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Domain: hiller.org
Stories and comments across the archive that link to hiller.org.
Comments · 20
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Re:Landspeeder FAIL
The HUGE difference in application between something like this, and a chopper is BLADES. There are areas of tight quarters that having several hundred pounds of whirling death being too close by isn't a safe option. Now, I'm not saying these are safer than a chopper, but I AM saying that getting this in close to people or delicate property IS a shitload safer than dealing with a large bladed chopper.
Just my
http://www.hiller.org/flying-platform.shtml The Hiller flying platform was canceled when its engine-off behavior was noticed.
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Re:Indy Children's Museum
If you're going to be in California:
For kids and adults -- the Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose -- http://www.thetech.org/
A little farther north -- The Computer History Museum in Mountain View (it's only a couple hundred yards off 101, so it's the easiest of all to hit) -- http://www.computerhistory.org/
Somewhat farther north in San Carlos, again just a hair off 101 -- The Hiller Aviation Museum -- http://www.hiller.org/
In San Francisco -- The Exploratorium -- http://www.exploratorium.edu/ -- possibly the most fascinating place you'll ever see -- lots of hands-on science.
That's four within about a 50 mile stretch.
Remember:
When you go to New York, people ask, "What plays did you see?"
When you go to San Francisco, they ask, "Where did you eat?"
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Re:The Computer History Museum (USA)
Ditto votes for the CHM. I would rate it a must-see. If you go north on 101 a ways, there's also the Hiller Aviation Museum, with a nice collection of airplanes and helicopters. The Intel museum may also be worth a visit. Consider timing your visit to the Bay Area to match up with events like the Maker Faire or the various tech conferences / trade shows that come through San Jose or Santa Clara.
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not at all new!
the Hiller Museum has a model of Irvin's Aerocycloid on display
http://www.hiller.org/
dating from 1909.
I'll bet Leonardo had something like it too -
Stanley Hiller did it..Stanley Hiller did it, so why not this young Nigerian? His chopper was yellow too!
http://www.hiller.org/in_memory.shtml/ Stanley finished high school despite the many extracurricular activities in his life, entering the University of California at Berkeley at age 16. His college phase lasted but a year: he was consumed with the history and technology of vertical flight, intensifying his designing of a co-axial with the aid of a draftsman, a welder and a part-time auto mechanic. Although many materials were frozen by the War Production Board, he managed to improvise a 100-pound model. Discouraged by Army officials, the 17-year-old inventor lugged his aircraft and drawings to Washington DC, where higher authorities not only permitted his proposed XH-44 helicopter to be finished, but granted Stanley a deferment from the draft board.
Although UC Berkeley had little chance to influence young Stanley because he dropped out to build his business at the end of his freshman year, the university did yield the love of his life, Carolyn Balsdon, whom he married when they were both 22.
By 1944, Stanley Hiller, Jr., completed the first successful flight of a helicopter in the western United States. He flew his yellow fabric-covered contraption himself, although he had never flown a helicopter nor seen one fly. After at least one mishap, in August of that year a successful demonstration was made at San Francisco's Marina Green, where a plaque today commemorates the historic event. The flight propelled the young inventor-who had no engineering degrees and, in fact, never finished college-into international headlines. He became the youngest person ever to receive the coveted Fawcett Aviation Award for major contributions to the advancement of aviation. Eventually, the little co-axial XH-44 "Hiller-Copter" would earn a permanent place in Smithsonian Institution. -
Bit late for a patent?
In 1869 they had something like this. The Avitor can now be seen in the Hiller Aviation Museum near San Francisco.
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Oblique All Wing
My favorite variable geometry aerodynamic structure is R. T. Jones' oblique all wing (PDF warning). Its basically just a highly eccentric elipse that flies. At 0 its angle of attack is 0. At Mach 1.6 its angle of attack is 60 degrees. As an SST topping out at Mach 1.6 it can achieve per-passenger fuel economy similar to a subsonic jumbo jet.
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We need flying cars!We need a project to inspire us, and bring back optimism about the future.
We need flying cars.
There's no reason a flying car can't be built. Just because Moller has been botching it for forty years doesn't mean it can't be done. Hiller did it in the 1950s. The big problems back then were stability and the poor power/weight ratio of reciprocating engines. Both of those problems have been solved.
If Rutan built one, it would work. One good prototype flying car would turn things around.
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Moller vaporwareNot Moller again.
