Aircar
Well-Known Member
A number of threads and a vast number of ,usually, government funded projects over many years have focussed on VTOL (vertical Take Off and Landing) on the assumption that 'cracking' this problematic area of aircraft design will result in a 'breakthrough' that will enable widespread use of (in this context) personal air vehicles -PAVs to use the NASA parlance.
The MEANS by which this mode of operation might or might not be realized becomes the entire focus of the task and becomes an end in itself in many cases -as the degree of difficulty in getting sufficient power to weight ratios and the complexity of control with no forward speed ,stabilization ,etc etc is tackled the intellectual attraction increases in direct proportion it seems and the attention of the designers becomes even more narrowly tuned.
Only a few years ago the V22 Osprey program was getting front cover promotion like "changing the face of aviation" "opening a new era" etc etc in hundreds of journals and promotional material --predictions of vast numbers of civil commuter 'vertibuses' and the filtering down to the man in the street (and the 'vertiplane in the street' - roadable VTOL, NASA produced a major technical memorandum nearly twenty years ago predicting our VTOL flying car just around the corner and only a few hundred million more dollars into research will guarantee it.
Adding in "electric' to this mix is sure to 'electrify' the media and crank up the PR machine to new heights -- Peter Garrison observed how certain words seem to be floating around just waiting to be linked together in enticing and futuristic combinations with little regard for the facts (his example ' supersonic business jet' 'personal commuter helicopter' 'pollution free silent electric airplane' etc
the roadable aircraft attracts more than the average hostility and hyperbole and gets linked to "VTOL" in the same fashion to get some more cache.
VTOL mania is just one example of a more general issue that goes to what used to be called "design philosophy" --the basic reasoning and brief description of WHY some such aircraft was being pursued before wading into the HOW or the minutae of detail and engrossing technical features. It is always clear AFTER some monumental failure and horrendous expenditure as to WHAT was fundamentally wrong with the conception of an aircraft, or a whole program ,but seemingly these things were 'invisible' until the final full disaster is played out . Projects like the huge Bristol Brabazon or the equally huge Princess Flying boats typify this failure by misconception despite the execution being done with full engineering competence. The Terrafugia and 2000 plus unviable roadable designs are closer to home examples along with even more 'revolutionary' VTOLs ...
The fable of the "Emperor's new clothes" was a wise recognition of the pressures to not speak up when something is seen to be wrong or the appeal to authority, status, power or whatever is used to silence any dissent. (and censoring of any argument or attempt to question the voice of authority is the first step)
Seeing through the hype,- but still yielding to the subtle influence to conform to what others are saying, add gushing praise even and go along despite internal misgivings amounts to moral cowardice and is what allows things to snowball with no one speaking up (or being suppressed if they do) until ......you find you are immersed in a huge crowd at a Nuremberg rally perhaps ........ that is of course an exaggeration and will be treated with scoffing (unless of course the reader was personally swept up in the actual seduction of the ,almost, entire German nation within living memory --WE know of course that we would never behave like that, especially on matters of such gravity . Letting 'little' matters where the 'party line' seems just a little wrong pass 'unnoticed' is of no concern and we will wait until something really important comes along before we say something, so we tell ourselves. It turns out that once acquiescence and deference to our superiors has become a habit over little matters it is too late to act when big ones come along....
In this context the NASA PR machine has been employed again to conjure up new, but recycled in fact, visions of VTOL personal aircraft flitting about merrily using electric clean power and going wherever they desire alighting in any 'convenient' open space just as the old artwork promised . (or Moller et al still flog) A few years ago at the height of this revival Popular Mechanics had a line up of accomplished ,innovative ,designers including Burt Rutan and Paul Mac Cready, plus Leroy Lopresti and several others together with a NASA employee who had not made any similar contribution .
