The Strangest Military Cargo Airplane Ever Built? LTV XC-142
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- Опубліковано 7 жов 2021
- In the 1960s, there was significant interest in developing a hybrid aircraft with vertical/short takeoff and landing capabilities. Thus, the Air Force, Navy, and Army participated in the creation of the first tri-service V/STOL aircraft: the Ling-Temco-Vought X-142.
Several attempts had already been made, but the XC-142 was the most ambitious at the time, and also the largest.
Moreover, the civilian applications of such a machine would potentially revolutionize air travel.
After all, like Thomas A. Edison put it as far back as 1905: "The airplane won't amount to a damn thing until they get a machine that will act like a hummingbird - go straight up, go forward, go backward, come straight down and alight like a hummingbird."
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My ROTC commander in HS flew this. He had a plaque in his office from a carrier for the first person to land a plane sideways on an Aircraft Carrier
"First person to land a plane sideways on an Aircraft Carrier"-INTENTIONALLY i assume ;)
If this aircraft had ironed out its creases and a little more faith was exercised, this project could have rivalled the Caribou in the light cargo STOL category
So could the Osprey
@@twizz420 yeah but id imagine an osprey would cost alot more
Other than in the key category of maintenance cost. The Caribou is an old design that is very simple.
I understand your point is that the program was given up on too early and did not reach its full potential, but it is always funny to read a comment that essentially says, “if the problems it had were fixed it would have been good” hahah
failure mode of a plane: glider. failure mode of a helicopter: autogyro. failure mode of osprey style vehicles: rock.
Wow! That was a fascinating aircraft! Thanks for sharing!
My Father flew helos for the Marine Corps from the late 50's to 1970's and I remember him having a few photos of this aircraft and maybe a model of it on his desk. Thanks for doing this doc because I never knew which aircraft it was or his role, in evaluating it; if he ever did. He never spoke of it though. Thanks again!!!
Remarkable story and a bold concept that I’d never heard of; thanks for posting! I’m impressed that it flew as well as it did with no onboard computers.
Reminds me of the tilt-wing quad prop aircraft in the aname series "Ghost in the Shell" 👍😃
we need a level one roll out!
What about plastic man?
CV-22
This idea should be revisited it makes less compromises in forward flight performance than a tiltrotor and is more akin to a Harrier or F-35 in how it handles VTOL mode. With digital stability, modern lighter materials and replacing the rear prop with a compressed air "puffer" (like how the Harrier handles directional control in hover). it might work with modern technology.
@Atomicskull , It worked quite well with technology available from the early 1960's , in the right weather conditions... What it lacked was high speed telemetry coupled with digital processors coupled to fly by wire hydro-electric servos, that could instantly sense instability and quickly correct it's flight attitude in adverse weather conditions regardless of pilot control input... I believe the V-22 Osopry is an excellent performing offspring from this aircraft, and other ambitious planes like this one....
There must be Good reasons why theres no tiltwings today. The most obvious would be that in forward flight in helicopter mode the wing acts as a huge air brake.
My father was one of the engineers. He’s 81 now and 2 years ago we made our way to Dayton and took a photo or two of him in front of that same aircraft at the end of the video. Amazing museum btw. He sent me the link to this video. Thanks for putting this together! I’m sure it means a lot to him as well.
@@ethancntower8850 what would you call the V-22 Osprey???
@@nixl3518 its a tilt rotor not a tilt wing
Great video and thank you for hearing my suggestion! You provided insights I was unaware of. Fantastic!
The 142 hold a dear place for me, Due to my father having worked on this program. I remember him telling stories about it and some of the problems the ran into.
You have to wonder how technological improvements, say with carbon fibre, 3-D printing, engine and propeller improvements could make this aircraft a reality.
it is a reality in the V-22 Osprey!
I think they’re referring to an aircraft closer to the C-130 size
Ppl should be aware of the Dynavert: ua-cam.com/video/q6SxyIoSvMM/v-deo.html They May as well have called it the ‘introvert’
It's called the Bell V-280 "valor"
Thankyou for making this video.
