Word: vtol
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Dates: during 1955-1955
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Along the expanding sector in aircraft design known as VTOL (Vertical Takeoff and Landing), several U.S. companies have tried to meet military and civilian demands for a plane that can rise straight up, like a helicopter, then fly horizontally with the speed of conventional aircraft. Last week the first successful conversion in flight from helicopter to conventional aircraft was announced by the Defense Department. The pioneering hybrid: McDonnell Aircraft Corp.'s experimental XV1 convertiplane* (TIME, Feb. 15, 1954), designed for the Army and Air Force...
...Blasts. Bell's VTOL has conventional controls (ailerons and tail surfaces) for use when flying horizontally. These do not work when the craft has no forward speed, so tubes of compressed air from the engines' compressors are carried out to the tail and the wingtips. The pilot controls the plane's attitude on the rise or descent by varying the strength of the air blast from the ends of the tubes...
Pilot David W. Howe trained for his job of testing the vertically rising jet by learning how to fly a helicopter.* With this experience behind him, he says, he had no trouble at all. The little VTOL, with its engines turned downward, rises easily off the ground. Speed of ascent is controlled by varying the speed of the engines, and the plane is kept on an even keel by juggling the air jets. When it is clear of obstacles, Pilot Howe gets his nose down and picks up flying speed. Then he swivels the engines so that their thrust...
...Home in the Air. Pilot Howe makes landing sound just as easy. "The pilot," he says, "merely selects the spot where he wants to land. He brings the VTOL to a hovering position-and lands." According to him, the VTOL is as at home in the air as a dragonfly. It can hover indefinitely, its engines blasting downward. It can fly backward and sideways and spin like a waltzing mouse...
Bell does not say much about the VTOL's speed and cargo capacity. The present model, the company explains, was put together from existing components to prove that a jet plane can really rise like a helicopter. A more advanced model is being designed, and Bell believes that the swiveled-engine principle will eventually be used in both military and commercial airplanes...