Liftoplane project

Vision of opportunities...

About the project

The site that you visited presents a non-conventional aircraft, which I invented and continue to develop from some time, as one of my personal projects. This aircraft implements a some abstract concept and can be considered as a composition of two things with respect to their operations. These things are: a lift, i.e. elevator and a glider. So, it can be named as “liftglider”, but I selected another name: “liftoplane”, since it sounds closer to "airplane", which is a powered aircraft, instead of a glider that is not powered. Liftoplane is also powered aircraft, but it has significant benefits over an airplane in terms of higher propulsion efficiency than any other aircraft. It has the propulsion efficiency for most flight operations more than 99 percent. This feature follows from the mentioned concept, which I call the “flying elevator” concept.

This concept is explained in detail in the topic ““Flying elevator” concept”, but generally it can be considered as a lift moving in any vertical direction along a wire suspended under a glider in flight. The conceptual system is pure mechanical with respect to powering the conceptual lift, and the power is not consumed for the horizontal propulsion at all. The gravitational force that applies to the conceptual glider provides the entire propulsion for this system. This relation between the powering and propulsion provides the high propulsion efficiency, which I mentioned above.

Liftoplane is also kind of cyclorotor aircraft with respect to its appearance. There is a long time trend toward developing a cyclorotor aircraft capable of performing a manned flight, but it has still not been successful. I consider some misconceptions disabled the accomplishing this task, what I discuss in the topic “Cyclorotor aircraft”, but mainly a tendency to develop such an aircraft with the capability of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) was this misconception. Liftoplane is not a kind of VTOL aircraft, and it is not capable of such operations. Only following the “flying elevator” concept permits to accomplish this manned flight.

As I pointed above, the concept considers that the lift is moving in any direction. And this is reflected in the ability of the liftoplane in recuperating energy during descent or upon dropping the speed with the same efficiency as for consuming it. High torque electric engines with accumulators are used for the powering and recuperation. This engines act toward the rotors directly, without any powering gears, in order to avoid the respective power losses and maintenance issues that exist, for example, for helicopters. This recuperation permits for the liftoplane a high rate of descent and the ability of replenishing empty accumulators in order to have enough energy to perform the approaching and landing operations.

Also, the liftoplane can glide with the steady rotors and have a moderate lift to drag ratio (LDR), such as 14 and above, dependently on its scale and aspect ratio. This ability provides a sufficient level of safety in the event of an electricity outage. Both rotors have a common powering shaft, and the entire aircraft can fly on one engine if the event of an electricity outage occurred for the other, additionally increasing the level of safety.

Liftoplane uses a specific system of low-level handling of its rotors, the utilization of which can be referenced by a state of them. The details of this are explained in the topic “The PGS-state”, but generally this state can be considered as a three-component vector from the values of “pitch-gain-skew”. The aircraft is adhered to this system by having specific steering mechanics that I call the “four-gears pitch steering scheme”. The details of this are explained in the topic “The four-gears pitch steering scheme”. Particular diagrams of operations of the rotors with respect to this scheme are also represented in this topic.

Liftoplane also uses a specific system of high-level handling of its rotors. The details of this are explained in the topic “Biangular handling”. Generally, the biangular handling permits to have some pair of handling parameters invariable to the changeable airflow condition, which values can be compared with respect to an airplane as an angle of attack (AoA) and a flaps angle. This system acts through interaction with the in-flight computer from the joystick in the pilot's fingers toward the mechanics of the low-level handling of the rotors.

The biangular handling requires the entire aircraft to follow the airstream in order to have a steady reference frame relative this airstream. Stabilators and a specific Stream Deviation Tube (SDT), which actions in detail are explained in the topic “The “stream following” mode of operation”, support this ability.

The functionality of the aircraft was subjected to detailed modeling based on many physical aspects, mainly aerodynamic. The details of this are explained in the section “Modeling”. Generally, specific elements of such aspects are: extended polar data, the use of the inflow instead of induced drag, a generalized inflow model, and wings interference.

This modeling was accomplished for all principal operations of a typical entire flight. A set of 3-D animated images was created from the result data of this modeling using CAD software. See it in the section “Operations”.

Modeling, construction and most of the illustrative material of the liftoplane are directed toward a two-seat experimental model, which is a near goal for building this type of aircraft capable of performing a manned flight. Aircraft of larger scales can be built after this, utilizing the primary experience.

The aircraft has a set of options to enhance and gain benefits with respect to particular aspects of operation and usability. The details of this are explained in the sub-section “Options”. Generally, they include solutions for: reducing of the remaining vibrations, increasing the aspect ratio, high speed subsonic flight, and hybridizing with a combustion engine. The last permits long-distance flights.

The evolution of the feasibility of implementation of the “flying elevator” concept is represented in the topic “Evolution. From “wired wings” to cyclorotor”. I used the biangular handling originally during modeling of these “wired wings” aircraft.

My intellectual properties for the liftoplane aircraft are covered by the patent published here.