Rear starter
Heck starter ( English tail sitter ) are VTOL - planes , whose longitudinal axis is aligned during takeoff and landing perpendicular to the ground. When a sufficient speed is reached at take-off to generate enough lift on the wings, the pilot can switch to level flight (transition). The vertical position is resumed for landing.
history
After the Germans had already proven the usability of vertical take-offs and point interceptors (for example with the Bachem Ba 349 "Natter") in the Second World War , there was a real boom in new VTOL concepts in the post-war period until the 1950s USA . In 1947, the aircraft manufacturer Ryan Aeronautical Company signed a contract with the United States Navy to develop and research a submarine-based and jet-powered vertical take-off aircraft , whereupon Ryan designed the X-13 Vertijet - with further support from the United States Air Force . In 1950 the Navy wrote out the development of a propeller-driven stern starter, which resulted in the Convair XFY-1 and the Lockheed XFV-1 .
The Navy hoped for a fighter aircraft that could also be stationed on smaller ships: a runway was not required, and in addition, due to the vertical position and the small control surfaces and wings, the stern starter was only slightly less expensive than conventional aircraft Floor space required. Furthermore, a ship formation would no longer have to rely exclusively on the aircraft carriers (which were also the preferred target of the Japanese kamikaze pilots during the Second World War ), but the fighters should be distributed over several ships.
However, the test programs did not meet expectations. All candidates' engines were too weak. In order to develop practicable fighter aircraft from them, the total weight would have had to be increased significantly, for which no suitable engine type was available in the 1950s. In addition to other type-specific shortcomings, the second main problem was the landing. The pilot had to keep an eye on the instruments, the actual flight position and the landing area, which was practically impossible. The test pilots looked down over their shoulders (they were practically on their backs) and had to correct their flight attitude in a completely different way than in level flight, which was overwhelming for some. This process was jokingly compared to reversing vehicles, only three-dimensional . The journalist Stephan Wilkinson wrote in Air & Space / Smithsonian Magazine in 1996 : ... it's time to land - in a Tail Sitter, the procedure that separated the men from the boys. (... it's time to land - in a rear starter, the process that separates the men from the boys.)
Similar concepts were also explored in Europe, such as the SNECMA C.450-01 Coléoptère with a ring-shaped wing, but with the same success. In the Soviet Union, too, a project for a rear starter was investigated with the Sukhoi Shkwal . The concept of the rear starter was then not pursued any further. Has Enforced other hand, the STOVL ( S hort T ake O ff V ertical L anding, start on a short track and vertical landing) technique.
Since 2015, Northrop Grumman has been developing an unmanned aerial vehicle designed as a tail starter for the TERN (Tactically Exploited Reconnaissance Node) program .
literature
- Steve Markman, Bill Holder: Straight Up - A History of Vertical Flight , Schiffer Military History Book, 2000, ISBN 0-7643-1204-9 , pp. 129-140