Originally Posted by
Bravo73
They don't just seem to be going for tilt
rotors - they are going full hog with tilt
wings.
What would that do to the lift as the aircraft decelerates whilst it converts from aeroplane to helicopter mode?? The angle of attack on the wing would get pretty extreme, pretty quickly.
Having the rotor diameter similar to the wing span can help with the deep stall and drag, depending on the rotor wash velocity. Still, there are other reasons tilt wings haven’t been successful. Marrying one with a flapping rotor will help with control authority, so that’s one set of problems addressed. You’ve identified drag in conversion. Despite more control authority than a traditional tiltwing, it’s still a barn door in pure hover, so maneuvering in a 35 knot side wind, for example, will take a lot of power. The disk loading looks higher than a traditional tiltrotor, so I suspect the power requirements are higher than a tiltrotor of the same gross weight, despite the reduced download on the wing. In any case, what they learn will inform the next aircraft, whether it’s another tiltwing or they convert to a full tiltrotor configuration.