Fast Rotorcraft

Aircraft designers are always striving to improve payload capacity, reduce fuel consumption and increase vehicle range. Europe’s Clean Sky 2 program planned two very different types of rotorcraft: a tilt-rotor and a compound rotorcraft. With this in mind, the EU-funded GAM-2020-FRC project aims to design, build and fly a new state-of-the-art tilt-rotor civil technology demonstrator.

The configuration will include tilting thrusters mounted on fixed nacelles at the wingtips, the design of which will minimize rotor downwash in hover and increase efficiency. The project will also develop and test a full-scale, airworthy demonstrator for the composite aircraft. This new aircraft architecture comprises a lift rotor with two side rotors at the wingtips of the box in a pusher configuration.