Thanks John... but you might want to rethink the "Normal" after you hear what I'm thinking about now.
I found out that Moller has been smacked by the SEC for certain securities marketing practices and for making the prediction about thousands of Mollers flying around by 2003... whoops.
Someone must take up the torch of the Flying Car promised to us all in those Science films of the 60's. (I've never actually seen one but I hear they're neat!)
The way I see it... there's two parts to consider for a VTOL aircraft. The normal flying part. The transition to flying speed and back to zero again part. Now why worry about designing both when the normal flying part is already available! (That's where the Cozy would come in.) All that actually needs to be designed is the transitional part.
Limiting factors include finding engines strong enough to produce high thrust, but light enough to lift themselves and airframe. That's where John's turbo rotary comes in. (Sorry Dust, no Yugo engines.)
Another limiting factor is a control system to balance the system out of ground effect. I'm testing a few ideas with a Computer Program I'm writing to crunch the numbers.
This idea came to me while watching the new design VTOL jet (I can't remember if it was the Lockheed or Boeing version) that uses a thrust direction nozzle for the rear of the aircraft, and a shaft driven fan with doors that open up on the front of the aircraft in transitional flight. There are smaller nozzles on the wing tips... but the general idea is to balance the aircraft on a four legged stool of thrust.
I'm wondering if a variation could be made for the Cozy... a three legged stool. Two fans in the back, one on each side of the fuselage. Deflectors to route thrust down. One fan in the nose placed horizontaly with retractable doors, shaft driven to keep engine weight out of the nose... hmmm. (Can anyone tell that I'm getting tired of my 82 mile one way commute through traffic? There is a perfect place to land on the top level of a parking deck that no-one uses.)
Anyhoo... back to the normal. I'm putting numbers together on a twin ducted fan system. One turbo rotary or two motorcycle engine driven. I'm kicking the motorcycle engine idea around because it introduces redundancy (two of everything to break!), light weight since non-hog sport touring bike engines are designed for high power to weight, and with one fuel tank per engine maybe even a little simplicity. Reliability is a big fat question mark... but at a few thousand a piece, I could chuck one, get another, and still be ahead of the game by... oh... $20,000.
To answer my own original question, I think I was coming up with roughly 300lbs of thrust to maintain 180 at MSL. (My notes are at home.) Also I was getting thrust numbers of 2200 lbs with twin 140 HP engines... which could turn a Cozy balistic. Which brings me back to hovering, or the flying car idea. Maybe I should check my numbers first.
Well, its been a difficult day at work surfing the internet, but now that its 3 o'clock, its time to go home. @#$@%@!!! Moller... if he had his flying car ready, I'd be home in 15 minutes.