Thank you for the regular high quality content
My dad worked at LTV and I was a kid on their little league baseball team on plant property. At a night game we watched a 6ft wide test model mounted over a pool of water testing downwash. I went on to work there 33 years as an adult on the A7 Corsair, B1B and later the C-17 and 787 Dreamliner subcontracts. Gteat memories
Shows what Edison knew- most of our aircraft are distinctly _not_ hummingbird-like but are still damn vital for all of us.
Edison wasnt a great inventor. He was a great thief & marketer. Along with his opinion of the airplane, you can also add his opinion of three phase electrical generation and opinion of alternating current.
@@hwoods01 Just like the Marxist media today all those things you mention didn’t quite fit HIS narrative😡😡. Nor did they line his pockets!
"Concerned about the propeller downwash being too strong, the Navy opted to exit..." amazing how much people's concerns change over time, considering the Navy is planning on replacing their C-2 Greyhound Carrier Onboard Delivery planes with cargo version of the V-22 Osprey.
What an interesting design!!! This must have presented a huge engineering challenge to get the plumbing, electrical equipment and flight controls to work properly during the flight mode change...
Great video many thanks
Burt Rutan was a test pilot on this project, he remains enthusiastic about the potential of the XC-130 design.
I’m surprised he didn’t pursue it. I know he would have made it amazing
@@ETC_Rohaly_USCG Burt is current working on a "secret eVTOL" project, maybe it will have some the the XC-130 genes.
@@olsonspeed that’s great to hear!
I grew up in a “Rutan” household… Dad built a Long-EZ, and after a Cozy Mk IV
@@ETC_Rohaly_USCG VERY ambitious of your father, any airplane build is a huge undertaking. For me it was 747s and ultralights.
@@olsonspeed lol!
That is definitely a very wide gap between the two aircraft.
Built the EZ with help from Dave Ronneburg, (1985-91), and later sold it to finance the Cozy which sadly he sold this year to get a Citabria. But at least we got one last flight in the Cozy together last Christmas.
Fantastic as usual. Thank you!
Well Done!! Thank You!!
I always loved this aeroplane and the CL-84 Dynavert. I really wish that both of these Aircraft get a second lease of life, by revisiting their designs with updated engines, avionics and modern composite materials. We now have the technology in order to sort out the few remaining issues that these aircraft had - and what they can do, is needed today more than ever!
They are quite cool, but the question honestly is what can this aircraft do that a Chinook cannot?
@@thalastianjorus they have the serious potential to Fly higher, fly considerably faster, and further on a similar load of fuel. By switching from rotary wing operation to conventional turboprop, fixed wing operations, even in prototype form they were over a hundred knots faster than conventional rotary wing aircraft. With modern design advances, advanced composite materials, and more developed engines this difference would only magnify. A CL-84 Dynavert for example built today even without these advances would still run rings around an equivalent Bell 206 with a hundred knots speed difference . A Vought XC-142 would get to the battlefield, drop its load, and get home for another load in significantly less time, on less fuel,. Thus reducing the amount of time spent flying over a place where people are likely to be shooting at you, & making you a harder target to hit. They also had the advantage of better power to weight in prototype form, which meant that if you were trying to operate in hot and high operations, they cope better.
@Reclusiarch Thalastian Jorus;
Daniel Philips has provided a pretty decent answer...it's a political game that had the UH-1 win the place that it has had since the 60's. The CL-84 was better in almost every respect, even a better gun platform, with better soeed and range, but the USA has never adopted Canadian technology, no matter how good, and managed to almost completely destroy the aviation business in Canada....
@@thalastianjorus "They are quite cool, but the question honestly is what can this aircraft do that a Chinook cannot?"
Fly over 400 mph at 25,000 feet.
@@OldDog-nh6xn I do appreciate all of the answers, but I meant in terms of utility. Being able to fly high and fast is not useful when hauling a heavy load below it. While it does, potentially, aid in getting somewhere faster - you cannot use that altitude and speed while something is being carried by the vehicle.
Another mostly forgotten aircraft that I have heard of, but was happy to hear more about it. Good work
The soundscape on this one is phenomenal, gave me a really 80's weird vibe
As if the working and long tested XV-15 wasn´t in between....
You would like synthwave.
