Rockwell XFV-12; The VTOL Fighter That Couldn’t 

Family connections in the Swiss Military believed that they should have adopted the Harrier and, had something like the P1154 had it become available, for their defence requirements. No long runways just lots of rock caverns next to roads with a few aircraft at each location. That said the Harrier would not have existed had the US not put the money in, and despite an amazing platform our Civil Service would never support VTOL and sadly the P1154 was an opportunity lost. The blame lies very firmly with pen pushers who had no vision.

The side-nozzle layout is fundamentally flawed from the high-speed perspective. That's why none of the supersonic VTOLs ever built were using it.

@@sergeychmelev5270 Yes I agree but it still could have been a very capable bomber/patrol aircraft interceptor at high subsonic speed - a sort of Phantom light.

F-35B exists now

@@jameshodgson3656 But it didsn't 40 years ago and the P1154 could have....

I feel a video on the Kestrel might be in the offing.

@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters Which one?

​@@EdNashsMilitaryMatters yes please

Unfortunately, the Harrier couldn't go supersonic, a requirement by the US Navy. Yeah, I know it defeated Argentine supersonic fighters but the USN people probably thought they would be facing far harder opponents like the Soviets.

@@shaider1982 it didnt need to go supersonic

That that obscure; had a toy of this as a kid in the US!

👍

It still need to land vertically. With significantly lower than expected lift on the actual test plane, it was doubtful if even that possible.

@@ohredhk Landing vertically seems like it'd be less challenging than taking off vertically. You don't actually need enough thrust to hover for that, just enough thrust to come down slowly.

No it wasn't faster because it never flew,it was potentially faster though

Theoretically, since it never actually flew.

It certainly should've been, yes. As the video points out, it was quite a blunder on Rockwell's part to never fly the XFV-12 as a STOVL aircraft. Particularly given that decades of Harrier operations have shown that VTOL is more gimmick than useful capability for a warplane, while STOVL (still allowing operation off a short deck but allowing far more fuel and weapons to be carried) is insanely valuable.

@@jameshisself9324It would have been because that’s why they chose to build their own over getting the Harrier. They wanted Mach 2. If they couldn’t do that, either harrier or keep working their asses.

@@TeenWithACarrotIDK Yep, lots of projects that never flew for many different reasons

The Convair 200 seems like it was by far the more promising of the two designs, but for some reason the XFV-12 was the one that got a prototype built.

Yak 141(??)

@@iiwhatisyouremailprivatenn2470 The Yak-141 uses a similar system that was developed independently. Lockheed Martin (which now owned all the Convair designs via their purchase of General Dynamics' Fort Worth division) licensed all the Yak-141 test data from Yakovlev, since the Yak-141 had actually been built and flown whereas the Convair 200 had not. Thus, the F-35B's nozzle isn't directly based on the Yak-141's, Lockheed Martin just used the Yak-141 to verify that the system would work they way they expected it to.

The Convair 200 never got built so not much to talk about.

@@RedXlV It really wasn't as it had 2 dedicated lift engines which absolutely destroy usable payload they are dead weight that have to be carried all the time and would have weighed 250-500kg each depending on what type. Vertical take-off is practically useless with any harrier and they have more spare weight for fuel and armament than the Convair 200 would have had. Lots of V/STOL aircraft and been built and tested but the only useful ones are the harrier family and the F-35B both use one engine. Hell the F-35B is classed as a STOVL (short take off vertical landing) because Vertical take off is worthless for it and even for vertical landing it's range and payload are sacrificed heavily for it.

Many thanks!

The TSR.2 which was built and flying until the Brits ran around cutting things, they wanted to buy F-111s instead but those took forever so they ended up with fat Phantoms. The Hawker P.1154, the twin engine supersonic super-Harrier that never did get to metal. The Grumman F11F-1F, which would have sold well were it not for Lockheed bribery.

I was thinking sexy and ugly at the same time.

He did not forget anything. Did you miss the part where the US Navy wanted a _supersonic_ fighter? Also, you might want to check on the "very capable radar system". The Ferranti Blue Fox radar was considered being one of the worst aircraft radars of its time. That's why it was very quickly replaced with Blue Vixen, but that happened after the Falklands.

@@sergeychmelev5270 The usefulness of the radar is very heavily debated, It's wrong to call it "one of the worst", some viewed it as a great piece of kit, others, not so much.

@@seaharrierfrs1 I’m not aware of any debates over the Blue Fox. Of course it was better than nothing, but name me a worse aircraft radar that went into service even 5 years before the Blue Fox. No look down capability unless the sea is perfectly calm in the freakin’ 1979? No radar-guided AA missile compatibility? Yeah, “debatable”. Of course, if there were AEW planes in RN, that wouldn’t be too much of a problem. But we’re yet to see a STOVL AEW. Those helicopter AEWs abroad QEs are not even half-measures.

