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Despite more than 70 years of vertical flight development, there are only three operational types of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft today: helicopters, the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and the AV-8B Harrier jump jet. It could be argued that VTOL aircraft went through its period of rapid experimentation, and like commercial transports, settled on the configuration that offered the best approach.
AHS International held a groundbreaking event on August 27-29. The “Transformative Vertical Flight Concepts Joint Workshop on Enabling New Flight Concepts through Novel Propulsion and Energy Architectures” was held in Arlington, Virginia at the offices of CENTRA Technology, Inc. and with the support of the F.N. Piasecki Foundation. The workshop was co-sponsored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA).
The past decade or so has seen an incredible infusion of innovative technologies into the vertical flight industry, but regulatory guidance has not kept pace. Between tiltrotors, iPads, drones, innovative new approaches to vertical flight, and conventional helicopter enhancements, regulatory agencies such as the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) have not developed timely, consistent guidance that can facilitate the safe implementation of new technologies for vertical flight in today’s demanding marketplace.
AgustaWestland stunned the world on March 4, 2013 when it announced at Heli-Expo that it had secretly flown an unconventional technology demonstrator aircraft, codenamed “Project Zero,” that looks unlike any aircraft before. The long list of disruptive innovations demonstrated and pioneered by Project Zero were just as stunning as the aircraft itself.
The advent of high power density batteries has prompted the emergence of highly efficient electric powertrains now flying on light fixed-wing aircraft. Rotary-wing aircraft, with one of the highest power demands in the aviation world, has been left outside of the electric realm. Designing a 100% electrically-powered manned helicopter is a highly challenging exercise and hasn’t been successfully attempted until today.
