“Electra”
There’s 8 engines and propellers all along the wing.
The propellers thrust the air backward at high speed all along the wing to create tremendous lift.
“There’s 8 engines and propellers all along the wing.
The propellers thrust the air backward at high speed all along the wing to create tremendous lift.”
Since the entire wing is in prop wash they could take a page out of history and tilt the wing, making a full on tilt wing with redundant motors and twin power supplies or triple redundant power inverters you don’t need mechanical connections between all the props like past tiltwings and also tilt rotors need otherwise they flip over if you lose an engine on one side of the wing or the other. With a tilt wing you can change the lift and thrust vector to be vertical with enough prop wash lift and prop thrust a t 45+ degrees up angle the sum force vector is straight up and vertical take off is possible. You would lose pitch control unless you put a 9th rotor just behind the tail mounted horizontally so with variable pitch it can work as a lever arm to pitch the fuselage , roll is by differential power output on each wing and yaw is by the ailerons which in a near vertical orientation have yaw vectors not just roll. The computer compensates for the residual roll component with again differential power to the motors.
This is the system was used by the Canadians on their tilt wing plane that flew to US aircraft carrier for COD testing, including the horizontal rotor on the tail it was stopped in flight and was stowed fore aft so no drag.
You would.go from 90m takeoff to zero and have hover ability too. Range would take a hit because you take off and hover at 100% power ripping through fuel. Still you could go back to STOL mode and get all the range back it’s an option for when you need to drop into a helipad or ship deck.
Hum this company has patented a zero zero recovery system like the Russians use for dropping BMPs out of cargo jets with crews in them sometimes. ...retro rockets right before impact. SpaceX and Boeing both wanted to land capsules under retros and no chutes, NASA said nope nope nope , Boeing still uses airbags and retros under their chutes for land based landings , the Russians do the same with Soyuz landings too.
https://www.advanced-blast.com/avcp-2/
Zero/zero survivability is going to be the only way the FAA let’s EVTOLs fly paying passengers and over congested area’s too. Good to see the tech has been worked out. 50kg out of 2000 is small enough to mandate it on every part 135 operating VTOL not just EVTOL all of them.
Helos, gyros and gyrodynes can autorotate in but if the Jesus nut falls in all three or your transmission locks up in a helo you are having a bad day. GRS has the solution for that it’s a rocket propelled ballistic parachute with a slip ring , combine that with the retro rocket pack and that nifty ballon ring 1 second airbag like chute plus skid airbags and you survive even a Jesus nut failure.
https://www.galaxysky.cz/gyro-amp-helicopters-s65-en