It’s a canard aircraft - it didn’t need to rotate the fuselage much to change the wing angle of attack.

@@allangibson8494 I think his point is that the gear is way behind the center of mass, so you wont be able to rotate the plane even a little bit. It may work with a ski jump, but I am no engineer.

@@delfinenteddyson9865 Canards lift the nose up directly unlike conventional trailing edge elevators that push the rear of the aircraft down to raise the nose. This changes the dynamics of the forces on the undercarriage significantly.

@@allangibson8494 In my understanding you still rotate around the center of mass, irrespective on which end you apply torque. Do I miss something?

@@delfinenteddyson9865 the difference is that without a canard the main wheels be close to the centre of mass to permit rotation of the tail down to push the nose up. With a canard they don’t because the nose is directly lifted up - and an aft pivot point actually helps with lever lengths. On landing things get a bit sketchier for a conventional landing because the aircraft will need to maintain canard lift (and hence speed) until the nose is on safely the ground to avoid slamming the nose onto the runway - for a vectored thrust VTOL this isn’t a problem and having gear at all corners would make the aircraft far more stable on a moving deck. Canard aircraft do however have 110% more lift than a conventional tailed aircraft because the canard is a lifting surface while a conventional tail pushes down all the time (if it didn’t a stall becomes unrecoverable - a problem for pretty much every airliner designed after 1980 when the designers deliberately did this to reduce drag at the expense of stall safety). The tail stalls first, stops pushing down and the nose drops - the difference in a canard is the canard stops lifting to the same effect. The Harrier used four gear - two on the centreline and one smaller one on each wing tip for similar reasons. With a conventional tail the Harrier had to have one of the main gear further forward for angle of attack control.

I will if I can get enough images. Trouble with the concept stuff there is quite often very little.

The Royal Navy had selected a navalised version of the P1154 to operate from its new CV01 carrier back in the early sixties, then both the new carrier and the 1154 were cancelled so the RN ended up buying F-4 Phantoms.

I was wondering about that as well.

Definitely not, It needed a catapult for takeoff

For my generation, that image has been replaced by Afghans falling from the tire well of a C-17.😢

That wasn't the embassy.

You can fly drones off existing carriers and amphibious ships.

Wai-what...? Oh shit you're right! How have I not realized that? It's just permanently stuck off of China though, & with very small aircraft fielded. And your content reminded me of midway Island

What, in this design, speaks to you of being an ordnance truck? From the description, it could haul either a pair of medium-range Sparrows and short-range Sidewinders, or four short-range Sidewinders. That's woefully inadequate for a missile truck...

Reckon you might be better off talking to Drachinfell ;)

Too bad Drach doesn't delve into post-WW2 ships. I wish he did, but you can't have everything!

@@Jon.A.Scholt True true true.

@@lugenfrankwood5234 He doesn't?! Huh! Maybe I should expand my purview 😀

@@Jon.A.Scholt Drach is another victim of Nagasaki, lol.

Even with the "don't buy foreign" bias that pervades US weapons procurement and is only rarely overcome, the Convair Model 200 (which unlike Rockwell's design didn't get a prototype ordered) seems like it would've been a more promising option. It's the origin of the swivel nozzle system on the F-35B, but with a separate auxiliary lift engine behind the cockpit like in the Yak-141. This has the obvious downside that the lift engine is dead weight when in horizontal flight, it has the significant benefit of *actually working.* Presuming that the engines would've actually produced the specified thrust (which admittedly has been the downfall of some previous aircraft), the Convair 200 should've been able to actually get off the ground and then fly at supersonic speed exactly as Zumwalt wanted. Convair was also proposing a Model 201 version that deletes the lift jets for use on regular CATOBAR carriers as a lightweight fighter. Though for that role, I think the Navy probably got a better outcome with the F/A-18, with its higher payload than the 201 would've been able to carry.

It would likely have required months to validate its flying characteristics before it could have made the trip itself, and the question has alwaays been if it would have ever been controllable without a more modern flight computer to handle some of the pilots work.

All Argentinian aircraft were of the 50s design, and were flying subsonic. Even the Mirage-IIIs could not go supersonic as they were at the limits of their range. Not to mention virtually zero radar coverage as Argentinians had neither ground nor AEW radar presence where RN had complete coverage using powerful ship-based radars. If this is not a perfect setup for turkeyshot, I do not know what is.

@@sergeychmelev5270 it doesnt matter...at the end of they day its the results that matter and the history books dont lie.the Argentine Airforce and Navy got their asses kicked by an aircraft that was "incapable" according to the us navy....and not only "incapable" but was originally desined as aground attack aircraft and even more ironicly the us marines bought it and while i realise the real world situation might be different as no member of the us marines would consider themselves as "navy" on paper the marine corps IS part of the navy and therefore,technicaly, the dept of the navy DID buy the very aircraft they said was incapable