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

Hi, Paul....the most powerful helicopter I flew for the Army was the
Sikorski UH-60 Blackhawk. With it's two GE-700 engines, with 1622 shp each,
our rate of climb at 2000 feet and 70degrees F was 2,750 fpm. That was not
with a full load, of course. (It can carry 11 troops with full combat gear).
Hard to imagine a fixed wing VTOL outclimbing a Blackhawk, but then, I've
never flown a fixed-wing VTOL.  The Huey and Jet Ranger are not even in the
same class as far as rate of climb.  Hope this helps.  Paul Conner, US Army
retired

 
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