@Lonewolf_50
...hope the funding/investment stream can be found.
While staying under the radar screen over the past few years, all studies and functional flight demonstrations were paid through small Government R&D contracts. However, as is highlighted in the Vertiflite article, DoD policy effectively restricts available prototype funds to Government contractor controlled IR&D, otherwise known as Government dollars paid as an overhead line item on production contracts. As you might expect, producer's interests are not necessarily aligned with this project.
Advantage over the unmanned KMAX (for a maritime VERTREP mission) appears to be speed. How does payload comparison stack up, (if you can say) at this point?
An initial study performed in 2004 shows the advantage increases with mission radius. For up and down missions, nothing beats helicopter, be it intermeshing, coaxial, dual, or with tail rotor. When range is needed, helicopters burn more fuel and transport less payload than this design. Specific performance numbers are in the Gov't reports on our website.
@pba_target
...what about the tilt actuators failing in the forward flight configuration?
My 3 DEC post touches on this; the actuator caries no load at approximately 45 degrees tilt in trimmed forward flight. We've actually experienced this in-flight failure mode. Early in our functional tests of a small RC demonstrator we had a structural failure resulting in complete loss of the conversion servo, and loss of one swashplate servo. Remarkably, the RC pilot was able to fly in to a flaired landing. Fixed wing controls in forward flight compensated for partial loss of rotor controls, and the powered rotor was able to soften the landing.
(As an aside, how does the osprey deal with a landing in "plane" mode?)
As I understand, the Osprey operational procedure for total power loss is a conventional airplane mode glide landing, with rotors destroyed on impact and theoretically the blade fragments being tossed away from the aircraft. Obviously, this has yet to be tested or demonstrated.
I hope someone provides the cash to look at it further...
A very senior Government official initiated an effort to do just that. Unfortunately, the rotorcraft pre-acquisition train is carried by production inertia. has no central leadership, and its prototypes are funded through producer IR&D (undirected Government overhead dollars).
Doug