Andy Nativi/GENOA
An Agusta-led team is seeking European Union (EU) research and development funding for a second generation tiltrotor which uses a tilting outer wing and can take off like a conventional airliner as well as vertically.
Italian company Agusta is seeking around 90 million euros ($92 million) from the EU's 5th Framework research programme to build a ground test version of the Erica 20-seat tiltrotor. The test airframe could be built four or five years after go-ahead and will be used to develop the aircraft's dynamic and structural components. A prototype 20-seat feeder airliner could fly two years later.
A 33-member consortium headed by Eurocopter is also seeking EU funds for a 19-seat tiltrotor, while Agusta and GKN Westland, which are in the process of merging, are also seeking funding for a compound helicopter, which is a competing technology. The EU is expected to decide next year.
Agusta's 16-strong Erica team includes GKN Westland, ZF Luftfahrttechnik, Aermacchi, Gamesa, Israel Aircraft Industries, Saab and NLR of the Netherlands.
The Italian manufacturer says it aims to use newly patented concepts and technologies to take a quantum leap over tiltrotors developed in the USA by Bell Helicopter Textron, its partner in the nine-seat BA609 project.
The design features outer wings that rotate along with the wingtip- mounted proprotors. Tilting the wing for vertical flight - first seen in the 1960s on the Canadair CL-84 and LTV-Ryan-Hiller XC-142, and more recently in the Ishida Tiltwing - means the rotor's downwash does not impinge on the horizontal wing.
Removing the wing's blocking effect increases thrust by about 12%, says Agusta. In turn, this allows a reduction in the size of the propeller/rotor which makes them more efficient, allowing a cruise speed of around 350kt (650km/h).
Agusta says the aircraft will be able to take-off and land conventionally, albeit with the wing tilted by 5í-7íso that the blades do not contact the runway. To aid propeller tip clearance, Erica's wing will be mounted high above the fuselage and it will be fitted with a tall retractable undercarriage.
The wing spar will be a carbon-composite tube housing the shafts that link the engines at the inboard end of the tilting wing panel with the tip-mounted propellers. Agusta says this simplifies the power transmission system. It will be certificated to perform single-engined take-offs and landings at maximum take-off weight.
Erica will be a pressurised airframe, 16.6m (54.5ft) long, have a 20.4m wingspan over the rotors and be 6.5m high. Weight will be around 10t and the engines will be in the 1,800kW (2,400shp) class.
Source: Flight International
