Amazing airplane seen at Camarillo air show.
Roger Parker built this over a long period.
As I recall he started in 1993. The fuselage was made
in a female mold by Rich Trickle of KIS fame.
The wings are glass over foam. This is the real thing
and not a mockup. All parts work. Rather brilliant
design and much like a VTOL F35. Roger was also friends
with Vance Jaqua. Taxi test will be performed at Camarillo
this week.
Right now it is powered by a Toyota Supra turbo six that weighs
375 pounds. All three fans are driven by shafts
and Boston right angle cast iron gear boxes so it is
a bit over weight and under powered. Roger is looking for a gas turbine
around 800 HP. He might eventually settle for a 300 pound, 800
HP turbo 3 rotor if we are lucky.
The rear ducts rotate 90 degrees from pure lift to pure thrust. He
is well
aware of the drag on the ducts so his expectations of top speed are
realistic.
Counter rotating props are cut
down IVO but those will not be used for the final design.
He will need variable pitch props to control roll and pitch
in the hover and VTOL mode.
Roger, here is Perry Mick's web site address on his ducted fan
LongEZ for your info.
http://www.bridgingworlds.com/duckt.htm
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Pretty cool! I've made some sketches over the years trying to accomplish
something similar with the canard configuration. I had one drawn up with
three turbofans, vectored thrust on the two rears, and the front one
only vectored downward and shutdown in forward flight. Another one with
large open props. Paul you might still have some of my old 3D sketches.
More recently I saw a program on the Osprey, got me thinking about it
again. I was thinking of making a mini-Osprey with a more conventional
(non-canard) layout with a Bonanza v-tail.
Perry
No doubt about it the V22 is faster than a ducted configuration.
--
Paul Lamar ...No rotor no motor.
Interesting. There is a company working on something similar in a VTOL
drone. It will be interesting to hear how his gearbox and drive shaft
couplings hold up. Tricky stuff, those drivelines. The canard
configuration does give him a wider cg tolerence which is always a plus
during transition. The buried nose fan seems like a good call. The
trick
will be the differential throttling to control pitch during transition.
STOL with this bird should be pretty easy. VTOL will be an
achievement, but
I don't see why he can't do it. The Vanguard and Doak experimental VTOL
aircraft in the 50's worked.
I have to agree with Paul about the overall speed and bloc efficiency,
the -22 will have higher figures of merit. But it is a complex
machine and
having the usual problems until they get it right. There is a tremendous
market for them in areas like oil rig supply and personnel movements. If
they can winterize it properly, they would be a boon to mining
outposts and
isolated settlements around the arctic circle. It is almost
impossible to
maintain year-round runways up there, and frequently the ski-equipped
aircraft don't have enough room. A fairly small pad could be kept
open with
standard dozers and blades. The costs of any kind of transport up
there can
be prohibitive, so a VTOL light freighter might very well be competitive
because of the lack of need for an infrastructure (like road
maintenance).
George W
Wasn't there a big write-up about Japanese companies trying to buy the
V22 for civilian needs there, but DOD said no, so they started an R&D
company here and hired many former V-22 engineers in an attempt to
develop their own smaller version. Or, do I have it confused with
something else?
-dave
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