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 ...
If it works... great!
Those wheels don’t look like they are designed for much weight (in the video). The front end looks like an air intake. (video again)
Wasn’t that headed up by Al Gore?
Not Diesel-electric, turbo-electric.
In terms of thrust generated, the multiple fans certainly would spread the downward, then backward thrust more evenly over the airframe. But the structural integrity of the rotating wings would have to be beefed up to a superlative degree.
Carbon-fiber, maybe?
So far as reliability is concerned, an electric cable feeding each of the fan motors certainly beats running some kind of mechanical shaft to each fan. The aerodynamic profile of the lifting surfaces, with the box-fans inserted between them, has to be a matter of some fancy configuration.
It does show they are thinking outside the box. Some similar principles could be applied to helicopter design, while retaining the rotary-wing aspect. A helicopter, in and of itself, is a highly complex design, with the shifting change of aspect of each of the rotor blades as rotor turns, and countering the massive torque that tends to twist the fuselage of the helicopter in the opposite direction of the rotor rotation.
24 potential engine fires. Even if electrical, electrical engines start on fire.
I am surprised it wasn’t released on 4/1/16.
Ductless? Those fans look pretty ducted to me...
That large opening on the end is the REAR of the craft.
Surprise, surprise.
The artist’s concept is all messed up. The small canards are on the front of the vehicle. The fans on the wings are said to be 31 inches in diameter; that would give a wing-span of about 60 feet. They are hoping for a max airspeed of 300 kts or more.
$89.5 million has been awarded to build two prototypes to be tested in 2018.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VTOL_X-Plane
LOL. You are, of course, correct to point out the parts-count to weight ratio or whatever you want to call it. But to counter that you have to give Darpa points for REDUNDANCY. So a couple of props fall off. You keep right on flying.
Well, electric motors have far fewer moving parts than most internal combustion engines...
Redundant operating systems overachieved.
It is said that when the first Air Force test pilots saw the first one, one laughed and said “That thing will never fly”.
AF test pilots are typically not only very good pilots, but have degrees in Aeronautical Engineering. So sometimes even people with domain knowledge get surprised.
Yes, you are correct. They helped create ARPANET with a few universities and National Labs. But they didn’t create the internet. Al Gore did. Just kidding. It took people with broader ideas to create the internet than ARPA (now DARPA) ever had. DARPA is a cesspool of wasted money.
Looks like a fixed wing scale up of drone technology to me. I bet the electric motors have plenty of design margin and there is ample thrust for fault tolerance.
I find the top wing curious. The bottom appears to be the airfoil while the top appears flat. Maybe the top is there for turbulence reduction across the top and sides of the motor housings.
I like it. A diesel genset in the fuseleage could make for hours of lumbering over a battle zone. Add in a ground troop support electronics payload, and tell it to autonomously circle a set of GPS coordinates. Give our troops 24/7 eyes and ears.
DARPA funded programs created the internet and world wide web, stealth technology, GPS systems, robotic systems, satellite mapping Unix, Linux, and Android systems... the list goes on. You can whine all you want that these were not fully funded and realized by DARPA, but then you don’t understand the purpose of DARPA, which is to fund and demonstrate innovation technology of strategic national importance. Far from being a cesspool of wasted money, DARPA has been one of the most productive national programs in science and technology.
I agree. DARPA has done far more with far less than NASA.
DARPA continues to do amazing things. Much of he 3D printing organ development was started/done with DARPA money.
Another tech we can attribute to DARPA is Autonomous Vehicles. And it is another game changer that will increase productivity in untold numerous ways.
Electric motors also have very low maintenance requirements.
I expect the one turbo generator needs more maintenance than all of the fans combined.
Just an FYI, I’ve worked on that F117 pictured...it was a 410th Flight Test Sq jet.
Thanks for posting.
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