VTOL

[Xyphos]

 

[RizzoTheRat]

I've seen a few people do that with prop driven models, where the prop is providing enough airflow over the surfaces to control it, but presumably that's a ducted fan (I'm guessing a model jet wouldn't be responsive enough and have no sound on my work PC), so how the hell does he control it?

[T-Bouw]

Thrust vectoring is your answer.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrust_vectoring
I've seen this thing done with a model Mig-29OVT as well.

The real things couldn't do that, neither the prop- nor the jet-planes.
Still, pretty impressive although a little weird looking.

[DDE]

4 hours ago, T-Bouw said:

The real things couldn't do that, neither the prop- nor the jet-planes.
Still, pretty impressive although a little weird looking.

Oh, they tried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail-sitter

[magnemoe]

2 hours ago, DDE said:

Oh, they tried.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tail-sitter

Had an Laythe spaceplane back in 0.9 who worked like this, yes I used stall+ parachutes for vertical decent then engine to soft land.
Not an good pilot, the ground tend to be bumpy and I wanted an water landing for science.
Worked nice enough.

 

[T-Bouw]

12 hours ago, magnemoe said:

Had an Laythe spaceplane back in 0.9 who worked like this, yes I used stall+ parachutes for vertical decent then engine to soft land.
Not an good pilot, the ground tend to be bumpy and I wanted an water landing for science.
Worked nice enough.

 

Oh yeah! Did the same thing on Kerbin with an early career plane when I had no wheeled gear unlocked.
I had to flip the thing around and then land on it's tail.
Needless to say that it was indeed very hard to do so with the controls getting flipped as well.