Tilting Trifan

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High speed vertical lift aircraft has always been a constant search for the aerospace engineering community. During this search, only two aircraft have partial success reaching this goal so far, a jetfighter and a tilt rotor. The jetfighter can only land vertically but not take off. The tilt rotor cannot reach 300 knots and has other limitations. Recent evolutions of these aircraft, now in development, will improve their capabilities but may never reach performance comparable to standard fixed wing aircraft. My objective with this design is to eliminate this performance gap and enable the production of an efficient vertical take off or landing aircraft capable of both high speed and lift capabilities.

The present invention is a vertical take off or landing aircraft with the ability to reach high subsonic speeds comparable to current jetliners with minimal impact on efficiency. The aircraft may be propelled by high bypass turbofans directly for high speeds or ducted fans powered with electric, hybrid or combustion energy systems. Depending on the size and application of the aircraft, the design can easily change from battery powered pure electric small UAVs to jetliner turbine powered craft capable of carrying passengers and cargo.

The size of the turbines or ducted fans will vary the lift versus cruising efficiency so we can choose between higher speed and medium lift or lower speed and higher lift. Whether we choose higher or lower lift capability, i believe this design will greatly exceed what is now possible and provide a safer more efficient vertical lift solution.

The aircraft is composed of three tilting ducted fans or turbofans (1),two forward swept wings (2), two horizontal stabilizers (3), two vertical stabilizers (4), and the center fuselage (5). Alternatively, a V tail may replace the rear stabilizers.

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  • ABOUT THE ENTRANT

  • Name:
    Joaquim Santos
  • Type of entry:
    individual
  • Profession:
    Engineer/Designer
  • Number of times previously entering contest:
    4
  • Joaquim's favorite design and analysis tools:
    Cad software
  • For managing CAD data Joaquim's company uses:
    Siemens Teamcenter
  • Joaquim's hobbies and activities:
    Inventing stuff, some sport, playing music
  • Joaquim is inspired by:
    simplicity and usefulness.
  • Software used for this entry:
    Autodesk 360 - Varicad
  • Patent status:
    pending