New images of the weird, futuristic “Project Zero” All-Electric Tilt Rotor unmanned aircraft released March 21, 2013
Posted by David Cenciotti in : Aviation, Drones , 5commentsThe revolutionary AgustaWestland “Project Zero” all-electric tilt rotor technology demonstrator, designed, built and tested in twelve months, was officially unveiled on Mar. 4, 2013, just prior to the Heli-Expo 2013 in Las Vegas, USA.
The result of close collaborations with Finmeccanica companies – Selex ES, Ansaldo Breda, and Ansaldo Energia – and partner companies from Italy, UK, U.S. and Japan, the aircraft embeds some unuque features: aesthetically pleasing styling and aerodynamically unique tiltrotor configuration; carbon graphite exterior surfaces; High-Integrity Flight Control Computer and Actuator Control Unit; custom produced electric motor inverter and motor control algorithm; axial flux permanent magnet electric motors.
Furthermore, the aircraft uses no hydraulics: the retractable landing gear, nacelle tilting mechanism, and elevons are controlled by high bandwidth electromechanical actuators (EMA).
Image credit: AgustaWestland
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AgustaWestland unveils Project Zero, the world’s first electric powered unmanned tilt-rotor aircraft March 8, 2013
Posted by Jacek Siminski in : Aviation, Drones , 5commentsThe aircraft is built in the tilt-rotor technology, with rotors that can be rotated 90 degrees in order to change configuration from VTOL (Vertical Take Off and Landing) to conventional, similarly to U.S. CV-22 Osprey.
It differs from the American tilt-rotor aircraft in the way the tilting is achieved.
In the V-22 Osprey the rotors are mounted at the end of the wings; the Project Zero‘s rotors are located within the wings’ surfaces.
This gives the rotors a bit of ducted fans appearance, making the transition from vertical to horizontal easier – the ducting provides a bit of the lifting force.
The Project Zero is said to be unmanned and the date of first flight is unknown, even if some sources say it was last June, and some say it was in August 2011.
The first flight was tethered, with the aircraft connected to the ground. It is said it made a few secret flights during last year.
Image Credit: AgustaWestland
Daniele Romiti, CEO of AgustaWestland gave the only press statement that is currently available on the Internet saying:
This is a wonderful achievement of the AgustaWestland Advanced Concepts Group. A team of passionate and brilliant engineers worked extremely hard in a secure facility to conceive, design, build and test this technology demonstrator in an exceptionally short period of time,” said Dr. James Wang, Vice President of Research and Technology at AgustaWestland. “This group lives to dream, and if it can be dreamed, it can be built. The team did not just build an electric powered airplane or helicopter; that would have been too easy. They went all out and built a twin rotor electric tiltrotor with no transmission or swashplates.
There is little we know about this aircraft, but here’s what can be found:
The design follows a few trends that might be considered to be placed within the breaking grounds of the aviation nowadays.
Firstly, it is not powered by any combustion engine. The energy comes from battery power, however the official statement of the company does not exclude using hybrid power in the future with help of diesel engines.
A feature which may be interesting is that the aircraft does not use any hydraulics whatsoever. This eliminates the need for faulty fluid-operated on board systems.
The fuselage is a blended lifting body. Company officials claim that additional detatchable set of wings may be used in order to provide the lift for missions which will be carried out in the helicopter mode exclusively.
Steering is achieved through the use of elevons for pitch and roll in the horizontal mode, while the longitudinal stability is provided by a V-tail.
Since the aircraft is driven by electric power, the transmission is simplier.
Then it is possible for the machine to fly in heavily polluted conditions, or at extreme altitudes as, unlike traditional engines, no oxygen is required for combustion. This makes the aircraft a perfect vehicle for examining volcanic eruptions, similar to the one on Iceland in the year 2010 that stopped most of the air traffic in Europe.
Another interesting feature is that, when the aircraft sits on the ground, the blades may be pointed in the wind direction, recharging the batteries.
Lastly, the electric drive gives the design very low noise and heat signatures that would particularly useful for military covert ops.
The aircraft is not Agusta’s first tilt rotor since the company has already designed the AW609, which looks similar to CV-22 Osprey, but has pressurized cabin and has a civilian purpose.
There is no information regarding the Project Zero’s purpose. It may be simply a technology demonstrator without any prospects.
