Low-Speed Characteristics of High-Performance Lift-Engine V/STOL Aircraft

Considerable research on large-scale high-performance, lift-engine, V/STOL configurations has been conducted at Ames Research Center. The exhaust gas reingestion characteristics, lift-engine inlet total-pressure recovery and distortion, and engine-airframe induced effects were measured in the 40 × 80 ft wind tunnel both in and out of ground effect over a wide range of transition flight conditions. The results of these investigations show that the lift-engine configurations studied may have severe operational constraints placed upon them during transition.