The VTOL Conundrum

One of the most significant conundrum of any VTOL aircraft design is the disparity in power between hovering and cruising. There is a need to increase lift in hover without consuming more power. Just tilting the rotors will not do; e.g. for a cruise L/D of 10, thrust needs to be increased 10 times for VTOL operation, and power rises even more, exponentially.

An advanced VTOL aircraft design needs high L/D and efficient high speed thrust generation for good cruise performance, and low disk loading and no flow interactions for high hovering performance. Low disk loading usually leads to designs having large rotors, but large rotors are very detrimental to high speed cruise performance.

A wing designed to generate lift in hover, captures the highly convergent air rotor intake and augments the hover produced rotor lift, reducing the rotor size or/and power required for hover. More here: https://aliptera.com/development.html

UAV-1 unmanned concept aircraft

UAV-1 VTOL aircraft
The Aliptera UAV-1 concept aircraft

The performance of the UAV-1 is similar to a fixed wing UAV, meaning long range, increased mission time in the air, higher payload, but also capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). Having hovering ability, will outperform usual multi-rotors, as the lift created by the lip wings reduces the power requirement for hover, not mentioning that the UAV-1 is being capable of transitioning to efficient wing-borne forward flight.

The arrangement of the lip wings provides control and increases maneuverability without the need for conventional control surfaces, making the aircraft more aerodynamic and simplifying the control system.

ADR-1 VTOL concept aircraft

ADR-1 Dragon Rider
A riding personal VTOL aircraft

Lip Wing Technology enables creation of performant VTOL aircraft, simplifying design of personal VTOL aircraft. Here is an example of what it is possible, ADR-1 - an aircraft you can ride, take off directly from your driveway!

In VTOL mode the aircraft is controlled by a computerized flight computer, an advanced solution compared to the ineffective 'kinesthetic control' used by the Hiller VZ-1 Pawnee

For wing-borne flying mode the pilot sits in a prone position, similar to riding a high speed motorcycle. A study about prone position aircraft can be found here: proned-pilots

A prototype will have a landing gear or skids, the pilot will wear a strap that will secure him to the fuselage, and also will wear a parachute. Some sort of mesh or retaining feature will prevent the pilot from slipping and falling into the spinning propeller. The aircraft could be equipped with a ballistic parachute for recovery in the event of motor failure, or have a hybrid system having enough energy stored for emergency safe STOL landing

APV-1 personal concept aircraft

APV-1 VTOL aircraft
A Lip Wing personal VTOL aircraft.

A two person VTOL aircraft concept based on the Lip Wing Technology. It features a canard wing, having a main rotor and Lip Wing located aft of the aircraft, part of the main wing. The aircraft is balanced by a front ducted propeller, exposed in VTOL configuration by a series of slatted airfoils.

Some preliminary calculated parameters:

2.4m main rotor(95 inch) and 1.6m(63 inch) auxiliary rotor

180 hp engine generating 1720 lb thrust

1400lbs weight

2100ft/min; Stall 63 kts; Cruise 170 kts

Max speed 210 kts; Range 480 nmi

Contact us

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