The promotion of the NASA "Roadmap for revolutionizing' general aviation was being pushed full bore in the mid 90s and the vision of 'on demand' jet taxis (another beguiling word combo) was central to this theme --the 'under utilized' and 'overlooked' network of rural airports was the 'key' to this coming avalanche of flight activity -- I attended the forum at Oshkosh and later the same presentation at the SAE "Future transport" conference in Costa Mesa in 1998 and questioned the basic thesis --to wit " isn't the reliance on existing airports -and designing small fast landing aircraft that need them- designing into a dead end?-given that upwards of one million people per municipal airport is the norm for major cities, and aren't those rural airports unused because few people want or need to go there ?" - Bruce Holmes described this (the one million per airport) as "an interesting metric". I called it a show stopper .
The "jet air taxi" network with on demand service never materialized but several multi million dollar businesses collapsed following the business plan.
If dependence on airports proves to be a straightjacket to any expansion isn't VTOL the answer? (where the NASA work turned ) --the dream of coming and going from our front lawn and landing 'anywhere' is the new paradigm (or some version of it) and strangely the weather always seems to be ideal when this scheme is being sold as well . And won't 'silent' electric propulsion (more zippy buzzwords) solve any doubts about the side effects ? "Electric VTOL' has a nice ring to it and don't mention energy density .
The other thing not to mention is how practical this idea of just rising up out of any open space and alighting at any other of choice would be in fact -- at least when you go to an airport you can be fairly sure that it is clear and is a known quantity . Imagine if EVERY time you wanted to land somewhere (it's raining and dark remember) you had to scour the site with eagle eyes to look out for powerlines or tree branches or...just about anything that could end your nice day in spectacular fashion --the slightest touch of a spinning rotor will do it just as tailrotor strikes do now. Fully enclosed rotors give some protection for minor contacts but can they be made small enough to go down a road and still not require excessive power and the turmoil associated ? (the flying jeeps showed NO ) Is it really practical to leave your VTOL sitting there and walk to where you really need to go? Can any other VTOL use the same place or are you blocking it with your immobile (on the ground) VTOL? What has happened to the vision ? Does it only work for a handful of vehicles rather than being useful for a significant fraction of the population?
Feedback into the design flowchart and compare to the original design philosophy -is this working?
The MEANS by which this mode of operation might or might not be realized becomes the entire focus of the task and becomes an end in itself in many cases -as the degree of difficulty in getting sufficient power to weight ratios and the complexity of control with no forward speed ,stabilization ,etc etc is tackled the intellectual attraction increases in direct proportion it seems and the attention of the designers becomes even more narrowly tuned.
Only a few years ago the V22 Osprey program was getting front cover promotion like "changing the face of aviation" "opening a new era" etc etc in hundreds of journals and promotional material --predictions of vast numbers of civil commuter 'vertibuses' and the filtering down to the man in the street (and the 'vertiplane in the street' - roadable VTOL, NASA produced a major technical memorandum nearly twenty years ago predicting our VTOL flying car just around the corner and only a few hundred million more dollars into research will guarantee it.
Adding in "electric' to this mix is sure to 'electrify' the media and crank up the PR machine to new heights -- Peter Garrison observed how certain words seem to be floating around just waiting to be linked together in enticing and futuristic combinations with little regard for the facts (his example ' supersonic business jet' 'personal commuter helicopter' 'pollution free silent electric airplane' etc
the roadable aircraft attracts more than the average hostility and hyperbole and gets linked to "VTOL" in the same fashion to get some more cache.
VTOL mania is just one example of a more general issue that goes to what used to be called "design philosophy" --the basic reasoning and brief description of WHY some such aircraft was being pursued before wading into the HOW or the minutae of detail and engrossing technical features. It is always clear AFTER some monumental failure and horrendous expenditure as to WHAT was fundamentally wrong with the conception of an aircraft, or a whole program ,but seemingly these things were 'invisible' until the final full disaster is played out . Projects like the huge Bristol Brabazon or the equally huge Princess Flying boats typify this failure by misconception despite the execution being done with full engineering competence. The Terrafugia and 2000 plus unviable roadable designs are closer to home examples along with even more 'revolutionary' VTOLs ...
