Hiller VTOL/VSTOL/STOL Projects

The Hiller Air Tug Heavy Helicopter Project of 1965;

Company hopes for giant tip-powered helicopters revived briefly in 1965 when the National Aeronautics and Space Administration considered sponsoring a Hiller flying crane to recover Saturn V moon booster first stages during Project Apollo. Aerial recovery of this spent first stage, which weighed up to 400 tons, dictated that the Hiller/NASA recovery vehicle be the largest aircraft of any kind yet proposed. The resulting design featured a gross weight of about a 450t and a rotor more than 100m in diameter. Powered by two or more jet engines per blade, this rotor would have turned at 60 rpm, presenting the illusion of slow motion to observers below.
As laid out, the Hiller/NASA flying crane would loiter at 3000m some 750km downrange from Cape Kennedy. Sighting the moon booster descending by parachute, it would use special recovery gear to snag the spent rocket and winch it securely in. If the first pass was unsuccessful, sufficient time would remain for two more attempts before the booster was too near the ocean's surface for another try.
Expensive as such a helicopter would have been, the huge aircraft would have paid for itself with the first several recoveries. But long-range planning for the nation's space program was beginning to favor the concept of a reusable space shuttle over single-use rockets, and this recovery helicopter was not funded.

 

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Hi,

 

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From Aeroplane magazine 1957,

they spoke about Hiller,and he invented various VTO Projects,we
know only one or two ?!.
 

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From, Helicopter History and Aerodynamics,

so weird,this project was belonged to Vertol and not hiller ?,what
is the right ?!.

 

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From Army Aviation Digest 1958.
 

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From Aeroplane 1958,

the Hiller Model-1048.
 

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From Air Pictorial 1949.
 

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I wonder how the Ductoplane would have achieved control (yaw, roll and pitch) in the hover? Clearly the large flap / barn door would deflect the thrust down but smaller sub-ducts for 'puffers'???
 
From Interavia 1958.
 

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How times and culture change. When I was a kid, the DoD would try anything VTOL, just to see if it would work. Now we wring our hands at putting a new camera on the nose.
 
How times and culture change. When I was a kid, the DoD would try anything VTOL, just to see if it would work. Now we wring our hands at putting a new camera on the nose.
What especially strikes me is how everyone seems willing to reinvent the wheel when most of the VTOL technology has been studied in depth for 50 years. Although engine technology has evolved, the most recent VTOL prototypes are almost identical to proposals from the 1960s or early 1970s in terms of configuration, capability, etc.
 

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