Hovering-flight tests of a model of a transport vertical-take-off airplane with tilting wing and propellers

Author / Creator

Lovell, Powell M., author

Available as

Online

Summary

An investigation of the take-off, landing, and hovering-flight characteristics of a four-engine transport vertical-take-off airplane with tilting wing and propellers has been conducted with a remot...

An investigation of the take-off, landing, and hovering-flight characteristics of a four-engine transport vertical-take-off airplane with tilting wing and propellers has been conducted with a remotely controlled free-flight model. The model had four propellers distributed along the wing with the thrust axes in the wing-chord plane. In order to produce direct lift for hovering flight with the fuselage horizontal, the wing and propellers were rotated 90 degrees with respect to the fuselage. Despite the fact that the pitching and rolling motions of the model were unstable oscillations, the model could be flown smoothly and easily without the use of any automatic stabilization devices because the periods of the oscillations were fairly long end the controls were powerful. The pitching oscillation could be completely stabilized by the use of artificial damping in pitch; thus the model could be flown in pitch for long periods of time without the use of the manual pitch control. Although there was no stability of yaw position, the model was easy to control in yaw because the motions were slow and the yaw control was powerful. There were no noticeable interactions between the rolling and yawing motions or between the roll and yaw controls. Vertical take-offs and landings could be performed fairly easily, although some forward or backward motion of the model was often present.

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