2. • Who needs a flying car?
• The U.S. military thinks it does. The Pentagon's Defense Advanced Research
Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking proposals for a Humvee that can fly over
insurgents, conduct night raids or whisk injured soldiers away from the battlefield.
Textron, the defense company, says it has the solution—and they have the sketches
to prove it.
The technology is sound and the engineers think it could be ready to fly relatively
soon, according to Steven Reid, vice president of unmanned aircraft systems at AAI,
the Textron subsidiary that produced the Shadow UAV. "Envision a Humvee-like
vehicle with wings that fold out from the side and attach just above the rear door,"
Reid says.
Textron's plan is to integrate its work on military ground vehicles and unmanned
aircraft like the Shadow, and combine it with licensed technology from its partnership
with Carter Aviation Technologies, a small Texas-based outfit working on a personal
air vehicle for the commercial market. Textron is incorporating Carter's slowed
compound rotor technology, which uses rotors that are similar to helicopter blades but
heavily weighted in the tips. As the aircraft takes off, the rotor provides lift, but as the
vehicle gains speed, the rotor slows down and the wings provide lift.
The vehicle would have a roof panel that contains wings that rotate and fold out from
the sides, as well as a mast that comes up and houses the slowed rotor system.
Coming out the back of the vehicle is a shrouded, ducted fan that provides forward
motion, and then a series of control surfaces that help regulate speed, as well as
pitch, roll and yaw.
3. • To win funding for the project that DARPA formally calls Transformer, the
company has to meet a challenging set of demands. The defense agency
has asked companies and researchers to come up with a flyable vehicle that
can carry up to four people, is capable of vertical takeoff and landing and
can travel without having to refuel at ranges for 250 nautical miles (with a
combination of driving and flying). While DARPA officials have talked about
such a vehicle for avoiding roadside bombs, they are also considering it for
a variety of missions, including "strike and raid, intervention, interdiction,
insurgency and counterinsurgency, reconnaissance, medical evacuation
and logistical supply."
For veteran defense companies like Textron, the DARPA project did elicit
some surprise. "I have to admit," recalls Reid, "we scratched our heads and
asked: Is this real?" But if the goal of DARPA's Transformer project to hunt
down innovative technologies that may lie resident at nontraditional defense
companies, then Textron's approach, which draws heavily on Carter
Aviation, may pave the way.
Despite the far-out notion of a flying Humvee, the company's engineers are
intrigued by the idea of pushing the envelope on aircraft technology, and the
concept fits well with ideas they already have about combining manned and
unmanned aircraft, particularly helicopters. While Reid jokes about flying
cars not being in Textron's "five-year plan," he says the DARPA program is
exciting because it allows the company to build off Carter Aviation's
technology, and perhaps incorporate that into the Shadow UAV
4. • The Pentagon is looking for a few good flying machines.
• The U.S. Department of Defense, in the form of its DARPA (Defense
Advanced Research Projects Agency) division, is calling on the
research community to create a flying vehicle that can travel both by
land and air, lift off without a runway, carry up to four personnel, and
handle itself in the battlefield.
• With land vehicles vulnerable to ambushes, attacks, and explosives,
the objective of the program known as Transformer is to provide
soldiers with a vehicle that can travel freely in the air to avoid
problems on the ground. Such a vehicle would be used in combat
for raids, reconnaissance, insurgency/counterinsurgency, and other
types of missions. It would also be deployed to evacuate the
wounded and deliver supplies, according to DARPA's solicitation.
• Additionally, DARPA is looking for something with VTOL (vertical
takeoff and landing), meaning it can lift off like a helicopter requiring
no runaway, and reach altitudes as high as 10,000 feet. But to
traverse rough road conditions when on the ground, the agency
wants the vehicle to handle like an SUV with at least four wheels for
stability and heavy-duty suspension. And it wants a car that's fuel-
efficient--able to run for 250 miles on a single tank of gas
5. • To kick off the project, DARPA had held a free Proposer's
Day workshop this past January to which it invited interested
organizations to learn about the Transformer project.
• Once the right companies respond with proposals to build the
vehicle, DARPA plans to handle the project in three separate
phases, each time whittling down the list of potential candidates
before it decides on the winning proposal. Companies will be
required to develop the vehicle at a reasonable cost, identify the
technologies needed to create the vehicle, and finally build a
prototype capable of performing both ground and flight tests.
• How much will development of the flying vehicle cost us? So far, the
Pentagon has budgeted $54 million dollars, with $9 million to be
spent in phase I, $10 million in phase 2, and $35 million in phase 3.
• Certainly, the flying car isn't a new concept. A variety of developers
have tried to build their way into this unique market. Last year, a
company called Terrafugia gave flight to its Transition vehicle. But
the Transition requires a runway to take off, which keeps it off the
Pentagon's wish list. Other companies and even ordinary individuals
have created and demoed their own flying cars, but so far this mode
of transportation hasn't yet taken off the ground, so to speak.
• On its end, DARPA is hoping to have its first flying vehicles in the air
by 2015
6. • AVX Aircraft have come up with this amazing design. This four seat carrier
can handle 1,000 pounds over a 250 mile stretch and travel at 80 miles per
hour. Once on the ground it does take 60 seconds to transform into flying
mode, which seems quite a long time (especially when your getting fired
upon).
• Not too long ago DARPA put out a call for a flying car, DARPA for a while
now has been after an awesome new flying car design. wanting something
that had all the versatility on land as a Humvee, but also had Vertical
Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) capabilities. Texas-based AVX Aircraft is
stepping up to the plate, and its concept looks pretty close.
• DARPA asked for something that could hold four troops, and wouldn't be
much louder than a helicopter while flying, or an average car while driving.
While we can't determine the latter as AVX's flying car is just a render right
now, it certainly looks like a car with a helicopter blade on top of it.
• The four-seater is designed to carry over 1,000 pounds 250 miles on a
single tank of gas, and can travel 80 miles per hour while in the air and tops
out at 140 on land. Once it's on the ground, it'd take 60 seconds for the
vehicle to convert itself from its flying mode to get land-ready.
• Called the Transformer, the four-person vehicle is envisaged to be driveable
on roads, but with "helicopter-like mobility" to "increase access to difficult
terrain". With a range of 250nm (465km) either on the road or in the air, the
vehicle is also to have automated flight controls "to enable operations by
non-pilots", according to Terrafugia.
7. • Just after the new year, DARPA put out a broad agency
announcement requesting a flying car, specifically a one-to four-
person, vertical takeoff and landing-capable vehicle that can
negotiate off-road conditions as well as take to the skies. Today,
Fort Worth-based AVX Aircraft has responded with a proposal,
releasing some mock-ups of a dual-rotor, ducted-fan driven aircraft
that’s also road-ready.
• AVX says the four-seater will be able to carry a 1,040-lb. payload
250 miles on a single tank of fuel, peaking at 80 miles per hour over
land and 140 miles per hour in the air. It’s coaxial rotor design would
certainly satisfy the vertical take-off and landing requirement, and at
least the sketches make it look off-road rugged. Unfolding the rotor
blades for flight should convert the vehicle from road warrior to
aircraft in just one minute.