It is not known whether Project Zero will evolve into manned aircraft. In the meanwhile, performance figures in the patent say that the aircraft can reach speeds of 500 km/h and a ceiling of 7,500 meters.
Jacek Siminski for TheAviationist.com
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NVG Video: MV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft conduct leaflet drop in Afghanistan during PSYOPS mission September 6, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in : Military Aviation , add a commentOn Aug. 22, U.S. Army soldiers belonging to the 349th Psychological Operation Company (POC), Regional Psyops Support Element, Regional Command Southwest, conducted a leaflet drop above Helmand province, Afghanistan.
The air drop, consisting of be-on-the-look-out leaflets in support of Information Operations, was conducted to deliver information to areas of Helmand province unreachable by conventional communication.
The PSYOP mission was flown by U.S. Marine Corps MV-22B Osprey aircraft from Marine Medium Tiltrotor (VMM) 365, 3rd Marine Aircraft Wing (Forward).
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“Air Force’s CV-22 Osprey tilt-rotor aircraft accident report is a total distortion of the facts” top aviation expert says. September 4, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in : Aviation Safety, Military Aviation , 5commentsThe Air Force Special Operations Command has released the results of the investigation into the Jun. 13, 2012 accident of a CV-22B. The tilt-rotor aircraft, which was assigned to the 1st Special Operations Wing, was flying in a two ship formation when it crashed at approximately 6.45 pm local time during a training mission to the north of Navarre, Florida on the Eglin Range.
All five of the 8th Special Operations Squadron aircrew were seriously injured but none suffered life threatening injuries.
Image credit: U.S. Air Force
The AFSOC, commander convened an Accident Investigation Board to investigate the crash and the circumstances surrounding it and designated Col. Hans Ruedi Kaspar, 23rd Air Force vice commander as the board president.
The Accident Investigation Board President released his findings and said that there was clear and convincing evidence that the cause of the crash was the crew’s failure to keep the aircraft clear of the lead aircraft’s wake. The result of this was an “uncommanded” roll to the left along with a rapid loss of altitude which resulted with an impact with the terrain.
The aircraft was destroyed upon impact with the loss valued at approximately 78 million USD.
Although Pentagon press secretary George Little speaking to reports recently said: “The Osprey is a highly-capable aircraft with an excellent operational safety record, which includes more than five years of worldwide deployments and 140,000 flight hours,” the safety record of the tilt rotor aircraft, in spite of the DoD, Air Force and Marine Corps claims, has been much debated in the recent past.
Even the loss of a U.S. Marine Corps tilt rotor aircraft that crashed in Morocco during African Lion joint exercise, with two marines killed and two other severely injured in the crash, and few other safety occurrences (that got a special attention on media attention even though they were quite normal) contributed to fuel concerns in those who believe the aircraft is unsafe.
Among them there is A. Rex Rivolo, who is Chief Technology Officer of an aerospace corporation in Virginia, has seventeen years experience in DoD Test and Evaluation community as senior advisor to the Office of Secretary of Defense and served as the principal analyst for the MV-22 and CV-22 at the Institute for Defense Analyses (IDA), a nonprofit organization paid to do independent research for the Pentagon.
Rex has some strong credentials: he was a pilot for six years at the US Air Force and 22 years at the Air National Guard. He has some 7,500 flight hours in both tactical fighter planes and helicopters, including 531 combat missions with the F-4E Phantom in Vietnam. He has earned 5 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 28 Air Medals.
“The findings of the Accident Investigation Board (AIB) for the CV-22B, tail number 06-0032, crash on 13 June 2012 are a total distortion of the facts and a blatant attempt to blame the pilots for a very serious design flaw in the V-22 aircraft” he told The Aviationist.
The serious safety concerns over the V-22 response to interactions with proprotor wakes of another V-22 were raised as early as 1996 when pilots began reporting incidences of uncommanded roll during flights of multiple aircraft.
“I personally observed several instances of this while flying on the V-22 in the late 1990s as an observer supporting the Pentagon’s Director, Operational Test & Evaluation (DOT&E) during the V-22 operational test period. In their desire to meet cost and schedule milestones, these concerns were given little attention by Bell-Boeing and the USMC management team and they consequently mounted a strong campaign to discredit these concerns with DOT&E. This effort, supported by some of the world’s best aeronautical engineers and pilots convinced DOT&E that the problem was indeed minor and the concerns were overblown.”
