DiscRotor Compound Helicopter
Abstract
The goal of the DiscRotor program was to design and demonstrate the enabling technologies required to develop a new type of compound helicopter capable of high-efficiency hover and high-efficiency, high-speed flight, with stable, continuous and reversible transition between these flight states. The aircraft concept featured a mid-fuselage disc with extendable rotor blades, and an aft swept wing. With the rotor blades extended and the disc rotating, the aircraft would operate like a helicopter with vertical take-off, efficient hover, controllable low speed flight and vertical landing. With the blades retracted, the aircraft would be capable of efficient wing-borne cruise at speeds exceeding any existing rotorcraft, 2-3 times that of a conventional helicopter. Specific objectives of the DiscRotor program included: demonstrating the feasibility of safely and repeatedly retracting/extending the blades into the disc in forward flight, characterizing the flowfield environment created by a disc-rotor, demonstrating disc-rotor enabling technologies, and correlating performance and loads and dynamics between high fidelity physics-based analytical predictions and wind tunnel testing to confirm capability to adequately design advanced rotorcraft configurations. Interested partners include the Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Coast Guard, and SOCOM.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Accomplishment
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2013
- Source ID
- 3d37fe8864d58647c13f7bd8bf0a2296