Posted on 03/05/2016 1:00:20 PM PST by BenLurkin
AFS's concept would employ the same 4,000 HP engine used by the V-22 to generate 3 MW of electrical power that will drive the 24 ductless fans spread across its rear wings and front canards. These fans will rotate, as you can see in the image above, enabling the X-Plane to seamlessly transition from a hover to forward flight.
"This VTOL X-plane won't be in volume production in the next few years but is important for the future capabilities it could enable," DARPA program manager, Ashish Bagai, said. "Imagine electric aircraft that are more quiet, fuel-efficient and adaptable and are capable of runway-independent operations. We want to open up whole new design and mission spaces freed from prior constraints, and enable new VTOL aircraft systems and subsystems."
(Excerpt) Read more at engadget.com ...
Doesn’t seem to have too many moving parts; what could go wrong?
ugly
It’s a diesel-electric with squirrel cage motors?
What a turkey! That thing appears to be way too large to replace helicopters. Incapable of shipboard operations for the same reason. While you won’t need a runway you’re going to need a pretty big pad to set down on.
It’s a flock of geese away from a crash.
Nope. Uses Jet-fuel, basically kerosene.
Looks pilotless. Notice, no windshield. A good sized, vtol drone, essentially.
Doesn’t look that big to me. How long do you think those wings are? 15 feet? They can likely be removed for shipment.
DARPA always was full of crap. They have too much money.
I’m not sure I’d concede that those were ductless fans.
I stand corrected on the fuel detail.
What’s important is that it’s main petro-motor -> electric generator -> electric motors (fans), like a Prius or, for that matter, many locomotives. Not the way airplanes are usually made.
Yes. Example 1 is all the money that they wasted on something called ARPANET or Internet. No way that that would ever have any practical use.
Didn’t we see this in Terminator?
Lotta small props, too much airfoil area. Very innefficient.
I see you’re from Purdue, which explains why you are clueless.
Canard is right.
“Yes. Example 1 is all the money that they wasted on something called ARPANET or Internet. No way that that would ever have any practical use.”
Yeah. Let us not forget that horrible waste they did on that white elephant called GPS. Might have won us a war or three, and saved a few tens of thousands of American lives, but it was a real boondogle.
Heck, I even worked on that project!
Scale is tough to estimate. I get the hint of a cockpit from behind what I take to be the port wing. Distributing the thrust along the wings is pretty Rube-Goldberg. Like something you’d see in “Popular Mechanics”. Pretty maintenance intensive, I would think.
There have been some real improvements in lightweight electric motors, I understand. With microprocessors and rotating wings and canards, electric power may work well.
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