I have a copy of Moller's 1974 brochure, Yes, 1974. Back then, he was going to have a test flight Real Soon Now, and commercial sales were a year or two away. Thirty years later, he's going to have a test flight Real Soon Now, and commercial sales are a year or two away.
There's no reason this can't be done. After all, the Hiller Flying Platform did it fifty years ago. But Moller has no credibility left.
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Re:also...
The Avitor was one of the first controlable (three axis rudders), heavier than air aircrafts.
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Re:American SST: In a junkyard in Orlando
For those interested a large section of the Boeing SST is still on display at Hiller Aviation Museum just off 101 in San Carlos, CA
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Re:Boeing was going to make one
For those interested a large section of the Boeing SST is still on display at Hiller Aviation Museum just off 101 in San Carlos, CA
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Moller Skycar - vaporware foreverThere's still Moller and his Skycar. From the site, it sounds like it's just about ready to go on sale. Now go to the 1998 archive of the site and read essentially the same thing.
This is the 29th year of Moller vaporware. I have a 1974 brochure for Moller's "Discojet", which was supposed to be for sale Real Soon Now. This was a saucer-shaped flyer with eight Wankel engines. The brochure mentions prototypes going back to 1967. So he's been at this for 36 years now. Unsuccessfully.
Not for lack of money, either; substantial funds have gone into this project.
Small thrust-only flyers have been built. Several from the 1950s are at the Hiller Museum in Redwood City, CA, and they actually flew. They have the famous Hiller Flying Platform. Such vehicles are inherently unstable and hard to fly, but not impossible to build. The stability problem ought to be solveable today - many modern military aircraft are stable only because a control system is constantly struggling to keep them stable. But an unstable VTOL is the worst case - aerodynamic control surfaces are ineffective at low speeds, adjusting engine thrust has too much lag, engine gimbals add weight, and thrust deflector plates waste power. The Harrier fighter, after 30 years, remains the only succesful pure-thrust VTOL.
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Moller's hypeMoller has been hyping this thing for a long time now. I have a brochure for a Moller flying saucer like vehicle from 1974, powered by six Wankel engines. This thing has been at "real soon now" for 28 years.
This thing should have flown long ago. Maybe with lousy fuel economy, range, and operating cost, but it should have flown. Lots of small thrust-type air vehicles were built in the 1950s and 1960s, and many ended up at the Hiller Aviation Museum in Redwood City, CA. They have a Hiller Flying Platform, which flew quite successfully. They also have a Rotorcycle, which is a one-person portable helicopter from 1957.
Ultralight helicopters have been available for a few years now. Ones slightly heavier than the ultralight category are better machines, though.
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R. T. Jones's SSTBlended wing bodies actually go back to the Horten Brothers prior to WW II. A look at this page gives some perspective on where the work for Boeing's current design originated. Note that the work immediately prior to the work at Boeing was carried out at Stanford University and NASA Ames with Ilan Kroo.
Dr. Kroo was one of the only academics to work closely with the inventor of an even more radical concept called the Oblique All Wing (aka Oblique Flying Wing) Supersonic Transport. The OAW SST concept originated in the 1940s with supersonics pioneer Robert Theo Jones (who preferred to be called "RT Jones").
I became interested in Jones' concept when an article (very similar to the one available online from Hiller Museum of Aviation) appeared in "The West" magazine in the early 90s. The thing that hooked me about the idea was that RT Jones had originated the supersonics models for swept wings used for all of aviation and had come to the conclusion that:
- The optimal supersonic wing was an ellipse with no body that tilted into the wind more and more as it went faster and faster -- an amazingly simple and elegant concept.
- The price per passenger mile for a trans-Pacific flight would be no more than for a 747 even though the flight time would be half.
Having hooked me at the time I was most active in aerospace politics I decided to look into why the supersonic wind tunnel at NASA Ames wasn't being utilized by the Stanford crew under the ultimate mentorship of RT Jones (who it was obvious to me, was nearing the end of his functioning life). As it turns out there were some problems with NASA HQ not wanting to have confusing signals sent to Congress about which direction NASA was going to go with its High Speed Civil Transport program. There were funds at stake here. At one point NASA Ames attempted to take a small part of its "discretionary" budget and fund the supersonic wind tunnel runs of a model of the OAW SST, but when it did so NASA HQ got "wind" of it and not only forbade the research but docked NASA Ames an equal amount of money in the next year's "discretionary" budget.
When I heard about this, I became angry.
