Scaled Composites 271 "Spike"... a.k.a. Williams "V-Jet II"

[hesham]

Hi,

 

[dannydale]

Looks just like the Williams V-Jet II with a single engine.

 

[Stargazer]

The sleek five-place Williams V-Jet II was designed and built to prove the concept of a low-cost, Bonanza-class personal jet for general aviation. Dr. Sam Williams, Chairman of Williams International, said, "Our objective is to replace aging, piston-powered light aircraft with all new, four-place single and six-place twin, turbofan-powered modern aircraft. This means we must develop a turbofan in the 700 pound thrust category that is very low in cost at a high production rate, is extremely quiet, is light in weight, and is very reliable." Not intended for production, the V-Jet II was designed by Dr. Williams to demonstrate the new Williams FJX-2 high bypass ration engine characteristics in flight over the anticipated speed and altitude range for future "turbofan-powered, light aircraft era."

The V-Jet II originated in NASA’s Advanced General Aviation Transport Experiments (AGATE) program—a joint NASA/industry venture born at the 1992 Oshkosh convention and aimed at revitalizing general aviation. In the fall of 1996, under a competitive procurement program among jet engine companies, NASA selected Williams International to join NASA in a $100 million cooperative effort to revitalize the once-flourishing light aircraft industry in the United States through small turbofan engine technology. Under the program, Williams and its industry team members, which include Williams suppliers and future aircraft company customers, were to provide 60 percent of the resources and NASA 40 percent for the initial engine demonstration phase. Williams and NASA, under the General Aviation Propulsion (GAP) program, developed the FJX-2, an even smaller, lighter turbofan engine than the previous FJX-1.

Williams designed the V-Jet II as both a test bed and showcase for the FJX-2 engine. The FJX-2 is a compact turbofan delivering 700 lbs of thrust and weighing just 100 pounds. Several Williams "V-Jets" have been designed in past years by Dr. Williams with three full-scale mockups and at least a dozen small models studied to arrive at the final V-Jet II configuration. The name, V-Jet, started with the forward-swept or V-shaped wing that continues from the early Williams designs. Designer Burt Rutan was an employee of Beech Aircraft Co. at the time, and he convinced Beech’s management to take up Williams’ challenge. Rutan said he remembered seeing a mock-up of an aircraft Williams called the V-Jet at an NBAA convention some 18 years ago. Although the first V-Jet design was never built, Williams went on to design and build the FJ44 series of turbojet engines, which Rutan called "the most significant engine in aviation in years." Rutan’s Scaled Composites, Inc. refined and built the design, unveiling it at the 1997 Oshkosh convention. According to Dr. Williams, "Burt Rutan and his team have made major improvements to this design and have introduced into this prototype many new, exciting manufacturing processes." Apparently the Model 271's initial name at Scaled was 'Spike', but it was hardly ever used, and very soon only the V-Jet II name remained...

More on the V-Jet's story on my website: http://stargazer2006.online.fr
in the JET AIRCRAFT > BUSINESS JETS section.


Attachments:
- The Williams V-Jet II photographed by David Lednicer.
- The Williams V-Jet I model (note the conventional fin) photographed at Oshkosh by Luc Van Bavel circa 1998.

 

[Mark Nankivil]

Here's a few pics I took of it back in 2004 at the EAA Museum in Oshkosh.

Enjoy the Day! Mark