Welcome to Vertipedia!
Vertipedia is a product of the Vertical Flight Society. With data on 863 aircraft, 620 historical milestones, 499 people, and 395 organizations, Vertipedia is your "one-stop shop" for all things vertical lift.
On April 13 in the history of vertical flight:
1960 - First forward flight transition of the Curtiss-Wright X-100
1972 - First recorded destruction of a tank by a helicopter (Bell AH-1G Cobra)
Featured aircraft
Our latest featured aircraft for April is the Cierva W.11 Air Horse .
The aircraft was designed to provide viable heavy load lifting capability for commercial operations. It employed 3 main rotors all rotating in the same direction. Torque offset was provided by thrust components from the 3 rotors through built-in shaft tilt. The aircraft had a semi-monoquoque structure, a single engine, and a long-stroke undercarriage (5ft) to cope with high rates of descent. A description of the aircraft and its characteristics can be found in the following references,
Source: "The Cierva W-11 Air Horse", J. Gordon Leishman, VERTIFLITE Spring 2003, Page 52
Source: "Discussing the Helicopter", FLIGHT Staff, FLIGHT, December 2nd 1948, Pages 665-668
Vertipedia Notes
Vertipedia notes are brief descriptions of how and why Vertipedia works the way it does. Check back often for the latest note, or view the complete list.
Resource searches
The 'Find Resources' menu option is one of the most powerful features in Vertipedia. A user can construct simple, or more complex, searches (still being developed) of all VFS resources and many high quality external resources (e.g. NASA documents, US patents). The VFS resources covered include Forum Proceedings, Vertiflite articles, VFS web pages and Journal articles not normally available from other search engines.
The search algorithm used is quite sophisticated and will return many results close to the requested search.
Explore Vertipedia
Vertipedia makes it easy for you to find a range of information on vertical flight, including:
- Targeted searches of documents provided by the Vertical Flight Society, as well as public sources from across the internet
- Important milestones that have helped shape the history of vertical flight
- People who have played a role in vertical flight
- Vertical flight aircraft, such as helicopters, tilt rotors and tilt wings, jet-lift VTOL, and more.
