Achievements of VKI on EC-SOAR Project
A workshop on the 18th of June at Paris Air Show 2015 (Le Bourget) saw a progress report from the Europeans SOAR (diStributed Open-rotor AiRcraft) project which is investigating the feasibility and commercial prospects of the revolutionary FanWing flying vehicle. FanWing uses a horizontally-rotating fan to produce an aircraft with extremely benign flying qualities, such as enhanced stability, no appreciable stall and STOL.
While FanWing's inventor Pat Peebles had already flown the FanWing as a subscale UAV, SOAR had added partners University of Saarland, the von Karman Institute and DLR, to contribute expertise on the fan drive, CFD and wind tunnel tests, and commercial viability. Wind tunnel tests saw a quarter span 1.2m section tested in VKI, with the results now being tested and compared to CFD modelling.
The FanWing, which offers almost the flexibility of a helicopter for slow/STOL flight, yet operating costs close to a fixed wing aircraft has been described has number of potential applications – including crop-spraying, fire-fighting, disaster relief and as a ultra-STOL Short Skyvan type freight
aircraft.
Text extracted the Royal Aeronautical Society