The fable of the "Emperor's new clothes" was a wise recognition of the pressures to not speak up when something is seen to be wrong or the appeal to authority, status, power or whatever is used to silence any dissent. (and censoring of any argument or attempt to question the voice of authority is the first step)
Seeing through the hype,- but still yielding to the subtle influence to conform to what others are saying, add gushing praise even and go along despite internal misgivings amounts to moral cowardice and is what allows things to snowball with no one speaking up (or being suppressed if they do) until ......you find you are immersed in a huge crowd at a Nuremberg rally perhaps ........ that is of course an exaggeration and will be treated with scoffing (unless of course the reader was personally swept up in the actual seduction of the ,almost, entire German nation within living memory --WE know of course that we would never behave like that, especially on matters of such gravity . Letting 'little' matters where the 'party line' seems just a little wrong pass 'unnoticed' is of no concern and we will wait until something really important comes along before we say something, so we tell ourselves. It turns out that once acquiescence and deference to our superiors has become a habit over little matters it is too late to act when big ones come along....
In this context the NASA PR machine has been employed again to conjure up new, but recycled in fact, visions of VTOL personal aircraft flitting about merrily using electric clean power and going wherever they desire alighting in any 'convenient' open space just as the old artwork promised . (or Moller et al still flog) A few years ago at the height of this revival Popular Mechanics had a line up of accomplished ,innovative ,designers including Burt Rutan and Paul Mac Cready, plus Leroy Lopresti and several others together with a NASA employee who had not made any similar contribution .
The promotion of the NASA "Roadmap for revolutionizing' general aviation was being pushed full bore in the mid 90s and the vision of 'on demand' jet taxis (another beguiling word combo) was central to this theme --the 'under utilized' and 'overlooked' network of rural airports was the 'key' to this coming avalanche of flight activity -- I attended the forum at Oshkosh and later the same presentation at the SAE "Future transport" conference in Costa Mesa in 1998 and questioned the basic thesis --to wit " isn't the reliance on existing airports -and designing small fast landing aircraft that need them- designing into a dead end?-given that upwards of one million people per municipal airport is the norm for major cities, and aren't those rural airports unused because few people want or need to go there ?" - Bruce Holmes described this (the one million per airport) as "an interesting metric". I called it a show stopper .
The "jet air taxi" network with on demand service never materialized but several multi million dollar businesses collapsed following the business plan.
If dependence on airports proves to be a straightjacket to any expansion isn't VTOL the answer? (where the NASA work turned ) --the dream of coming and going from our front lawn and landing 'anywhere' is the new paradigm (or some version of it) and strangely the weather always seems to be ideal when this scheme is being sold as well . And won't 'silent' electric propulsion (more zippy buzzwords) solve any doubts about the side effects ? "Electric VTOL' has a nice ring to it and don't mention energy density .
The other thing not to mention is how practical this idea of just rising up out of any open space and alighting at any other of choice would be in fact -- at least when you go to an airport you can be fairly sure that it is clear and is a known quantity . Imagine if EVERY time you wanted to land somewhere (it's raining and dark remember) you had to scour the site with eagle eyes to look out for powerlines or tree branches or...just about anything that could end your nice day in spectacular fashion --the slightest touch of a spinning rotor will do it just as tailrotor strikes do now. Fully enclosed rotors give some protection for minor contacts but can they be made small enough to go down a road and still not require excessive power and the turmoil associated ? (the flying jeeps showed NO ) Is it really practical to leave your VTOL sitting there and walk to where you really need to go? Can any other VTOL use the same place or are you blocking it with your immobile (on the ground) VTOL? What has happened to the vision ? Does it only work for a handful of vehicles rather than being useful for a significant fraction of the population?
Feedback into the design flowchart and compare to the original design philosophy -is this working?