Check out Ogre- The Bench
Check out Channels "Prime Thantos" and "Astral Throb"
Great program, thank you ! 👍👍👍👍👍
Wright Patterson: a must see.
I wish that there was a hotel adjacent to the museum
And it was not described as a flying car, like they do today for every giant drone.
That is the slang old catchphrase...
@Galileo7of9 There is no point just a confirmation...people often use that term even on MSM
Excellent video!
Wow, great video, very in depth and informative !!!
👍👍👍👍
Very nice documentay!
Great documentary, love this channel.
A smaller vertical takeoff C-130 cool put a GE mini gun on it.
You have thrown this out into the universe. It will now somehow find its way into Call of Duty or some game like it.
...and some rocket pods for good measure
Don’t have this, but the Warthog is a good second!
Mini guns make everything better. Prove me wrong!
@@dixiewhiskey3273 your opinion go brrrrr
Absolutely brilliant!!
This would be a great RC subject to try. Now that I’m retired I might try tackling a craft like it. Not a scale subject just something to fly in the front yard. With the modern electric motors and radio mixing on the modern transmitters I think I can set it up to do what is required. I’ll try with just 3 motors first.
I watch all your vedos from all your channels and enjoy them alot, especially when it's about aircraft...thanks for sharing!
Thanks!
Amazingly graceful in flight
Fascinating piece of history, as usual. You have a great channel here.
¡¡Muy buén documental!!
"50 seat vertical passenger airliner"
Ryanair: "150 seat vertical passenger airliner"
Very funny!!😀
Well, they've developed a Vertical Landing 737... at least it felt like that last time I flew with them
*RyanAir; where not crashing is extra*
Always great content 👌.
"How are we going to prove that the tail rotor won't interfere with paratroopers jumping out the back?"
"Well, what we'll do.... is get some paratroopers to jump out the back."
The weak link on that aircraft was the tail rotor gearbox to driveshaft. My ex boss John Conrad was the pilot of the one that went down at the south end of the old LTV in Grand Prairie Tx. They thought about bringing it back to life when Bell was having issues with the V22.
But shortly after that LTV was no more
LTV was a bonafide disaster as a corporation. A shady attempt to create a latter day integrated conglomerate. Only General Electric emulates it, and there is a suspicious amount of "flexible" accounting in that corporation's books.
The Ling Temco caused the company to fail not the Vought part. Vought was split up and sold to two different companies.
The missiles division was sold to Loral then to Lockheed. The aviation part was sold to a holding company and then sold to I think Northrop and is still building aircraft components but is no longer in the plant on Jefferson street in Grand Prairie Tx.
The bad player here is Lockheed they have bought all there competitors
Replace the tail rotor with a "puffer" like what the AV-8 Harrier uses for attitude control then all you need is plumbing and a proportionally controlled valve. You might be able to get away with using the exhaust from the turboshafts for this.
@@atomicskull6405 I was thinking of a NOTAR from the MD900 in the tail would replace the rotor powered by an APU
with todays super powerful and small electric motors all driven by a central gas turbogenerator it could be made safer and less complex
I saw a random channel posted a picture of this on yt some days ago, he then magically uploads an entire video for it in just a snap.
Good video!
I got to see this thing fly all the time when I was a kid. I grew up in the neighborhood 1/2 mile due north of the runway at Hensley Field (later to become NAS Dallas), home of LTV. I got to see more than one kind of aircraft crash around my house. We moved there when I was 6-7, that was in 1962. I can remember at least 10, and that was just on the north side of the airport. A lot happened over the lake (Mountain Creek Lake) so probably more that I never heard about. Exciting times! I remember the very first time I saw the XC-142....very loud and sounded totally unlike any other plane that regularly flew into and out of Hensley.
My dad was in aerospace and he took me to see this aircraft fly. It was amazing but the thing I remember most is the noise. It was 200 feet away from us and the noise was so bad it was hard for us to talk. The drive system was so complex I can't see how it would have worked in front line service.
Well im glad they tested it above ground. 8:36 I cant imagen it would fly well underground.
"If the mechanical problems had been solved..."
if a pig could fly! The problems were perhaps too complex for the existing technology to solve, but also it seemed difficult for the powers that be to swallow this kind of a leap. Let's not forget that decisions were often politically based! Had this machine been successful, it would have replaced most every helicopter in time for the Vietnam war.
