Aurora Flight Sciences wins DARPA X-Plane downselect

Aurora Flight Sciences has been downselected by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as the sole company to continue to its vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) X-Plane experimental technology demonstrator programme.

The company announced on 3 March that it had been selected with its partners Rolls-Royce and Honeywell to build its unmanned LightningStrike X-Plane demonstrator under Phase 2 of the project, having beaten-off competition from Boeing, Karem, and Sikorsky.
Announced by DARPA in early 2013, the VTOL X-Plane programme is geared at demonstrating efficient hover and high-speed flight. The specific requirements are that the aircraft achieve a top sustained flight speed of 300 kt to 400 kt; raise aircraft hover efficiency from 60% to at least 75%; present a more favourable cruise lift-to-drag ratio of at least 10, up from the current 5-6; and carry a useful load of at least 40% of the vehicle's projected gross weight of 10,000-12,000 lb (4,500-5,450 kg). While DARPA did not specify whether the X-Plane should be manned or unmanned, all of the entrants opted for unmanned.
Aurora Flight Sciences' successful concept features tilt-wing- and tilt-canard-based propulsion for VTOL and high efficiency in both the hover and high-speed forward flight. Specifically, the aircraft is equipped with a Rolls-Royce AE 1107C turboshaft engine that will power three Honeywell electric distributed propulsion (EDP) generators that in turn will drive 24 ducted fans distributed on both the wings and canards.
Pending successful completion of key programme milestones, to be achieved in collaboration with DARPA, Aurora Flight Sciences plans to conduct the first flight tests of the technology demonstrator in the 2018 timeframe.