Electrical Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircrafts in a Civilian Urban Environment. Concepts, Technology and Legislative Framework
Electrical Vertical Take-Off and Landing Aircrafts in a Civilian Urban Environment. Concepts, Technology and Legislative Framework

Author: Niklas Lohse

Publisher: GRIN Verlag

Published: 2019-12-11

Total Pages: 83

ISBN-13: 3346081257

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Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject Engineering - Aerospace Technology, grade: 1,5, University of Applied Sciences Wildau, language: English, abstract: This Paper will introduce the most developed concept of vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircrafts and assess them. It will also analyse the key technology challenges and the legislative situation. The world’s population is growing and people continue to move from rural to urban areas. This is accompanied by an increasing number of cars. As a result of this, traffic jams in densely populated areas and long commutes are becoming omnipresent. Extension possibilities for existing infrastructure, especially within urban areas, are very limited due to space. Consequently, innovative alternatives are required. Flying cars, also known as vertical take off and landing (VTOL) aircraft, still appear to be a future vision which seems to be far away. However, to date, more than 200 of such concepts around the world are being developed, some of which are even performing flight tests. The objective of this Master’s Thesis therefore is to evaluate if flying cars have a realistic potential to improve the overloaded ground infrastructure systems on a mid-term ten years basis. In order to answer the research question, a conceptual examination and subsequent classification of the existing concepts is conducted. Based on this a profound content analysis of the four most mature aircraft is carried out. As a result, three significant technical challenges emerge: batteries, noise pollution and the autonomous flying capability. By performing another content analysis on these obstacles, their respective relevance and impact following an upcoming vehicle certification is investigated. Furthermore, VTOL aircraft operations would require legislative amendments. Hence, the current legal situations and actual activities in those regions are studied, where the four companies with the most mature concepts are based. On that basis it can be concluded, that flying cars have a huge potential to relieve the overstressed infrastructure systems on the ground. Although more than ten years will be required to significantly improve this situation, the first flying cars will most likely be visible much sooner. Technical as well as legal challenges exist, but are not insurmountable and especially the latter are relatively well developed already to enable VTOL operations in an urban environment in the near future.

Sea Basing
Sea Basing

Author: National Research Council

Publisher: National Academies Press

Published: 2005-08-14

Total Pages: 104

ISBN-13: 0309095174

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The availability of land bases from which to launch and maintain military, diplomatic, and humanitarian relief operations is becoming increasingly uncertain because of physical or political constraints. The ability to operate from a sea base, therefore, is likely to become more and more important. The Defense Science Board recently concluded that Sea Basing will be a critical future joint military capability and that DOD should proceed to develop such capability. Following the DSB report, the Navy requested that the National Research Council (NRC) convene a workshop to assess the science and technology base, both inside and outside the Navy, for developing Sea Basing and to identify R&D for supporting future concepts. This report of the workshop includes an examination of Sea Basing operational concepts; ship and aircraft technology available to make Sea Basing work; and issues involved in creating the sea base as a joint system of systems.

The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft
The History of the XV-15 Tilt Rotor Research Aircraft

Author: National Aeronautics and Space Administration

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2013-11-01

Total Pages: 220

ISBN-13: 9781493648689

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This monograph is a testament to the efforts of many people overcoming multiple technical challenges encountered while developing the XV-15 tilt rotor research aircraft. It is a comprehensive and detailed documentation of more than 40 years of effort at the NASA Ames Research Center designing this unique class of aircraft. The tilt rotor aircraft combines the advantages of vertical takeoff and landing capabilities, inherent to the helicopter, with the forward speed and range of a fixed wing turboprop airplane. NASA sees the tilt rotor as a new type of vehicle that will provide flexibility for high-speed, long-range flight, coupled with runway-independent operations. It takes the reader through the entire history, culminating with the first production of the V-22 Osprey, built for the U.S. Marine Corps, and the BA609 by Bell-Augusta. This publication takes the reader through the early ideas of Leonardo da Vinci through the search for an aircraft with Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. There is abundant historical data about numerous innovative flying machines devised during the 1920s and 1930s, and German projects by Focke-Achgelis and Focke-Wulf. The publication includes illustrations from the 1930 flying machine patent of G. Lehberger, as well as the convertible aircraft patent of Haviland H. Platt (1955). The publication also describes how the XV-3 tilt rotor emerged from the Army/Air Force convertiplane program of the 1950s, and the evolution of tilt rotor, tilt wing, lift-fan, and direct lift versions and the evolution of the XV-3 program, which began in 1951. Flight tests are described in great detail, explaining the problems of stability. The development of tilt rotor aircraft technology involved some of the same factors that led to other important aeronautical accomplishments of this century. The vision of a few individuals in search of a practical and efficient new aircraft design, commitment to their goals, and their willingness to continue to pursue their objective while encountering major technical problems and programmatic challenges were critical ingredients in this tale. However, the unique aspect of the tilt rotor story was the combined Government and industry focused effort that was sustained for over four decades to explore, comprehend, develop, and refine this technology. The remarkable product of the investment of public and private funds, and the efforts of the people dedicated to the concept, is an aircraft type that will have an impact on civil and military aviation that will rival the introduction of the practical helicopter more than 60 years ago.

Development of a Validated Design Methodology for VTOL SUAS.
Development of a Validated Design Methodology for VTOL SUAS.

Author: Andrew Loughran

Publisher:

Published: 2024

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13:

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There is growing interest in developing fixed-wing small unmanned aircraft systems (sUAS) with vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) capabilities for many applications. To quickly and effectively design multiple configurations of VTOL sUAS such that the end product performs as intended, this thesis develops a validated, low-computational-cost design method. The design method incorporates a set of low-computational-cost weight and aero-propulsive performance models that were identified, selected, tuned, and validated through fabrication and flight testing of three different configurations of VTOL sUAS. An iterative design model approach was then developed to explore the design space to understand the trends between configurations in the mission space. The Weight and Aero-propulsive models and methods are component-based weight build-up, low-order drag build-up, momentum theory propeller model, and an empirical approach to motor and electronic speed controller (ESC) efficiencies at relevant scales. Subcomponent models were validated by comparing them to the three VTOL sUAS configurations through flight testing in both hover and forward flight. Each vehicle's components were broken down by weight, compared against the design model's weight predictions, and found to be within 8.7% for all three configurations. Vehicle performance models for power draw in hover and forward flight were validated with measured power draw during flight testing in relevant conditions and were found to be within 13.1% of mean test data results for hover and 19.4% of mean test results for forward flight. Predictions were found to be most sensitive to the assumed motor, ESC, and propeller efficiencies, rotational velocity of motors, and accurate prediction of fuselage drag. The validated subcomponent methods were then implemented in an iterative approach that required the convergence of the vehicle's gross weight and the battery weight. A mission space exploration was performed for a fixed-wing VTOL sUAS and a non-fixed-wing VTOL sUAS for comparison. These vehicles were under 55 lbs and it was determined that a maximum of 53 mile cruise for a 2-prop thrust vectoring sUAS and a maximum of 40 minute hover time for a quadrotor is possible. The mission space exploration found that there is a difference between the lightest vehicle and the most energy-efficient vehicle, which emphasizes that vehicle design objectives can vary the resultant vehicle design. In addition to a mission space exploration, this thesis presents a full conceptual design of a 2-prop thrust vectoring sUAS with an expected mission profile of 10 minute hover time and a 5 mile cruise distance with a gross weight of 2.28 pounds.