A vertical and/or short take-off and landing (V/STOL) aircraft is an

airplane An airplane (American English), or aeroplane (Commonwealth English), informally plane, is a fixed-wing aircraft that is propelled forward by thrust from a jet engine, Propeller (aircraft), propeller, or rocket engine. Airplanes come in a vari ...

able to take-off or land vertically or on short runways. Vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft are a subset of V/STOL craft that do not require runways at all. Generally, a V/STOL aircraft needs to be able to hover. Helicopters are not considered under the V/STOL classification as the classification is only used for aeroplanes, aircraft that achieve

lift (force) When a fluid flows around an object, the fluid exerts a force on the object. Lift is the Euclidean_vector#Decomposition_or_resolution, component of this force that is perpendicular to the oncoming flow direction. It contrasts with the drag (phy ...

in forward flight by planing the air, thereby achieving speed and

fuel efficiency Fuel efficiency (or fuel economy) is a form of thermal efficiency, meaning the ratio of effort to result of a process that converts chemical energy, chemical potential energy contained in a carrier (fuel) into kinetic energy or Mechanical work, w ...

that is typically greater than the capability of helicopters. Most V/STOL aircraft types were experiments or outright failures from the 1950s to 1970s. V/STOL aircraft types that have been produced in large numbers include the F-35B Lightning II, Harrier and

V-22 Osprey The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-use, tiltrotor military transport aircraft, military transport and cargo aircraft with both vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and short takeoff and landing (STOL) capabilities. It is designed ...

. A rolling takeoff, sometimes with a ramp ( ski-jump), reduces the amount of thrust required to lift an aircraft from the ground (compared with vertical takeoff), and hence increases the payload and range that can be achieved for a given thrust. For instance, the Harrier is incapable of taking off vertically with full weapons and fuel load. Hence V/STOL aircraft generally use a runway if it is available. I.e. short takeoff and vertical landing (

STOVL A short take-off and vertical landing aircraft (STOVL aircraft) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is able to take off from a short runway (or take off vertically if it does not have a heavy payload) and land vertically (i.e. with no runway). The ...

) or conventional takeoff and landing ( CTOL) operation is preferred to

VTOL A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can takeoff and landing, take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust- ...

operation. V/STOL was developed to allow fast jets to be operated from clearings in forests, from very short runways, and from small

aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

s that would previously only have been able to carry

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

s. The main advantage of V/STOL aircraft is closer basing to the enemy, which reduces response time and tanker support requirements. In the case of the

Falklands War The Falklands War () was a ten-week undeclared war between Argentina and the United Kingdom in 1982 over two British Overseas Territories, British dependent territories in the South Atlantic: the Falkland Islands and Falkland Islands Dependenci ...

, it also permitted high-performance fighter air cover and ground attack without a large aircraft carrier equipped with aircraft catapult.

Lists of V/STOL aircraft

This is a partial list; there have been many designs for V/STOL aircraft.

Vectored thrust

* Hawker P.1127/Kestrel/ Harrier; four rotating nozzles for vectored thrust of fan and jet exhaust.

Tilt-jet

Bell XF-109 The Bell D-188A (unofficial military designations XF-109/XF3L) was a proposed eight-engine Mach number, Mach 2–capable VTOL, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) tiltjet fighter that never proceeded past the mock-up stage. Development In 195 ...

* Bell 65 * EWR VJ 101

Tilt-rotor

AgustaWestland AW609 The Leonardo AW609, formerly the AgustaWestland AW609, and originally the Bell-Agusta BA609, is a twin-engined tiltrotor VTOL aircraft with an overall configuration similar to that of the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey. It is capable of landing vertic ...

(originally Bell 609) * AgustaWestland Project Zero technology demonstrator *

Bell XV-3 The Bell XV-3 (Bell 200) is an American tiltrotor aircraft developed by Bell Helicopter for a joint research program between the United States Air Force and the United States Army in order to explore convertiplane technologies. The XV-3 featured ...