ALL new technologies have issues and accidents that must be overcome. Just look at early Mv 22, F 16, Harriers, etc.
@@ernestogamboa5528 Sure, but what does that have to do with what I wrote? There are myriad cases of technologies whose problems could NOT be overcome without knowledge unavailable at the time. This tech is long gone and superseded by better tech that works!
Truly Great and Informative Video! First Flight' Was Year I Was Born' Yet ' Never New of this Crafts Details Till Now' Thank You!✈
This is a good one.
I didn’t know about this one. Thanks for the education. Great video.
Another Airframe Ahead of it's time till Technology caught up to it! Thanks for the Videos
We need more VTOL aircraft in this world. They're always so awesome
VTOL is very hard, STOL is much more reasonable and requires less sacrifices in other areas of performance to achieve. You simply can't make a machine that can take off vertically without making sacrifices in other areas of the flight envelope. For example tiltrotors have to make a compromise between prop drag in forward flight and disk loading in hover making them less efficient than either a pure airplane or helicopter.
The big problem is that the V in VTOL takes a *LOT* of power, power that has to come entirely from the engines, no aerodynamic lift. So it's *VERY* inefficient.
It takes a lot of power which means it burns a lot of fuel just to get off the ground.
The dynavert was an agile combat support aircraft. Tested as a stable unguided rocket and canon platforn which could do combat search and rescue as well. This guy was meant for heavy COD duties. There are youtube videos of the dynavert doing high speed barrel roles, straffing runs on stationary targets. It also did carrier testing and landed on the pentagon front lawn helipad meant for marine one
Another potentially great aircraft. Its legacy still lives on in the MV-22.
What a beautiful craft. So ahead of it's time
Not really, the Fairey Rotodyne did the same job 10 years earlier
I'm impressed, it's not as clever as a Harrier but looks like a darn fine example of endeavor and engineering.
6370 Litres is the ture fuel capaity for anyone who was curious. Not 370L
I wonder what is the reputation of the Osprey now a days among the people who really use it
It flies fine. Bit of a maintenance hog though.
@@petergray7576 Maintenance! The bane of all mechanical devices!!
What a beast!
Holy YES!! Can we have 200 of these a little bigger??
For howitzers, mini guns, and more!!
I liked this concept better than the V-22. Allows for a conventional landing if needed.
Excellent effort. As with many 'failures' the fault lay with accountants. Lessons learned. Well, some.
@0:34 Wow, Edison really nailed it. Around $0.5 trillion and so few VSTOL.
what a beast
Interesting all the research and x-planes prototypes that have lead to the operational V-22.
Sometimes failed projects of the past pay off in time. The B-2 has a long lineage.
had never heard of this plane. pretty neat little cargo plane
When I saw the miniature, I thought for a second this video would be about the French Breguet 941, which looked a lot like this one ! However, the Breguet wasn't able to VTOL, but able of STOL.
This plane has similar technology to the Canadair CL-84 Dynavert. I recall reading that Canadair picked 2 engines (plus tail rotor) because potential mechanical problems with 4 engines.
Then there was the Fairey Rotodyne from the late 1950s with two engines and rockets on the rotor blade tips for VTOL
I like your music choices.
This is new to me. A fascinating aircraft, and it's too bad it didn't go into production!
There is so much footage of this aircraft but I've never heard or seen of it before this video.
Such a pity it didn't make it into full production.
It seems worth mentioning that the concepts, and likely, some of the technology (despite different manufacturers) carried on into the Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey
Suddenly i have a new aircraft in my favorites!
Man ! Some excellent engineers in the US 👍🇺🇸 I just wish we had better leaders to support such genius.
All the aerodynamics of a winnebago
Around 4:55 _fuel capability amounted to 370 liters with a planned capacity for auxiliary tanks for added range._ That's less than a hundred US gallons and far less than other online sources quote. So...? Otherwise, great video!
Wow sow cool.
I wish we had gotten vstols operational sooner. It be pretty sweet if they were a common option for civilian flight today.
