V/STOL: The Key to Survival

A V/STOL or vertical and/or short take-off and landing aircraft is an airplane able to take-off or land vertically or on short runways.

In this book Roy Braybrook, who has been professionally concerned with V/STOL design and marketing for many year’s, examines the operational arguments for V/STOL and possible lines of future development.

Hawker’s P.1127 ‘Jump Jet’ technology demonstrator first left the ground in 1960, and successfully completed transitions between jetborne and wingborne flight in the following year. After Britain had abandoned supersonic V/STOL fighter development in 1965, the subsonic Harrier entered service with the RAF in 1969, and (as the AV-8A) with the USMC in 1971.

It is arguable that V/STOL was the most important technological development in military aerospace since the advent of the supersonic fighter in the 1950s. In essence, V/STOL made combat aircraft immune not only from NBC attacks on airfields but also from any degree of runway damage. In the naval sphere, it made high performance fixed-wing operations practical from relatively small ships. It was also the only major post-war aspect of aerospace technology in which Britain achieved a world lead.

Despite the importance of V/STOL, support for the concept has been half-hearted, even in the UK. The RAF’s ground attack element has employed greater numbers of CTOL

Jaguars than V/STOL Harriers. The opportunity to pioneer a second generation subsonic V/STOL attack aircraft with vastly improved warload-radius performance was left to America, and Britain thus abandoned the V/STOL lead. The best that Britain can now hope for is a junior partnership in a supersonic naval V/STOL fighter development that will hopefully take place around the turn of the century.