Aircraft Maintenance Technology

JAN-FEB 2018

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MANUFACTURING INNOVATIONS 24 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2018 AIRCRAFT MAINTENANCE TECHNOLOGY ters is now an experimental UAV created by Aurora and partners Rolls-Royce and Honeywell. XV-24A should achieve 300 knots cruise and have useful load close to 40 percent MTOW. To achieve this, a com- plex coupled aerodynamic aircraft was designed using 24 motors with enclosed propellers and 48 nozzle flaps plus tilt actuators on front and rear wing. XTI Aircraft, TriFan 600 is an another example of an all-new design, conven- tional looking, fixed-wing aircraft with three ducted fans; two of them rotate approximately 90 degrees. The three fans will be powered by a not yet dis- closed and dislocated turbine/generator unit. The American company and its CEO Robert LaBelle are saying that the six-seat airplane will have the speed, range, and comfort of a business jet and the abil- ity to take off and land vertically, like a helicopter. Using three ducted fans, each driven by two Siemens electric motors, it should travel at over 300 miles an hour, with a range of up to 1,200 miles. Lilium is a VTOL-jet designed and manufactured by German aircraft com- pany Lilium Jet. Lilium plans to launch a five-seat model in the future with an eye toward enabling a sky taxi service. Lilium says that it has invented a completely new aircraft concept for the modern age. Lilium's goal was to define a transition aircraft concept with better performance in safety, noise, speed, range, and pay- load than existing concepts, while cutting complexity to one third. All this should be possible by a fixed wing fitted with 12 highly deflectable flaps and 36 elec- tric-driven "jet engines". An unmanned, remotely controlled prototype was test- flown on April 20, 2017. CityAirbus: The VTOL craft will first be flown by a pilot for certification pur- poses, even though Airbus eventually wants the craft to be capable of autono- mous flight. CityAirbus is a multi-passen- ger, self-piloted battery-powered vertical takeoff and landing vehicle designed for urban air mobility. It is designed to carry up to four passengers in a fast, affordable, and environmentally friendly way. The quad-fairing design uses a total of eight propellers and promises a much lower acoustic footprint, according to Airbus, in addition to greater safety and stability. Vahana³ by Airbus: The Santa Clara, CA, company is financed by Airbus and is exploring tilting, distributed electric pro- pulsion on Vahana. Single-seat eight-prop flying prototype is planned for maiden flight in the first quarter 2018. Small-scale models have been flying to test the con- cept. More on Airbus e-flight in the next issue of AMT. Erik Lindbergh, grandson of aviators Charles and Anne Morrow Lindbergh, has announced the formation of VerdeGo Aero, an innovative new aerospace compa- ny with a mission to provide the upcoming urban transportation market with a safe, clean, and quiet hybrid electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft that can fly piloted or autonomously. CONCLUSION As in the Segway world where the initially presented prototype went through several stages of development, lessons will also be learned in this new world of E-Flight. Some of them will possibly reach this goal sooner than others, but in all cases a maturity will certainty be needed before mass public air transportation. CITY AIRBUS graphic. AIRBUS PR

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