Conventional short take-off and landing aircraft; could they be really on their way out?
Armada International › Vol. 13 Nbr. 5, October 1989
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Conventional short take-off and landing aircraft; could they be really on their way out?
Conventional Short Take-Off and Landing Aircraft
Could They Be Really on Their Way Out? When considering the problem of short take-off and landing aircraft (called STOL for the sake of convenience), two main questions arise. In the first place what criteria apply to planes in the STOL category? In the second place, when taking a look at the list of aircraft of this type currently available on the market and comparing it with the much wider choice offered at the turn of the 1960s and 70s, one may well ask whether in the event of a conflict the armed forces of the West will really be capable of moving around their troops and equipment in sufficient numbers and with sufficient speed. The best way to illustrate what makes an aircraft a STOL aircraft is to compare the rolling take-off runs of two planes that perform totally different tasks but that have more or less the same maximum take-off weight. Obviously one cannot take passenger capacity as a criterion when comparing the two since commercial airliners and transport planes usually have very different fuselage configurations. The ATR 72, an up-to-date aircraft jointly developed by the French company Aerospatiale and the Italian aircraft manufacturer Aeritalia, has a maximum take-off weight of about 20 tonnes. It requ...See the full content of this document
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