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If the VSTOL capabilities are only required to launch the aircraft in a really narrow set of circumstances (ie. from a ship with a helipad rather than a landing

by dools 13y ago

If the VSTOL capabilities are only required to launch the aircraft in a really narrow set of circumstances (ie. from a ship with a helipad rather than a landing strip) why don't they have a detachable booster model? I'm imagining something that sits on top of the aircraft and provides the vertical thrust during take-off then detaches as the plane blasts off horizontally, leaving the booster free to lower itself onto the next plane for take-off and so on until the fleet has been dispatched and it can land itself on the platform. Instead of the capability to land, all you'd need is to build the planes so they could be ditched in the sea close by and this thing could go pick them up. In other words just have a detachable VSTOL module instead of having to integrate it into the plane.

dragonwriter 13y ago
That's not a detachable VSTOL module, its a detachable vertical/short take off module plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be regularly handle water landings without complications. Of course, even if "ditch it in a convenient large body of water" was a suitable substitute for vertical/short landing capability for carrier-based aviation, it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields. So, this would be less capable -- and probably more expensive -- than just building a VSTOL aircraft to start with.
- dools 13y ago
  plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be regularly handle water landings without complications. Even if you could slow the thing down enough to deploy a parachute ... if the results of building VSTOL into the plane are so disastrous then surely it's worth exploring other options to be able to deploy fighters from boats without needing an carrier with a full airstrip on it. it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields. Right, so from what I read just now (about the harrier at least) it doesn't have those advantages anyway because the vertical thrust ruins the landscape and kicks up dirt which clogs the engines ... perhaps that's fixed by the thruster fan of the F-35? But the point is that the main reason they wanted this capability is so they didn't need carrier support to have their own aircraft, not so they could land in random spots on land, right?
ansible 13y ago
Hmmm... A possible (and possibly crazy) design would be to design a STOL fighter. And then if you really want vertical take-off, just strap some rockets to it. Blast it straight up, and give it time to build up horizontal speed before the rockets (probably one-shot solids) run out. With appropriately sized rockets, it would allow you to take off with a full load of fuel and armaments. You'd still need at least a short landing field, but that is easier to manage if you are light on fuel and have dropped all your bombs. Depending on the landing gear and other needed design elements (air intake protection for example), you could maybe land on grass.

by dools 13y ago

dragonwriter 13y ago

That's not a detachable VSTOL module, its a detachable vertical/short take off module plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be regularly handle water landings without complications. Of course, even if "ditch it in a convenient large body of water" was a suitable substitute for vertical/short landing capability for carrier-based aviation, it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields. So, this would be less capable -- and probably more expensive -- than just building a VSTOL aircraft to start with.

dools 13y ago
plus a much more expensive and complicated airframe designed to be regularly handle water landings without complications. Even if you could slow the thing down enough to deploy a parachute ... if the results of building VSTOL into the plane are so disastrous then surely it's worth exploring other options to be able to deploy fighters from boats without needing an carrier with a full airstrip on it. it wouldn't provide the same benefits for, e.g., improvised land-based airfields. Right, so from what I read just now (about the harrier at least) it doesn't have those advantages anyway because the vertical thrust ruins the landscape and kicks up dirt which clogs the engines ... perhaps that's fixed by the thruster fan of the F-35? But the point is that the main reason they wanted this capability is so they didn't need carrier support to have their own aircraft, not so they could land in random spots on land, right?

ansible 13y ago

Hmmm... A possible (and possibly crazy) design would be to design a STOL fighter. And then if you really want vertical take-off, just strap some rockets to it. Blast it straight up, and give it time to build up horizontal speed before the rockets (probably one-shot solids) run out. With appropriately sized rockets, it would allow you to take off with a full load of fuel and armaments. You'd still need at least a short landing field, but that is easier to manage if you are light on fuel and have dropped all your bombs. Depending on the landing gear and other needed design elements (air intake protection for example), you could maybe land on grass.