The Effect of Size on the Economics of a V/STOL Transport Airplane

Abstract

<div class="htmlview paragraph">To have good economy, aircraft should be large enough that the variation of payload as a percentage of gross weight is not affected greatly by a small change in gross weight. Particular attention for weight saving should be directed towards fixed items of an airplane’s weight that are dictated by the mission. To be economical, a VTOL airplane can be expected to have a higher gross weight than a STOL or CTOL. VTOL transports permit major reductions in total time for accomplishing a mission. The VTOL system will be cheaper than STOL or CTOL for short mission accomplishment times. It is necessary to evaluate total savings resulting for shorter mission accomplishment times, but this is difficult because the ability to do things faster permits doing more things in a different manner.</div>