Greetings All,
I was actually pointed to your thread about the Turbine Toucan, so I thought I would stop by and say hello. I actually own the aircraft. And it hovers beautifully I might add.
If any of you have ever seen Sean Tucker or the late Jim LeRoy, you'd know they perform a maneuver called the Harrier. Now, neither quite hovers due to the lack of thrust to weight performance but they can simulate it with virtually no forward speed and total control of the aircraft.
Remember, we have 4 large ailerons that almost come into the fuselage, so we have plenty of authority. The thrust developed by the 100” four blade prop is carried well over the ailerons, so vectoring the thrust is no issue. We also have high deflection angles with the ailerons as well. Oversized rudder/vertical stab and oversized elevator/horizontal stab give us far greater control laterally.
We are not in uncharted territory. Only one other propeller driven, fixed wing aircraft was ever built that managed to hover then accelerate out of the vertical straight up. The name of the aircraft was the Turbo Raven, flown by legendary Wayne Handley. Take a look at the link
http://www.waynehandley.com/archive.html
We’ll be posting video of the Turbine Toucan doing it’s thing in the coming weeks, so we invite you to come by and check it out once the video is posted. For you who haven’t seen the aircraft, please come on by, we’d love to see you on the site!
Any questions please fire them my way on the website at
[email protected]
David Kervinen