Inside The Cockpit - VAK 191B (VTOL)
Added 2020-06-17 21:35:52 +0000 UTCHey all,
Here is the next Inside The Cockpit episode, coming out the 25th of June. A very special aircraft - a German VTOL prototype that you can only find in Germany.
Hope you enjoy,
Chris
Comments
Yes, the Dornier Do 31 was developed to the point of near completion of the project. Flight tests and more proved the plane worked but it was impractical.
Military Aviation History
2020-06-23 21:28:18 +0000 UTCWonderful! I'm really looking forward to that one. Can't imagine the task of getting a VTOL cargo aircraft to hover! As for the reference to the Do 31, I just couldn't catch that it referred to the plane in the background. Did it ever fly?
Michael Brewer
2020-06-23 21:01:36 +0000 UTCI once saw a note that also the Spanish Air Force used "strike" different from the normal Anglo/American-English. Albeit with a smaller difference in nuance: It was more in the meaning "attack" vs "strike".
Ole Bjørsvik
2020-06-22 10:54:37 +0000 UTCOMG Thos crazy sixties and early seventies! By the way: As a non-German-speaker I believed I nailed those long names in the first or seond attempt. Is there a prize I can collect somewhere?
Ole Bjørsvik
2020-06-22 10:51:24 +0000 UTCHey Michael, sorry Patreon didn't allow me to reply to your comment until now. Some bug on the website. As Joe said, that's the Dornier Do 31. I also filmed it, so an Inside The Cockpit will hit the channel on that one this summer
Military Aviation History
2020-06-21 08:58:04 +0000 UTCChris eluded, there was several VTOL designs being considered at the time. Hawker was only one to get it right (Soviet Yak 38 was not good).
Joe Kudrna
2020-06-21 00:56:30 +0000 UTCThat looming monster above it is another VTOL that Chris mentioned in video, the Do 31. The only VTOL cargo aircraft ever made (there was some STOL designs). As Chris said, it used the same lift engines as VAK (main engine was a little different). As for history of VTOL, it is a massive compromise of VTOL vs Usefulness. Even the vaunted F-35B falls way short of its two distant cousins.
Joe Kudrna
2020-06-21 00:52:42 +0000 UTCHi, Bis, This is fun and educational. The massive nuclear retaliation was a measure of the imbalance of conventional forces, I'm sure. For years, every year, my Dad's subscription to Air Force magazine included a "strategic balance" issue, which exhaustively listed conventional forces, around the world. The only thing less than scary about the Soviet Union and the other Warsaw Pact forces was that large portions of the Soviet army were never at anything like full strength. And by the way, I'll call you up and read off those long German names, if you want. In 7th grade, almost half a century ago, I was told I got an impossible perfect score on the Pimsleur Language Aptitude Test, which was done with headphones and microphones, and tape player/recorders. I'm sad that my decades of depression kept me from learning more than the equivalent of first term, second year college French.
Bill Lemmond
2020-06-19 04:14:45 +0000 UTCAlmost forgot to tell you how impressed I am with your fancy visual presentation. You're a real pro now, my friend!
Michael Brewer
2020-06-19 00:29:48 +0000 UTCThanks, Chris, but tell us, what is that giant aircraft looming over the VAK? How about a look at something really huge, as a contrast to the super-compact VAK. Interesting how early the VTOL concept was pursued with jets, and how far they got in developing a bird so similar to the Harrier. We had all that capability and it took until now to get a modern VTOL aircraft from America (the overpriced F-35). Any comments on that money pit?
Michael Brewer
2020-06-19 00:25:33 +0000 UTCUnfortunately my grandmother Linneman never taught her kids or grandkids any German. My mother was born in 1916, just as WW1 was getting started. The town where I grew up, Covington KY, had a large German population - mostly from the Duchy of Oldenburg. There is a church in town with Mutter Gottes Kirche carved in stone over the main entrance. Thanks for these videos -- I do have a license to fly single engine piston aircraft: CP-ASEL-IA .
Michael A Klaene
2020-06-18 20:12:21 +0000 UTCParts of the cockpit are similar as far as I could tell
Military Aviation History
2020-06-18 10:04:43 +0000 UTCThis is one of those words that if translated literally can be a bit confusing. But Kampfflugzeug in Germany implies groundattack. A multirole aircraft could be a 'Jagd- und Kampfflugzeug', thereby indicating it can also be used as a fighter.
Military Aviation History
2020-06-18 10:04:22 +0000 UTCThanks, I made a correction!
Military Aviation History
2020-06-18 10:03:05 +0000 UTCMmmm......interesting......my first impression was it looked like an F 104 variant......kool vid.
Stephen J Michalski
2020-06-18 01:40:53 +0000 UTCA couple of further observations: @2:00 -- My understanding was that "kampfflugzeug" meant "fighter aircraft" or more generally "combat aircraft", not specifically "strike aircraft" (which implies ground attack, which this definitely was). Is it worth going into a bit more detail on that? Likely not, but I thought I'd mention it. @6:45 -- An easy term for what the air bleed system on the wings accomplishes is "roll control while at low airspeed". I used to work on simulations of, among other things, the AV-8 and the F-35. Talking about roll and pitch control while in hover was something we did quite a bit of, because of course conventional control surfaces need air moving over them to work.
Dave D
2020-06-18 01:33:07 +0000 UTCOne small note for this video. The "inside the cockpit" section is noticably quieter than the rest of the video, not by a huge amount, but did require volume adjustment to hear what you were saying. Interestingly, as soon as I saw the plan view of the the VAK, the first thing I thought was it looked like a Harrier - I was not aware that the prototype Harrier was a competitor for this machine.
Julian Corbett
2020-06-17 23:13:43 +0000 UTC
