Tilt Rotor Aircraft does the impossible - Aerobatics! Dale Brown would be proud.

[Goddess Bhavani]

Real-world tilt rotor aircraft are excellent point to point VTOL transports but are not known to be maneuverable. Infact the fabled V-22 Osprey currently in service is prohibited from aerobatics or evasive maneuvers.

This makes me a little bit sad because I grew up reading Dale Brown's novels "Hammerheads" and "Air Battle Force" where tilt-rotor and tilt-jet aircraft are often seen running rings around the opposition.

I decided to bring my old Turbo Compound Tilt Rotor design out for a spin and see how far I can stretch the flight envelope. To my surprise, she could pull in excess of 10Gs with no sweat and swiveling the nozzles about at high angles of attack created some sort of potential for supermaneuverability as Dale Brown narrated in his books.

Without further ado, here's le proof (video below) and craft file on KerbalX.

Edited March 21, 2015 by pandoras kitten

[Azimech]

Very nice!

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

That's great!

Is that FAR?

Also, stock revamp, right?

[meve12]

So, why are there no acrobatic VTOLs in real life?

[Adester]

So, why are there no acrobatic VTOLs in real life?

i think because of the structural stress. And perhaps because noboody wants to find it out while flying a multi million dollar vehicle. but there is plenty of rc helicopter 3d action on youtube.

[Goddess Bhavani]

That's great!

Is that FAR?

Also, stock revamp, right?

Yes. While Stock Revamp makes the task of explaining the mod list when sharing the craft file a bit more challenging, due to how it affects certain attach nodes, I find I cannot live without the nicely streamlined parts and the way the basic jet engines and annular aerospikes look incredibly good.

To other posts:

I think to date there is only one licensed helicopter aerobatics pilot in the whole of the USA or maybe the entire world. We could say that the Harrier and upcoming F-35B STOVL Joint Strike Fighter are "aerobatic capable VTOLs" - Harriers have demonstrated some cunningly effective use of thrust vectoring during aerial combat, while F-35 would likely be restricted from doing such things in hover mode.

Operational tilt rotors like the V-22 Osprey probably are prohibited from aerobatics as aboveposted, structural issues, and let's just say the size and complexity of the craft makes it dangerous to push hard around the sky. There have been various accidents during the prototype stage due to exceeding flight envelopes, which gave the Osprey a bit of a bad reputation in some circles, despite its overall excellent safety record in operational service.

Still a bit of a sitting duck vs small arms fire though. If you grab the craft file for the turbocompound tilt rotor in OP, you can see that there are certain areas of the flight envelope where pushing too hard or over-speeding can cause fatal loss of flight control.

I had read that smaller tilt rotors like my other favorite, the AugustaWestland AW609 are more agile, but I haven't heard of them doing all out aerobatics.

Edited March 23, 2015 by pandoras kitten

[Wanderfound]

So, why are there no acrobatic VTOLs in real life?

There are: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrier_Jump_Jet

Aerobatic jet VTOLs work in KSP, too:

Edited March 23, 2015 by Wanderfound

[meve12]

Forgot about that.