A tiltwing aircraft

Aircraft

An aircraft is a vehicle that is able to fly by gaining support from the air, or, in general, the atmosphere of a planet. An aircraft counters the force of gravity by using either static lift or by using the dynamic lift of an airfoil, or in a few cases the downward thrust from jet engines.Although...

 features a wing that is horizontal for conventional forward flight and rotates up for vertical takeoff and landing. It is similar to the tiltrotor

Tiltrotor

A tiltrotor is an aircraft which uses a pair or more of powered rotors mounted on rotating shafts or nacelles at the end of a fixed wing for lift and propulsion, and combines the vertical lift capability of a helicopter with the speed and range of a conventional fixed-wing aircraft...

 design where only the propeller

Propeller (aircraft)

Aircraft propellers or airscrews convert rotary motion from piston engines or turboprops to provide propulsive force. They may be fixed or variable pitch. Early aircraft propellers were carved by hand from solid or laminated wood with later propellers being constructed from metal...

 and engine rotate. Tiltwing aircraft are typically fully capable of VTOL

VTOL

A vertical take-off and landing aircraft is one that can hover, take off and land vertically. This classification includes fixed-wing aircraft as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors, such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors...

 operations.

The tiltwing design offers certain advantages in vertical flight relative to a tiltrotor. Because the slipstream from the rotor strikes the wing on its smallest dimension, the tiltwing is able to apply more of its engine power to lifting the aircraft. For comparison, the V-22 Osprey

V-22 Osprey

The Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey is an American multi-mission, military, tiltrotor aircraft with both a vertical takeoff and landing , and short takeoff and landing capability...

 tiltrotor loses about 10% of its thrust to interference from the wings. However, the fixed wing of a tiltrotor aircraft offers a superior angle of attack

Angle of attack

Angle of attack is a term used in fluid dynamics to describe the angle between a reference line on a lifting body and the vector representing the relative motion between the lifting body and the fluid through which it is moving...

 — thus more lift and a shorter takeoff roll — when performing STOL

STOL

STOL is an acronym for short take-off and landing, a term used to describe aircraft with very short runway requirements.-Definitions:There is no one accepted definition of STOL and many different definitions have been used by different authorities and nations at various times and for a myriad of...

/STOVL

STOVL

STOVL is an acronym for short take off and vertical landing.This is the ability of some aircraft to take off from a short runway or take off vertically if it does not have a very heavy payload and land vertically...

 operations. The main drawback of the tiltwing is control during hover. The wing tilted vertically represents a large surface area for crosswinds to push.

List of Tiltwing aircraft

Tiltwing designs with rocket, jet, or propeller propulsion

• 1957 - Vertol VZ-2
  Vertol VZ-2
  |-See also:...
  
  
• 1959 - Hiller X-18
  Hiller X-18
  The X-18 was an experimental cargo transport aircraft designed to be the first testbed for tiltwing and VSTOL technology.-Development:...
  
  
• 1964 - LTV XC-142
• 1965 - Canadair CL-84
  Canadair CL-84
  The Canadair CL-84 "Dynavert", designated by the Canadian Forces as the CX-131, was a V/STOL turbine tilt-wing monoplane designed and manufactured by Canadair between 1964 and 1972. Only four of these experimental aircraft were built with three entering flight testing...