You'll get dangerous downdraft from even a small one, not to mention an Osprey, as was proven when many were seriously injured when a couple of Osprey landed in a park there.
Neat, a precursor of the V-22 Osprey.
I saw this in my encyclopaedia as a kid damn
8:03 - up in the air junior birdman...
complex but brilliant design!! a shame they werent built in numbers what a commuter aircraft!!
I cannot help but think of the massive amounts of uses in the non military market. Air ambulances, wildland fire response, search and rescue, remote transport services. Projects like this show that we should revisit failed designs of the past, and see if we have learned enough to make them production ready and reliable in consumer hands.
What's wrong with the V-22 Osprey?
@@nixl3518 You could potentially skip a large part of development if you start with an airframe that flew with 1960's tech. Money spent trying to get a new program to fly, is used to iron out kinks and upgrade outdated tech.
@@komrade223 thank you for your answer, but to tell you the truth I don't understand how it applies to what I wrote in reply. Since we have the more advanced version already flying, why would we go back to the experimental stage of something long gone and problematic?
@@nixl3518 Well for one, how many tilt rotor craft are in civilian use? What I am arguing is that this kind of platform is a better option for a civilian development. Doubt that there is any classified tech or specs in the old design. It seems that the biggest hangup was the materials available. If you can't make a part work in the scale needed, you have to engineer solutions around that. Better alloys or construction methods can simplify a complex system.
@@komrade223 Military always precedes civilian as you must know, so we're not there yet. But do you think that this point would convince anyone to get in one of these things today? Maybe in '64. The problem I see with the old design is survivability. Even if it's safe, it does not convince me that it is, primarily because the rotated wing looks so iffy, so it would have to be a whole. new modern design. The Osprey though already exists and does not suffer that problem. I'll wait for either option.
Great video, always loving watching the 142. Such an awesome prototype and idea, so far ahead of its time. It would be great to revisit the idea with modern materials and aviation advancements.
Hopefully a lot was learned from this for the Osprey's development.
Canada, baby!!
ua-cam.com/video/YqKOJElAEAQ/v-deo.html
It wasn't this is a completely different sort of aircraft. The props are just constant RPM feathering props not proprotors i.e. they had no cyclic pitch control so not much about this aircraft was applicable to a tiltrotor like the V-22.
I believe a bunch of Osprey's were stuffed as well.
It’s amazing how far back VTOL technology goes. Why did it take so long to make operational?
@@robt7652 I used to fly a lot for work. The small Bombardier jets were my favorite to fly on.
There are quite a few short runways around the world, especially on tropical islands…where a VSTOL makes a lot of sense.
It’s much larger than I expected.
Definitely looks like the precursor to the V-22 Osprey
Very cool craft and a smart build. Clearly at the time, nobody had the balls to keep going with this project.
Just like the V-22 OSPREY . Looks like its great grandfather . Cool .
With a budget for further development and debugging, this could have been a truly GREAT aircraft.
Fuel capacity was 340 liters? Was it able to taxi to the runway before running out of fuel?
Wrong set of tanks, he meant the blinker fluid.
Think he means gallons
He probably meant “3400 liters.”
@@jantschierschky3461 340gal wouldn't last more than 20-30min with those engines. At full throttle they burn 210gal/hr each, that's 840gal/hr, so about 25min on 340gal and then it falls out of the sky. If it had 340L tanks it would be out of fuel in about 6min. The fuel tanks were actually 1,400gal (5,300L) and it had an endurance of a little over 2hrs in economy cruise.
@@Skinflaps_Meatslapper that makes sense, I agree even 340gal would be too little
Dude I’m just waiting for a video on shwimmwagen
It oddly suffered the same faith as the Canadair Dynavert that was also developed during the same time period. Eerie ressemblance also.
An ashtray for every Executive & before 5 gal bucket had a depicting Baby, drowning. The good ol days.
It is amazing what they could back in the day, guess it was too good to be true.
Do one on the Dornier Do-31 VTOL transport prototype.
And I thought the Osprey was the first. Well done.
4:35) There is no way that 4,320 men be carried by this plane. There is no plane in the world that big.A FULLY manned US Army Cavalry troop had 130-5 men.