Yep, I Think The USAF Needs A Negative Stagger V-Tail Bipe!

My concept for a Medium extreme STOL (MeSTOL) Airlifter - (c) 2010 Martt Clupper

 I admit that I'm a frustrated aeronautical engineer wannabe. I wound up passing on my acceptance to Purdue in engineering for the fall of 1979 and decided to become an airport bum instead. The allure of a small country airport with a 'clip-wing Cub' to play with and lots of grass to mow was too much of an opportunity to pass up. But that doesn't mean that the guy who wanted to design great airplanes isn't around anymore. He's still right here inside my head... and sometimes he yells loud enough that we can all see what he's thinking : )

 This design is what I call the MeSTOL Airlifter, or Medium extreme STOL Airlifter. It picks up where the Advanced Medium STOL Transport concept from the mid 70's left off. The AMST role was intended to be a replacement for the C-130, but with more lifting capability and even shorter takeoff and landing performance. The YC-14 and the YC-15 were both excellent aircraft, but the AMST idea was abandoned, interestingly enough, in 1979. Now we're many years down range, and yet the C-130 is still the workhorse of the smaller side of airlifting. There's a rapidly growing need tho for a replacement that offers greater flexibility and increased capability. It would also be far cheaper to acquire and operate than the much larger C-17.

I plan to provide more details later, but the basic idea with the MeSTOL is that it's a little bigger all the way around than the C-130J, the largest and most recent variant of the C-130, but it's smaller than the Airbus A400M. The MeSTOL has several very unique features, including:

* Negative stagger biplane wing configuration

* Non-circular (slab side) cross section to maximize interior volume

* Composite wing, aluminum fuselage 

* 4 geared turbofan engines (PW1400G - approx 26,000 pounds of thrust each)

* Direct thrust blown flaps on the upper wing (similar to the C-17 flaps)

* Vectored thrust vanes on the engines to provide direct lift enhancement

* Vectored thrust also works to increase operational AOA on the lower wing

* V-Tail

 As always, I'd be interested in your feedback, even if you think I'm crazy. Even better, it would be awesome if some other frustrated aero engineer wannabes like me would throw together a unique concept for the MeSTOL role. Here are the basic design goals: minimum cargo bay width is 13 feet, cargo load requirement is 80,000 pounds, and minimum runway performance of 2,500 feet with 50,000 pound cargo on board.

 Would my concept for the MeSTOL achieve these goals? I dunno, I'm just making this stuff up! But I honestly do believe there are some interesting and viable ideas presented here, and I always enjoy the challenge of thinking outside the bun : )

 disclaimer: I've got about 4 hours total time in this project which includes the aerodynamic concepts, the actual design, and making the drawings. It's not intended to all make sense... it's just meant to be a strong starting point for continued thought.

F-35 Propaganda Video Makes It Seem Worth $100 Million!

 Official Lockheed Martin video that sure makes the F-35, and especially the VTOL capability, look awesome.

 Personally, I still have confidence in the project, but it would sure be nice to see some great news surface... soon.

Video: STOL Testing The McDonnell Douglas YC-15 - Circa 1975

 I was a young teen when the McDonnell Douglas YC-15 and the Boeing YC-14 were built and tested to fulfill the proposed Advanced Medium STOL Transport (AMST) role. I was really interested in this kind of stuff back then (and still now), so it was fun to see some of the thinking that went into these unique airplanes. You may have seen my CoolPix post of the YC-14 a while back where I make it clear that the Boeing aircraft caught my eye more than the MD one, but that doesn't mean I didn't find the YC-15 to be a very cool airplane. 

 This video from the mid 70's shows fascinating footage of the YC-15 during some of the STOL testing of the prototype. The best parts are at the beginning where the airplane is seen landing, and at the end where it performs a STOL takeoff. It's awesome to see how high the airplane is on the approach when the dirt from the runway below first begins to stir up. It really shows how massive the amount of air is that the rather small wing is pushing down. You may already know that neither the YC-14 or the YC-15 were put into production, but the YC-15 did became the foundation for what we now know as the C-17 Globemaster III. The YC-15 and the C-17 both mount their engines below the wing and aim high velocity engine thrust at large, highly deflected flaps to significantly increase overall lift at slow speeds.

