Conventional helicopters provide unique capabilities in that they are able to take of vertically and utilise small helipad/helideck infrastructure or even unprepared surfaces, used for emergency services, off-shore exploration and corporate/passenger transport. Helicopters are however limited in speed due to aerodynamics stall characteristics of the retreating main rotor blade during flight and hence operating range. To bridge the between conventional helicopters and utility/commuter fixed wing aircraft and retain the benefits of vertical tale-off and landing; both in speed and range/productivity, new rotorcraft configurations need to be exploited.
The Fast Rotorcraft IADP of Clean Sky 2 is investing to acquire the basic engineering know-how for rotary-wing platforms. Two types of configurations are under development: a tiltrotor and a compound aircraft. Both will ensure more demanding operational requirements which cannot be satisfactorily met with conventional helicopter architectures. Two flying demonstrators will be produced, the NGCTR tiltrotor (Next Generation Civil TiltRotor; leader: Leonardo Helicopters) and the RACER compound rotorcraft (Rapid And Cost Efficient Rotorcraft; leader: Airbus Helicopters). objectives are: to define new/adapted criteria for the fast rotorcraft missions, in line with the TE approach; to perform Eco-Design activities and use the Life Cycle Assessment approach to allow the implementation of greening of rotorcraft production processes; to investigate engine installation and flight trajectories optimization to reduce CO2 emissions, as well as new material, surface treatments (NGCTR); to mature the compound rotorcraft configuration allowing increased capabilities such as payload capacity, agility in vertical flight including capability to land on unprepared surfaces, load/unload rescue personnel and victims while hovering, long range, high cruise speed, low fuel consumption and gas emission, low community noise impact, and productivity for operators (RACER).
