ADO-12 to "US-FRG" AVS V/STOL Fighter Programs

The US certainly devoted a lot of time and effort to VSTOL from the 50s on.
I think they came to the sensible conclusion and left it to the Marine Corps.
 
overscan (PaulMM) said:
boxkite visited in person in 2001. He has a bunch of material from this visit, but the archive isn't amenable to return visits.
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Thanks. And... understood. Lots of things changed after 2001, including archives becoming twitchy.

Anyway, first time I've seen dimensions for these planes. Woo.
 
uk 75 said:
The US certainly devoted a lot of time and effort to VSTOL from the 50s on.
I think they came to the sensible conclusion and left it to the Marine Corps.
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VSTOL is just really, really inefficient and doesn't make much sense with our current level of tech. Brits did it about as well as it could be done with the Harrier model of a central engine with rotating nozzles that doesn't penalize you with lots of extra weight. The Russian/US approach suffers from those extra vertical engines behind the cockpit that become useless weight in flight and takes up space that's needed for fuel. And even the Harrier/Pegasus model still suffers the range issue. Out in the fleet, US Navy pilots would joke that Marine Harrier drivers would be in Bingo Fuel as soon as they'd finished taking off.
 
Apophenia said:
In another thread (in the Designations section) boxkite mentioned a 2001 visit to the EADS archive. And it sounds as though the resident archivist is none to keen on visitors ... perhaps explaining why this archive has no website?

For those in the Munich area looking for an outing, maybe just bang on the door and demand to see Herr Mühlbauer? :p

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Oh no, stop! Mr. Mühlbauer was a great help to us! It wasn't his fault that we weren't allowed to see or even copy everything. Our first (and only) visit was to gather material for presentations on vertical take-off projects from all over the world. If we had not limited ourselves to this, he would certainly have provided other documents in advance. It was around this time that his superiors decided that he should no longer be a permanently employed archivist at EADS, but should become self-employed in order to serve his previous employer in this way - EADS thus avoided insurance obligations and the like. Visitors from outside did not bring the company any money, it cost them money, because Mr. Mühlbauer would have had to look after us.
As I said, the decision-makers had other things in mind than pleasing a few 'project collectors' :confused:.
If he is reading this, I would like to thank Wolfgang M. once again for the help he gave us on this one day. Not forgetting the interesting articles he published in the magazine FLUGZEUG CLASSIC - I only have to mention the EK-33 ground attack aircraft project.
 

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