Deflected slipstream is an approach to creating an aircraft that can take off and land vertically (VTOL), or at least with a very short runway (STOL). The basic principle is to deflect the slipstream from one or more propellers approximately 90 degrees, to create an upward thrust for vertical takeoff and a downward air cushion for landing. Once airborne, the flaps are retracted so the airplane can fly horizontally.
Read more about Deflected Slipstream: Wind Tunnel Explorations, Prototypes, Production Aircraft, Current Efforts
Famous quotes containing the words deflected and/or slipstream:
“It wasn’t idealism that made me, from the beginning, want a more secure and rational society. It was an intellectual judgement, to which I still hold. When I was young its name was socialism. We can be deflected by names. But the need was absolute, and is still absolute.”
—Raymond Williams (1921–1988)
“The Thirties dreamed white marble and slipstream chrome, immortal crystal and burnished bronze, but the rockets on the Gernsback pulps had fallen on London in the dead of night, screaming. After the war, everyone had a car—no wings for it—and the promised superhighway to drive it down, so that the sky itself darkened, and the fumes ate the marble and pitted the miracle crystal.”
—William Gibson (b. 1948)