I plunked down some dough and flew RT down to meet with Congressman Ron Packard (R 43rd district CA) and discuss the situation. We got some other Congressmen to look at the situation a bit as well. The real clincher didn't happen until I discovered the person with the most intimate knowledge of the supersonic modeling equations was going to work for Airbus after having been trained by RT Jones at Stanford. This gave me the leverage I needed to push the "American Competitiveness" buttons with the Congressmen -- and I did just that.
This had repercussions.
The initial result was a specific line item in the NASA bill. This was to send a signal to NASA HQ that they weren't to stop the supersonic windtunnel testing from going forward at NASA Ames -- that the OAW SST model from Stanford and RT Jones would be experimentally tested against the equations. The second result was that someone's head was going to roll for letting the cat out of the bag about NASA HQ's bad behavior. I think the guy who got demoted was Tom Gregory even though he wasn't the source of the dirt -- so I have to apologize to him for the consequences of my rather heavy-handed politics -- but the consequences for the testing were at least a little good.
RT Jones was pretty sick the last time I talked to him -- and discouraged. The fact is he was within a few years of dying of a prolonged illness. He didn't think it was worth pursuing the OAW SST anymore -- that a subsonic 747 style jet could be made more comfortable for the long flight. It was sad hearing him talk that way about his brain child but it was understandable given the life-long struggle for acceptance of the idea and his weakened state. Nevertheless, the idea remains an intriguing if not viable one -- and someday I hope there is at least a FedEx next-business-day robotic package OAW SST fueled by methane -- the system I first thought would be viable.
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Is this new?
Didn't the Condor do this sort of thing ten years ago?
The condor is the giant black aircraft in the photo on the left.
It's now in the Hiller museum in San Carlos. Sorry, no better linkage...
-Zandr
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Is this new?
Didn't the Condor do this sort of thing ten years ago?
The condor is the giant black aircraft in the photo on the left.
It's now in the Hiller museum in San Carlos. Sorry, no better linkage...
-Zandr
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Re:Weird Fun With Propulsion - Saucer at MoffettOh, that's Moller. He's still at it, and he still can't make it work. In the 1970s, he got so far as to run ads in Business Week for the thing. His craft has been Real Soon Now for over 30 years. I have a copy of his 1974 brochure.
It's embarassing, because the AvroCar in the 1950s used the same idea and actually flew. But it wasn't stable. The AvroCar guys knew they needed automatic stability augmentation, but early 1950s control technology wasn't up to doing that. The stability problem should be solveable today, but the fundamental inefficiency problem of pure-thrust VTOL craft remains.
There was lots of enthusiasm for vertical takeoff craft in the 1950s, and quite a few flyable prototypes, some very wierd, were built. Many of them ended up in the Hiller Aviation Museum.
Other than helicopters, the only VTOLs made in any quantity were the Harrier and the Osprey, both of which are used by the USMC. Both operate as pure-thrust aircraft only for takeoff and landing; they're ordinary winged aircraft in cruise.
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Earlier flying rigsA reasonably good backpack flying rig was developed in the 1960s, using one of the smallest aircraft turbines ever built. Unlike the earlier hydrogen peroxide rocket based technology, the turbine model had fuel for about half an hour of flight time. This was an Army project. The major problems were stability and control, and the fact that ankles are lousy landing gear.
The SoloTrek stands on its own feet, not the operator's, which is a big improvement. On the other hand, the SoloTrek prototype doesn't appear to have much give in its landing gear. Controlling the rate of descent of this thing will be tough, because it's done with the throttle alone. The blades are fixed pitch. This implies a control lag that the pilot must compensate for. That's a tough piloting job.
On the stability and control front, this thing has no automated stability augmentation, which is suprising. Helicopter and VTOL craft are far tougher to fly than ordinary aircraft; they have less intrinsic stability and more control inputs. I would have expected more smarts in this thing, to make the piloting task manageable by mere mortals. Enough marginally stable VTOL craft were tried back in the 1950s that it's clear the pilot needs help. At least attitude stabilization seems indicated. A radar altimeter system to help control vertical speed at landing is probably needed, too.
The Moller Skycar supposedly has stability augmentation, but those guys have been hyping their vehicles since 1968 (yes, 1968) without producing anything flyable. I have their 1974 brochure, and it was Real Soon Now back then. Their web site has had the same Real Soon Now hype for a year now.
See the Popular Rotorcraft Association for ultralight gyrocopters and similar air vehicles you can buy and fly right now. Less hype, and those things fly just fine.
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Exposed blades make me nervous...The following designs use ducted fans:For more information why ducted fans are a good idea for reasons other than safety see this article.
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