board the “X-Wing” bandwagon. For those unfortunate enough not to have been graced to grow up in the 80’s, the X-Wing was a concept for a four-bladed helicopter where the rotors were rigid and could be stopped in flight, turning into two forward swept and two aft-swept wings (see Aerospace Projects Review issue V5N6 for a whole fat article on the concept). one of the Lockheed concepts that was publicized at the time was a one-man research/proof of concept vehicle, smaller than a Bell Cobra. I’ve got fair to middling diagrams and data on it, but what I don’t have is a designation. Which is terribly frustrating because I’m convinced that, many years ago, I *read* a designation for it, CL-something, decided “that’s interesting information, I shall surely remember where I read that for future reference,” and have never been able to find it again.
ARRRRgh.
Anyway, here’s some art of the thing.
An interesting CGI video depicting three sizes of folding rotor tiltrotor High Speed VTOL from Bell. The concept is not new; actually building and flying one, though, would be. The designs shown are also not new; Bell has been floating them for a few years at least since late 2021.
https://view.ceros.com/bell-helicopter/hsvtol/p/1
Bell's High-Speed Vertical Takeoff and Landing (HSVTOL) https://t.co/4X6kFr38Sg pic.twitter.com/AdGoUTeaup
— 笑脸男人 (@lfx160219) March 6, 2023
Along with the various iterations of single-seat tiltrotors (especially a stealthy version shown HERE), Bell also proposed a more conventional helicopter for the Light Helicopter eXperimental program in the early 80’s. The artwork below was published in 1985 and depicts a single seat scout chopper with stealthy features. I have no data on this design; scale can be estimated based on the size of the human figures. It would doubtless have been a chore for a single pilot to handle; probably less problematic than a single-seat tiltrotor.