“Following the 2000 crash at Marana in which uncommanded roll due to wake intrusion was a possible contributing cause, I recruited Professor Gordon Leishman, one of the world’s top rotorcraft scientists, to investigate the phenomenon using numerical simulation” Rivolo told The Aviationist.
The result of these calculations clearly indicated that V-22 rotor wake intrusion could be a serious hazard to V-22 because of the side-by-side design: “Based on these concerns, I succeeded in resurrecting the issue with DOT&E and the Director demanded that a test and evaluation program be designed and executed to quantify the seriousness of the phenomenon.”
“This test and evaluation program, known as Test Request 65 (TR-65), was designed by DOT&E, Bell-Boeing and the USMC. The TR-65 document, dated 9 June 2000, described over 23 pages of test sequences to be performed to evaluate proprotor wake interactions in the V-22. Eighteen months later, TR-65 was scrapped based on the then current flight experience in which no uncommanded rolls were experienced in the aircraft during formation flight. Based on a strong Bell-Boeing and USMC push to dismiss a “non-issue”, DOT&E acquiesced and TR-65 was never completed.”
As a consequence, the pluri-decorated former combat pilot says, the CV-22 Flight Manual, known as the “Dash-1”, contains only minor guidance in Section V (Operating Limitations) on formation flight position to avoid wake intrusion.
Rivolo believes that if TR-65 had been executed to completion, the uncontrollable rolls experienced by V-22 when intruding into another V-22 wake would have clearly been demonstrated along with the dangers of the phenomenon.
The entire text from Section V of the Dash-1 regarding formation flight limitations Rivolo sent us reads as follows:
FORMATION FLIGHT LIMITATIONS
1. VTOL/CONV mode formation flying requires a
minimum cockpit-to-cockpit 250 ft separation and 25 ft
step up; step up is to be maintained all the way to landing.
The requirement for step up is designed to prevent
asymmetric wake interactions caused when one rotor
on the trail aircraft encounters the wake of the lead aircraft.2. During APLN mode formation flight, maintain a
minimum cockpit-to-cockpit separation of 250 ft along
the bearing line. With less than 50 ft step up/down,
avoid lead aircrafts’ 5-7 O’clock.
“There are “Cautions” or “Warnings” throughout the Dash-1 concerning serious flight safety issues in various phases of flight but none on wake intrusion – a phenomenon that can result in an uncontrollable roll and consequent crash. This would certainly seem to warrant a “Caution” or a “Warning” within the Flight Manual.”
Rivolo says that as a consequence of the nonexistent TR-65 test results, the Dash-1 seriously underplays the significance of wake intrusion in V-22.
“It is noted that the Formation Flight Limitations in the Flight Manual only address a “minimum” separation; once outside that separation pilots can “legally” fly anywhere they wish in proximity to other formation aircraft. Unfortunately, the aircraft wakes remain active well outside this minimum separation and pilots can fly into them with catastrophic results. That the pilot was well outside of the minimum spacing limitations for formation flying is verified by the AIB in their Report which states:
“Although the MC did not maintain the required 25 feet of vertical separation from the MLA, the MA was two- to three-times the 250 feet and 375 feet distances referenced above and still encountered the MLA’s wake”
Rivolo believes the accident was clearly not caused by “pilot error” but it was the direct result of a basic design flaw in V-22 – the side-by-side rotor configuration and its susceptibility to rotor wakes.
“This accident will happen again and again,” he says.
Richard Clements contributed to this post.
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First MV-22 Osprey tilt rotor aircraft arrive in Japan July 23, 2012
Posted by David Cenciotti in : Helicopters , 1 comment so farThe following picture is particularly interesting as it shows a still “packaged” MV-22 Osprey belonging to the Marine Medium Helicopter Squadron 265 as it is unloaded from the cargo ship Green Ridge on arrival at the Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni harbor on Jul. 23, 2012.
This marks the first MV-22 Osprey aircraft deployment to Japan, a move that raised some concerns following the recent incidents involving the tilt-rotor aircraft.
The Osprey will replace the Marine Corps’ CH-46 helicopters.
Image credit: U.S. Marine Corps
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