Let's see the F-35B land on *dirt.* The Dragonfly would come in and touch down next to a bombed-out building and toss rocks and dirt and sand and skulls and pages from better Terminator fan-film scripts all willy-nilly into the air to be sucked up by the inlets of the same engines.
Which is why they're angled outwards...
You say that like it means anything. The dragonfly's engines are angled outwards by something like ten degrees... but note that the "feet," which seem to have a contact area measured as a few square inches, are right at the edge of the jet. As the jets dig holes in the dirt, the "feet" slide right into them, and keep sliding as the holes dig deeper.
The design would be substantially less stupid if:
1: The engines had a decent bypass ratio. These engines look to be straight turbojets (looks like two per nacelle), which are great for high transonic/supersonic flight... which this thing ain't doing.
2: The arms were substantially shorter
3: The arms were raised upwards, moving the engines further away from the dirt
4: The landing gear was separate.
Turn this thing into an X-22, even an X-22 with the ducts on articulated sci-fi arms, and it makes a lot more sense.
trekmovie.com
www.telegraph.co.uk
