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I once found a video of a single engine, piston and propeller, high wing plane that had been built, or modified by a US college/university. They added a 200 HP turbine engine behind the baggage compartment up high in the fuselage and it drove a turbine compressor. Pretty much like a airliner starter turbine.

The high pressure air from the compressor went out to the flaps pivot axle and then into the flaps inner space. The flaps pivoted at the trailing edge, and so folded out by hinging down and back. Then, the edge that had been buried in the wing's underside forward of the pivot point was now the trailing edge. This trailing edge was a rounded tube of about 1.4 inches to 2.5 inches in OD. It had a jet flap blowing along the top surface and caused entrained air fom the top of the wing to go down 90 degrees.

It cruised around 150 to 200 mph, but landed around 30 MPH. Pretty incredible. I can't for the life of me find it again in Google or Youtube. Does anybody know about this project? I'd love to save that video down to my hard drive. Even better, I'd love to go see the plane.

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FINALLY found it! IT was named using the technical name for blown flaps, 'Circulation Control'. I found it using the search 'state name' stol aircraft. Just so happened I chose the nearly right name first off, 'Virginia'.

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  • $\begingroup$ It appears to be based on the Wittman Tailwind, a fairly famous (and very fast, even now) homebuilt design. $\endgroup$
    – egid
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 5:18
  • $\begingroup$ Seems to me that would have some odd handling characteristics as that flap folds down and back up. I guess it's really not that bad, it just seems... odd. $\endgroup$
    – FreeMan
    Commented Oct 6, 2015 at 13:35
  • $\begingroup$ You are probably right. And also the maximum speed that retraction is allowed or extension is probably a factor as well. However the amount of time that it takes for it to come out is amazingly fast compared to all the other track mounted flaps that I've seen so I don't think it be an issue if you just point the nose down a little bit hit that button two seconds later you got more wing area and engage the compressor and you got the lots more lift $\endgroup$
    – user327312
    Commented Oct 7, 2015 at 16:41

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