What power to weight ratio do you have to have to hover or "helicopter" a piston-powered prop fixed wing craft

Answer 1

Lift must equal weight, and thrust must equal drag to hover.
So, the power to weight ratio would be 1:1 to hover. I've only seen one airplane that would do that, and it's impressive. It was a Russian built Sukoi SU-31.
He did a manuever he called the 'Elevator' where he transitioned between horizontal flight and vertical hover. It runs a 300 horse engine and has plenty of thrust to burn...
Check out the pictures on another web page...

Answer 2

To "hover" an airplane theoretically requires a 1:1 power to weight ratio, but there are other factors that can reduce this. If flying into a stiff breeze, you can hang most small aircaft on the prop and even fly backwards.

Many of the small bi-planes like the Pitts, Eagle and others are able to "hover" using a headwind and a "blown lift"effect. This occurs when you have a high angle of attack, a high power setting and a high angle of bank. What happens is that the prop wash blowing on the upper side of the fuselage is funneled between the two wings causing the fuselage to provide lift because of the low pressure air above it. You will see Sean Tucker, Jim LeRoy and other aerobatic pilots perform the "hover".

Answer 3

The first aircraft I saw do this was the Mig- 29, at Farnborough, many years ago. Then I saw the Sukhoi 29, a pure aerobatic display aircraft do it at the Boca Raton Aerobatic Championships in the early 90's.

See this :

http://www.snaproll-sukhoi.com/su29.htm

Amazing stuff. I think that the Su 29 is piston but will stand corrected if she has a turbo-prop.

I did hover and land a De-Havilland Chipmunk about %$£%$" years ago, I discovered that with a genuine 40 + knots at ground windspeed one could do this, with full flaps, and a careful hand on the throttle, causes havoc with your buddies waiting on the threshold to take off !

Answer 4

I guess you guys aren't pilots. I needed a power-to-weight ratio approaching 2:1 for my Zivko Edge 540. Also, light wing loading is essential as well as a prop with a large enough diameter to "wash" the control surfaces thoroughly.

Answer 5

The power to weight ratio has to be equal in order to hover
more power will make it rise the less power it will fall but sometimes the rotor blade angle can make a diffrence