Well yes that too :) BTW one of our long time subscribers holds the unofficial
world record time to climb from a standing start. Allen Tolle was flying
a 13B powered RV3 with the aid of nitrous oxide (approximately 350 HP)
climbed to 3000 feet from a standing start in less than a
minute.

Paul Lamar

 Paul, I'm really not trying to be contradictory. Alan's feat is a great 
demo of the untapped potential of the rotary! I spoke to Bruce Bohannon 
when the "Flying Tiger" was at Golden West Fly-in. He commented that his 
plane briefly showed 4800 Ft/min, (on a gps based instrument,) and he is 
the current World Record Holder! His record to 9000 meters averaged 1800 ft/min.
 The thing that mystifies me is why don't some of these people start off 
with semi-realistic claims? I don't know about everyone else but if somebody 
showed me a VTOL aircraft that "only" climbed at 2000 Ft/Min I would be impressed!
 Come to think of it if somebody showed me a VTOL aircraft that actually 
worked, (quiet you regular helicopter guys,) I would be very interested. 
Bill Jepson

Well 9000 meters (30,000 feet) is a lot more difficult than 3000 feet due to 
reduced air density and HP. Allan Tolle must have averaged over 3000 FPM
to get there from a dead stop on the runway in less than a minute.
The only meaningful comparison is to use initial climb at or near
sea level.

I know nothing about helicopters. What does a helicopter do in terms
of FPM climb at or near sea level. 

As far as the difficulty of the control task is concerned one has only to look
at the history of the VTOL V22 Osprey.

Paul Lamar
 
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