The first 50 years of jet V/STOL viewed with perfect hindsight

摘要

The paper looks at the original experiments into jet reaction control systems carried out at the Royal Aircraft Establishment Farnborough in 1952 and shows how they led to the first successful free flight of a manned hovering rig two years later. This achievement led directly to two very different design concepts for a jet aircraft that could both hover and fly conventionally. In 1960 the Short SC1, which used multiple lift engines, was the first to fly a vertical takeoff and accelerating transition into high speed wingborne flight, followed by a decelerating transition back to a vertical landing. Less than a year later the Hawker P1127 carried out the same manoeuvres using a single engine and vectored thrust. Having flown both of these aircraft, the author examines the differences between the two types which by 1964 offered totally different experiences for the pilot. The paper explains why the SC1 was so easy to handle yet hard to operate whilst the P1127 was hard to handle but easy to operate. It then uses the perfect hindsight available today to suggest why, even if many were unsure at the time, the vectored thrust concept was a better prospect for the first service type, despite its handling problems in the 1960s. The paper goes on to consider why the Harrier layout was inherently incapable of offering the dream of a supersonic aircraft that came back to a vertical landing while retaining the operating site flexibility that the subsonic aircraft provided. The author then offers some personal views on other VSTOL programmes flying at the end of the last century and suggests why the time is now right for a combination of the 'make handling easy for the pilot' approach of the original SC1 programme and the single engined concept of the Harrier as offered by today's F-35B.