* Bell XV-15 * Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey (scale up of XV-15) * Bell V-280 Valor

Tilt-wing

* Curtiss-Wright X-19 – four rotating propellers, tilt-wing. * Canadair CL-84 Dynavert, two

turboprop A turboprop is a Gas turbine, gas turbine engine that drives an aircraft Propeller (aeronautics), propeller. A turboprop consists of an intake, reduction drive, reduction gearbox, gas compressor, compressor, combustor, turbine, and a propellin ...

tilt-wing * LTV XC-142 four-engine tilt-wing cross-shafted

* Bell X-22 rotating ducted propellers. Small transport prototype. Slightly smaller than V-22 Osprey. * Hiller X-18

Separate thrust and lift

* Dornier Do 31 Jet transport with podded vector nozzles and lift engines * Kamov Ka-22 * Lockheed XV-4 Hummingbird *

Dassault Balzac V The Dassault Balzac V was a French vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) testbed of the early 1960s. It was built by Dassault Aviation from a prototype Dassault Mirage III, Mirage III aircraft to test the configuration for the Dassault Mirage IIIV ...

(V stands for vertical and is a modified Mirage III) * Dassault Mirage IIIV the first VTOL capable of supersonic flight (Mach 2.03 during tests) * Fokker/Republic D-24 Alliance * Ryan XV-5. Fans in wings driven by engine exhaust gas. * VFW VAK 191B Attack fighter similar to Harrier but supersonic dash speed, smaller wings and lift engines. Flown, but not operational. *

Yakovlev Yak-38 The Yakovlev Yak-38 (; NATO reporting name: "Forger") was Soviet Naval Aviation's only operational VTOL strike fighter aircraft in addition to being its first operational carrier-based fixed-wing aircraft. It was developed specifically for, and ...

Yakovlev Yak-141 The Yakovlev Yak-141 (; NATO reporting name "Freestyle"), also known as the Yak-41, is a Soviet supersonic VTOL, vertical takeoff/landing (VTOL) fighter aircraft designed by Yakovlev. Intended as a replacement for the Yak-38, it was designed as ...

Short SC.1 The Short SC.1 was the first British fixed-wing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) jet aircraft. It was developed by Short Brothers. It was powered by an arrangement of five Rolls-Royce RB.108 turbojets, four of which were used for vertical ...

Supersonic

Although many aircraft have been proposed and built, with a few being tested, the F-35B is the first and only supersonic V/STOL aircraft to have reached operational service, having entered service in 2016."Report: F-35 Work Falls Behind Two More Years."
''CQ Politics'', 23 July 2009. * Bell D-188A Mach 2 swivelling engines, mockup stage * EWR VJ 101 Mach 2 fighter, flown to Mach 1.04 but not operational * Dassault Mirage IIIV Delta wing Mach 2 fighter with lift engines, first VTOL capable of supersonic and Mach 2 flight (Mach 2.03 during tests), not operational * Hawker Siddeley HS 138 Strike fighter with lift fans, It was not completed * Hawker Siddeley P.1017 Lift engines with thrust vectoring. It was not completed * Hawker Siddeley P.1154 M1.7 Supersonic Harrier. It was not completed * Hawker Siddeley P.1184-16 Dash 18 * Hawker Siddeley P.1217 * Republic AP-100 strike fighter concept * Convair Model 200 Lift engines plus swivel tailpipe, not built * Rockwell XFV-12 Built with complex "window blind" wings but could not lift its own weight *

Lift engines plus swivel tailpipe * Lockheed Martin X-35B / F-35B uses a vectored-thrust tailpipe (the Pratt & Whitney F135) plus a shaft-driven lifting fan. It is the first aircraft capable of demonstrating transition from short take-off to supersonic flight to vertical landing on the same sortie.Kjelgaard, Chris (Senior Editor)
"From Supersonic to Hover: How the F-35 Flies."
''space.com,'' 21 December 2007.

References

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:V STOL Types of take-off and landing