 As we look into the future and the U.S. Military's need to eventually replace the C-130, it's going be very interesting to see what unique solutions arise to once again address the desire to be able to carry large cargo and get off the ground quickly. I think there are a few ideas yet to be uncovered that will combine extremely short takeoff roll with significantly improved simplicity of manufacture and maintenance. I sure hope there are anyway as I believe we are creating too many ultra-complex aircraft that are simply too expensive to design, build, and operate.

 KISS.

Video: C-5 Galaxy And The Crazy Rotating Main Gear Trucks

 I've been familiar with the C-5 Galaxy since I was a kid, but for some reason I never caught the detail about the main gear trucks rotating 90 degrees before they tuck up inside the fuselage bulges. I noticed this for the first time when I got some nice pix of the one departing Oshkosh 2010 - you can see the pix about halfway down the page in this OSH10 Picstream #8 post.

 This video I found today gives a good look at the basic retraction procedure. There are 4 main trucks in all, each with 6 tires, but only one truck is seen in the video. The engineering required to make all this work seems rather intensive, especially when you consider that the airplane has a gross weight over 800,000 pounds! I'm a geek for this kind of stuff... I watched it about 6 times : )

FlyingMachinesTV: The Beautiful Ballet Of The Avro Vulcan - Wow!

 The only flyable Avro Vulcan in the world shown performing at the 2010 RIAT (Royal International Air Tattoo)

 A huge 'WOW' to this amazing airplane, and to the people who designed and built it, and the people keeping this one in the air... and another huge 'WOW' for the quality of the video from FlyingMachinesTV.

CoolPix And 'Name The Plane' Northrop P-61 Black Widow

(click pic for hi-res)

 Earlier today I whipped up an aircraft ID test as part of my on again off again game I call 'Name The Plane'. I thought I was being really clever by cropping down the rear windows in the Northrop P-61 Black Widow so it actually looked like cockpit windows. I figured it would be good for at least two days of avgeek research. I was wrong. About an hour after I put it up, twitter follower @PilotConway had it nailed! Of course it didn't hurt him that he had recently built a 1/48 scale model of the P-61 and those back windows had been pesky during the build. He turned that little bit of knowledge into a bacon sandwich at OSH11 : )

 So here's the whole picture of the P-61 as a nice big CoolPix.

 I'll have more details another day about this rather large and somewhat slow night fighter. As with everything built for the WWII effort, there's a lot of interesting info to be learned about the design process and then the actual military flight operations... but for now I hope you enjoy checking out a really big picture of another one of Jack Northrop's unique aircraft.

All I Want For Christmas Is A YC-14! (CoolPix - Modern Military)

(click pic for hi-res)

 About the time I was getting my drivers permit, the Boeing YC-14 made its first flight. I was well aware of this because we got Aviation Week & Space Technology magazine when I was a kid, so staying up on all the cool aerospace projects was easy. It was the mid 70’s and the Air Force was looking for an airplane to fill the Advanced Medium STOL Transport (AMST) role, ultimately looking at a modern replacement for the C-130. Boeing offered up the 2-engine YC-14 and McDonnell Douglas had the 4-engine YC-15. This CoolPix in the Modern Military category gives a great view of the Boeing airplane in flight. In the end, neither airplane went on to production and the AMST concept was dropped, but the YC-15 did later become the foundational concept that led to the C-17. Both the YC-14 and the YC-15 were considered quite successful at meeting the AMST requirements.

 Something about the Boeing airplane really caught my attention over the one from MD. Of course I liked the high mounted turbofans that were tapping into a little used concept of Upper Surface Blowing (USB), where the high velocity jet blast actually sticks to the upper surface of the drooping flaps and gets directed downward giving you a large increase in lift. The YC-15 (and the C-17) mount the engine blast below the wing and direct it right at the drooped flaps for increased lift, but USB allowed the engines to be mounted higher and thus farther away from the ground and possible foreign object damage. This was potentially a pretty big deal as the primary objective was STOL performance from relatively unimproved fields.

