The V/STOL Wheel of Misfortune

Once again, on 14 March, John Farley stepped into the breach. This time it was because David Scrimgeour was, sadly, not well enough to come to Kingston and talk about the Kestrel Squadron.

However, Members were not too disappointed when John gave his talk on the history of V/STOL aircraft development using Mike Hirschberg's V/STOL wheel. This classifies the various basic ways of achieving V/STOL (excluding helicopters), sub-divides each into engineering solutions and finally gives examples of types falling into the various categories.

The wheel shows, John explained, 45 aircraft starting with the tilt-rotor Transcendental Model 1-G of 1954 and finishing with the contemporary F-35 Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter. Of these only three have so far made it into service: the Harrier, the Yak-38 and the Bell-Boeing Vertol V-22 Osprey (just!).

Chris Farara

Depicted here are the various types of Vertical and Short Take-Off and Landing (V/STOL) aircraft which have been tested over the past 45 years. All were built to be flown, but only three (shown in bo!d) have led to operational aircraft. In fact, the Harrier is the only V/STOL aircraft in service today.

The Joint Strike Fighter concept demonstrators (shown in blue), are scheduled to fly in 2000; one of these concepts will serve as the basis for development of an aircraft to replace the Harrier.