The development and production costs for VTOL aircraft are very high. An obvious way to reduce these costs is to use components from the existent aircraft. Reusing a larger and highly complex component induces lower costs of development and production. In this presentation, it is proposed to re-use the entire fuselage from a commercial airplane for conversion to VTOL aircraft.

The new VTOL aircraft concept with Distributed Electric Propulsion

Within the present concept we wish to develop a "best in class," advanced VTOL aircraft system utilizing the new Distributed Electric Propulsion - DEP, combining the Vertical Take Off and Landing capabilities of a helicopter with the horizontal speed and payload of a traditional jet airplane. This new VTOL aircraft using the new DEP will revolutionize regional flying and provide an accessible and affordable transportation platform for both the commercial and civilian/military markets while reducing capital and operating expenses.

To achieve these goals is proposed to use an existent fuselage, of a cylindrical type, which is or was already manufactured by an existent aircraft producer. This is easy to be modified to fix a special shape wing system having several components, which allows supporting a Distributed Electric Propulsion – DEP system to be placed over the center of gravity of the aircraft. The DEP system is of the type with multiple thrust vectoring.

A first variant uses multiple propellers with ducted fans and thrust augmenters which are rotatable mounted at the end of the wings.

A second variant uses multiple propellers with superposed open rotors acted by electrical motors. In vertical flight the multiple propellers are oriented horizontally and the produced air streams are vertically oriented. In forward flight the multiple propellers are oriented vertically and the produced air streams are horizontally oriented.

Manufacturability

There aren’t new technologies or precious materials necessary to build the concept. This can be manufactured easily with the current technology used in aircraft manufacturing and with existent suppliers.

Market opportunities

o Door to door or vertiport to vertiport transportation
o Fast deliveries for commercial and medical purposes
o Medical emergency services
o Re-supply of offshore oil and gas platforms
o Inaccessible regions delivery
o Aerial fire-fighting
o Spreading substances in agriculture as an air-tractor
o Rapid deployment of troops and cargo from remote locations all over the world including from naval locations
o Pollution and traffic monitoring

Benefits of the technology

Developing this new technology from an existent aircraft induces several huge advantages for general aviation:
o Reduced development cost with around 50%
o Reduced manufacturing cost with around 40%
o Each powerplant can be oriented individually to ensure the vertical flight, the forward flight and the compensation forces in case of side winds
o Improved control with the electric motors at low speed
o Need less power to take off and land, determining improved disk loading and hover efficiency compared with existent VTOL solutions
o Improved redundancy
o Scalability of the design from drones to large aircraft