 But it was more than just the USB element of the YC-14 that I liked. It just looked like more fun. This short, tubby jet that was somehow ’sporty’ at the same time. And with massive flaps on a relatively short wing, stylish main gear pods, a huge T-tail and loads of cockpit windows, it seemed like it would be a great airplane to go play with. Imagine buzzing your friend’s house with this! The reports I’ve seen indicate the airplane had very impressive performance, especially low speed maneuverability. One of the AMST requirements was that the airplane had to be able to carry a 27,000 pound cargo, and fly a 1,000 mile round trip into a 2,000 foot runway without refueling. It appears that the airplane met its target, and the Boeing website even says the airplane could takeoff in just 1,000 feet with that 27,000 pound cargo. Pretty stinkin’ amazing for an airplane with a wingspan of 129 feet, which is actually about 3 feet shorter than its length! In a non STOL setting, the YC-14 had a 251,000 pound gross weight with an 81,000 pound payload.

 So, I think I could be happy if this Christmas I somehow wound up with a flyable YC-14 under the tree. Only two were built, and it appears they both still exist out in sunny Arizona. S/N 72-1873, the prototype (and the airplane in the picture above) is on display at the Pima Air Museum, and S/N 72-1874 is at Davis Monthan AFB. Hopefully Santa is on good terms with Uncle Sam… and I promise, if I get this sweet STOL superjet for Christmas, everyone gets a free ride!

FIFI Is Now Firing On All 72 Cylinders - And She’s Ready For You!

FIFI is now FAA approved with her modified R-3350 engines  (photo: CAF)

 The re-engine project for the Commemorative Air Force B-29 known as 'FIFI' hit a snag early in the flight testing phase. After the first flight on August 5, a pre-ignition problem on the number 2 engine damaged some of the cylinders requiring engine removal and repairs. But, on Friday September 24th, FIFI was back in the air for two flights, and the engines worked great. On the following day, a third problem-free flight satisfied the FAA that FIFI was once again ready to help tell the stories of the men and women who sacrificed their lives for freedom.

 The first event FIFI will attend is the big Commemorative Air Force 'AIRSHO' at the Midland International Airport in Texas on October 9 and 10. This isn’t just a perfect event for the B-29 to be ready for, but it’s also where people will have their first opportunity to actually purchase a ride in this historic aircraft. Having ridden in a B-17 earlier this year, I must say that experiencing a WWII bomber in-flight truly transforms your thinking about the effort put forth by those who fought in the war. This is truly a once-in-a-lifetime chance to better understand the people and the airplanes that won the war.

 Go to AIRSHO.org for more info on the upcoming event, and cafB29B24.org for ride info.

FlyingMachinesTV: This Is How Aviation Video Should Be!

 I first stumbled upon the video below while doing lots of Focke-Wulf FW 190 research. I was really impressed with the video quality, specifically from a 'smoothness of tracking' and the perspective from where the video was shot that I dug a little deeper. Wow! FlyingMachinesTV.co.uk takes aviation video to the highest level. I must learn to do this! The video above from the recent Royal International Air Tattoo (RIAT) event on July 17-18, 2010 at Fairford in the UK is absolutely amazing! Tracking flying machines with that much smoothness changes the game.

 DVD's are available of several different airshows or specific aircraft.  You should check out their stuff and tell all your friends : )

 You can also get some quick viewing in at youtube.com/user/FlyingmachinesTV. Wow.

1939 Focke-Wulf FW 190 Prototype: Crazy Big Spinner!

Focke-Wulf FW 190 V1 (prototype) with massive spinner

Cooling air was taken in thru the center hole in the spinner

(4 pix)

 As I mentioned in the FW 190 CoolPix post the other day, I've been a fan of the this airplane since I was a kid, but that doesn't mean there isn't a boatload of stuff for me to to still learn about it. Like; I didn't know the prototype aircraft had that huge spinner the diameter of the fuselage! I had no idea that this was the original concept Kurt Tank had for the airplane. I found out about the prototype FW 190 in a book my dad had that I stumbled across later the same day I had put up the CoolPix. The idea was that cooling air would enter into that big hole in the middle of the spinner, and the smaller spike spinner was there to help increase the air pressure. All this was supposed to lead to good cooling and low drag.

 There are two kinds of out-of-the-box thinking in aircraft design: super crazy cool ideas that are not only different, but right away they strike a chord as being really well worth the time and effort to give them a try. And then there are those ideas where you just have to say what the heck were these people thinking?! For me, that huge spinner fits the first category. It's like aerodynamics, art, and fantasy all coming together for a moment of synergy, but in the real world. Too bad this idea was better at looking cool than it was at keeping the engine cool.

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