Karem Aircraft was expected to propose a tiltrotor aircraft with an optimum speed rotor. The name of Aurora's submission was revealed as the LightningStrike in February and although the design was unknown, the company has a history of producing ducted fan and hybrid propulsion aircraft. The four companies have based their designs on unmanned aircraft and will compete over the next 20 months. On 18 March 2014, DARPA announced that Sikorsky, Aurora Flight Sciences, Boeing, and Karem Aircraft had been selected to compete for the VTOL X-plane. The first two companies to be involved were announced in December 2013 when Sikorsky Aircraft was awarded a US$14.4 million contract and Aurora Flight Sciences was given US$14 million for preliminary design studies as part of the $47 million Phase One budget. Load - ensure the solution can carry a useful load of at least 40% of the projected gross weight.Cruise efficiency - achieve a lift-to-drag ratio of at least 10.Hover - increase hover efficiency to at least 75 percent.Speed - achieve a top speed of at least 300 kts.The hybrid aircraft will try to improve on four areas: ĭARPA announced the programme in February 2013 with a requirement to create a new aircraft that uses the best features from both vertical take-off and landing technology and that used for conventional aircraft. Īurora Flight Sciences was selected to create a test design, which will fly in 2018. Īll competitors for the program opted to demonstrate their concepts using an unmanned aerial vehicle even though it was not required, but the technologies are intended to be applied to manned aircraft as well.
DARPA's goal is to demonstrate a VTOL aircraft that can achieve a sustained top speed of 300 to 400 knots (345 to 460 mph (555 to 740 km/h)). Some designs have successfully created hovering and high-speed aircraft, including the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor that can fly at 275 knots (316 mph 509 km/h) and the Sikorsky X2 compound helicopter that flew at 260 knots (300 mph 480 km/h), but both made significant aerodynamic compromises to hovering efficiency or range. Ī helicopter with a conventional rotor layout has a theoretical top speed of 200 knots (230 mph 370 km/h), after which it suffers from dissymmetry of lift. There have been many previous attempts, most of them unsuccessful. The goal of the program is to demonstrate a VTOL aircraft design that can take off vertically and efficiently hover, while flying faster than conventional rotorcraft. The Vertical Take-Off and Landing Experimental Aircraft ( VTOL X-Plane) program is an American research project sponsored by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA).
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