Rolls-Royce Griffith Supersonic VTO Airliner

[TsrJoe]

RAE. conceptual low altitude tactical bomber, 1954 (32 lift jets, 12 propulsion, a Griffith inspired design ?) ... PRO./TNA. AB6/1433

 

[Archibald]

Some reflexions about this madness
a) Gotta love the 1960's engineers who treated lift jets as some kind of "magical VSTOL devices" (Harry Potter flying brooms comes to mind. Also Avengers helicarriers)
b) ground erosion ? noise ? fuel consumption ? pollution ? What's that ?
c) Maybe this was a ploy by lift jet manufacturers (RR) to make them very rich ? imagine if those ten thousands 737s and A320s had batteries of lift jets... !

 

[Hood]

I don't know about you, but I think 32 lift engines, 12 propulsive engines AND a nuclear reactor to carry two nuclear bombs around is totally cost effective...

 

[Archibald]

I don't know about you, but I think 32 lift engines, 12 propulsive engines AND a nuclear reactor to carry two nuclear bombs around is totally cost effective...

And passengers.

I realize I forgot "anti-gravity devices" in my laundry list of magical VSTOL devices.

Think of Independance Day evil aliens shuttles that can beat the crap out of an entire fleet of F-18s - and later fly into space. In the second movie the recovering Earthlings have reverse engineered the tech.

"Antigravity devices". Yeah. That's really how those 1960's engineers thought of lift-jets. Special kudos to the Short PD-17 concept for the GOR-339 competition.

"Let's create a lift platform to carry the TSR-2 on its back. Even with the shape of a barn door, crux of the matter is that, with enough lift jets, it should be able to make a vertical hop - takeoff, throw away the bomber, return to a landing. Tadaaaam, VSTOL TSR-2 !"

By this metric, if a pig was strapped in place of the TSR-2, then the lift jet platform could make a pig fly. Also applies to ZELL, by the way. With enough rocket thrust, even a pig can fly. Main problem is landing.