DARPA finances a new takeoff and landing aircraft

For decades, engineers attempted to improve the characteristics of vertical take-off and landing aircraft (VTOL or VTOL), but could not solve a number of interrelated problems. There have been dozens of attempts to increase speed without reducing the flight range, the efficiency of the aircraft, but all attempts failed for one reason or another.

The US agency DARPA hopes that the new experimental aircraft VTOL X-Plane will be able to overcome all these difficulties due to the unusual combination of wing with screws, as well as the integration of innovative subsystems that will dramatically improve the vertical take-off and cruising speed.

Yesterday, DARPA announced a contract with Aurora Flight Sciences for the development of such an aircraft.
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"Just when we decided that everything had already been tried, Aurora engineers found a place for innovation - really new engineering and technological elements that promise great opportunities for use in real aircraft," said Ashish Bagai , project manager for DARPA. .

Under the terms of VTOL X-Plane, the aircraft must have the following characteristics.

• Constant maximum speed from 300 to 400 knots (556-741 km / h)
• The efficiency of hover efficiency should be increased from 60% to at least 75%.
• Aerodynamic quality (the ratio of lift coefficients to drag) should be increased from 5-6 to 10+
• The payload should be at least 40% of the estimated mass of the aircraft (4500-5400 kg)

The concept of an unmanned aircraft Aurora Flight Sciences has two large rear fenders and front horizontal tail in an aerodynamic “duck” scheme. Gas turbine engine in convertible plans Bell V-22 Osprey , which are in service with the US Marine Corps and the US Navy. The engine is mounted on the fuselage and provides 4000 hp (3 MW) of power.

24 channel fans rotate from the engine: nine in the rear wings and three in the front. The half-planes of the front and rear wings rotate depending on the direction of flight. When taking off, they turn down the fans, while cruising - back fans.

According to DARPA, the greatest difficulty is the stabilization of the aircraft in the mode of soaring.

Unmanned aircraft can be adapted to manual control. Aurora Flight Sciences expects to begin flight tests in 2018.