Summary of Lift and Lift/Cruise Fan Powered Lift Concept Technology

A summary is presented of some of the lift and lift/cruise fan technology including fan performance, fan stall, ground effects, ingestion and thrust loss, design tradeoffs and integration, control effectiveness and several other areas related to vertical short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) aircraft conceptual design. The various subjects addressed, while not necessarily pertinent to specific short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) supersonic designs being considered, are of interest to the general field of lift and lift/cruise fan aircraft designs and may be of importance in the future. The various wind tunnel and static tests reviewed are: (1) the Doak VZ-4 ducted fan, (2) the 0.57 scale model of the Bell X-22 ducted fan aircraft, (3) the Avrocar, (4) the General Electric lift/cruise fan, (5) the vertical short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) lift engine configurations related to ingestion and consequent thrust loss, (6) the XV-5 and other fan-in-wing stall consideration, (7) hybrid configurations such as lift fan and lift/cruise fan or engines, and (8) the various conceptual design studies by air-frame contractors. Other design integration problems related to small and large V/STOL transport aircraft are summarized including lessons learned during more recent conceptual design studies related to a small executive V/STOL transport aircraft.