

NASA’s New 10-Engine Drone Is Half Chopper, Half Plane - samaysharma
http://www.wired.com/2015/05/nasas-new-10-engine-drone-half-chopper-half-plane/

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s_q_b
All day I can watch the V-22 Osprey tiltrotors come in in VTOL mode and land
at the Pentagon. They seem even more common than transport helicopters. Now
that the early crash-kinks are worked out, they're a truly amazing aircraft.
[http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey](http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_Boeing_V-22_Osprey)

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skorgu
See also the similarly-configured LEAPTech model:
[http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
talk/aerospace/aviation/nasas-...](http://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-
talk/aerospace/aviation/nasas-newest-xplane-will-fly-with-18-electric-motors)

That one doesn't do VTOL but there are apparently nontrivial efficiency gains
from that configuration even without tilting the wings. If you could get
enough efficiency gains from the reduced wing loading to offset the weight of
the wing tilting apparatus you could effectively get VTOL 'for free' (maybe, I
don't know jack about aerodynamics).

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higherpurpose
Looks a bit...inefficient? At least compared to regular helicopters, and I
assume it doesn't go much faster than a helicopter going by its design. But at
least its bigger than any existing helicopter, so there's that.

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larrydag
I believe the range and speed are the assets of the V-22 compared to similar
size helicopters.

[http://helicopters.axlegeeks.com/compare/18-24/Sikorsky-
CH-5...](http://helicopters.axlegeeks.com/compare/18-24/Sikorsky-CH-53K-vs-
Bell-BOEING-V-22-Osprey)

As I understand it the main drawback of the V-22 is the drag effect of the
"larger" blades in airplane mode. So I assume that NASA is testing tilt-rotor
aircraft with more engines with smaller blades in hopes of increasing the
range and speed over current tilt-rotor aircraft.

