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Wiki // Oakoms Aerospace O.141
Oakoms O.141
A S/VTOL Airliner for Inter-City Airports
The O.141 is recently developed short-haul airliner, designed and built by Oakoms Aerospace, a
subsidary of the Oakoms Group. The O.141 is the company's attempt to break into the already
crowded aerospace market, by offering a unique aircraft that can operate from both short runways
as well as take-off and land vertically. The aircraft has seen adoption, albeit in limited numbers, around the
region as a short-haul airliner that flies frequently between cities with airports in urban areas.
Concept art of a O.141(A) using
its 16 lift fans to land vertically
Role | S/VTOL jet airliner |
National Origin | Alteran Republics |
First Flight | June 9th, 1993 |
Introduction | June 10th, 2001 |
Status | In Service |
Primary Users | A.O.A.C. |
Produced | 2001 - |
Unit Cost | $64.8 Million+ |
Variants | O.141(A) |
The Oakoms Aerospace O.141 is a narrow-bodied jet airliner, capable of taking off and landing vertically or from very short runways, developed and manufactured by Oakoms Aerospace. Formally announced in the early 1990s, it is widely regarded the region's first major attempt at a VTOL airliner, despite a mixed reception from the international aviation industry.
In 1988 the Alteran Aviation Board (AAB) issued a design study "Outline Requirement" (OR) for a 100-seat VTOL airliner capable of a minimum range of 450 miles (725 km), to take of from the planned inter-city airports. Emphasis was to be on noise reduction by using steep approach and departure profiles, much like those used today at contemporary city airports. It was thought at the time that money would be better invested on designing new aircraft types than building additional airports outside of urban areas.
Oakoms Aerospace investigated various configurations of aircraft, powerplant and control systems including an early proposal using ogival delta wings and twin fins, before submitting their draft design proposal to the AAB in January 1990. The first models and designs of the planned aircraft were unveiled at the 1990 Ludlum Air Show, where it was announced the aircraft would be known as the O.141.
Following the success of the initial O.141, the design was stretched into a number of variants; including the O.141A and the O.141B. The aircraft has been mainly adopted by a few airlines to run routes that involved flying to or from runways operating inside cities.
Design
The O.141 design was a jet airliner of all-metal construction with a T-tail and a low-mounted swept wing with a quarter-chord sweepback of 28 degrees. The design featured two wing-mounted "cruise" engines and either 16 or 20 lift fan engines mounted in sponsons either side of the fuselage (eight per side).
The engines under main consideration were the Oakoms Aerospace Engines OAE.220 turbofan for forward propulsion and the Oakoms Aerospace Engines OAE.202, a high bypass ratio lift fan engine using technology developed for the Oakoms Aerospace Engines OAE.162 lift jet. Both engines were themselves design studies by Oakoms Aerospace and it was feared that there would be delays in their development due to the company's problems at the time.
Although the aircraft is usually shipped with Alteran engines, Oakoms usually allow for the installing of other forward-propulsion engines on an order-to-order basis. Variations using fewer lift fan engines for STOL operations only were also studied as it was realised that the engines could account for 15% of the total weight of the aircraft and 35% of the final cost.
During the design stage many solutions involving high-lift devices were explored including flaps blown by the "cruise" engines. The flight control system proved the greatest challenge to the design team, systems had to be devised to control the aircraft in slow or hovering flight. This was to be achieved by swivelling the lift engines in their mounts combined with varying the thrust of each engine to provide control in pitch, roll and yaw.
The lift engines were said to be a useful safety feature in the event of failure of the main 'cruise' engines, although such an event has yet to take place outside of testing scenarios. Significant design information was gained from flight trials with the Osprey fighter aircraft being developed at the same time by Alteran Aerospace.
The passenger cabin was conventional with five or six seats abreast, luggage and freight was to be loaded in pre-packed pallets and raised up into the lower fuselage using a system similar to other conventional narrow-bodied airliners.
The most unconventional and most complex aspect of the O.141 design lays within its control system. The aircraft has conventional ailerons, elevator controls and rudder that lose their efficiency with a drop in speed below the minimum value of the evolutionary speed (minimum permissible speed while maintaining controllability) in an ordinary flight, in which the lifting force is generated by the wing. For vertical and very slow forward movement, lifting fan motors are used to provide control and perform the same functions as the "exhaust pipes" used for control on the Condor Jump Jet. This requires a differentiated operation of the engines both from the point of view of thrust and the thrust vector.
For pitch control, the differentiation of thrust between the bow and stern thrusters is used, while roll control is the differentiation of thrust between the left and right engines. The yaw control requires differentiating the tilt of the engines: so the traction of some engines is deflected forward, while while the others are tilted to direct the traction backwards. As already noted, for acceleration or deceleration, all engines are deflected together backward or forward. Another consequence of the use of engines for control purposes is a very rapid response to the required thrust changes.
Variants
O.141A
Basic and most common variant of the aircraft. Has a capacity of 102–120 passengers, dependent on seat pitch. Has 16 OAE.202 lift fans installed for VTOL/STOL flight operations.
O.141A Wedgetail
Near identical to the A variant, fitted with a 'tophat' non-rotary active electronically scanned array radar antenna, capable of tracking targets up to 850 km. Has 16 OAE.202 lift fans for VTOL/STOL flight capability. Capable of extended mission times using air-to-air refuelling.
O.141B
Near identical to the A variant, though fuselage increased in length to 135 ft 2 in (41.2 m) to accommodate up to 160 passengers. Has 20 OAE.202 lift fans for VTOL/STOL flight capability.
Specifications
Operators
Alteran Overseas Airways Corporation - Alteran republics (Passenger)
Northeast Airlines -
Dormill and Stiura (Passenger)
Liveries
  Unpainted O.141A |
 Unpainted O.141B |
 Unpainted O.141A Wedgetail |
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