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Next-Generation Civil Tiltrotor (NGCTR)

As of 2015 AgustaWestland planned to fly its next-generation civil tiltrotor (NGCTR) in 2021, two years later than previously anticipated. The 20-passenger rotorcraft, which is much larger than the in-development nine-seat AW609 tiltrotor, is in the conceptual design phase. “Preliminary design will start in 2016,” senior vice president of helicopters and services marketing James Wang told AIN October 12, 2015. Manufacturing of components was expected to begin in 2017, he added.

Leonardo Helicopters detailed plans to test and fly a prototype of a second-generation civil tiltrotor by 2023 as a successor to the developmental AgustaWestland AW609, Stephen Trimble of Flightglobal reported 07 March 2017. This marked a two-year delay over its most recent timeline for the project. The company had long pursued a larger and more efficient design than the AW609, which the Italian manufacturer inherited from a defunct collaboration with Bell Helicopter.

NextGenCTR will be dedicated to the design, construction and flying of an innovative Civil Tiltrotor technology demonstrator, the configuration of which will go beyond current architectures for this type of aircraft. NextGenCTR’s demonstration activities will aim to validate its architecture, technologies/systems and operational concepts.

Demonstration activities will show significant improvement with respect to current Tiltrotors’ state-of-the-art. The project will also facilitate the development of substantial R&T activities to increase the knowledge base, as the Tiltrotor platform has not yet been certified for civil aircraft use.

The NextGenCTR demonstrator will also be used to generate a research and innovation volume of activities above a certain critical mass (not available today for Tiltrotors within the EU), comparable to that of well-proven conventional helicopter platforms.

NextGenCTR will continue and further develop what has been initiated in Clean Sky 1, and launch new activities specific to Clean Sky 2 and the NextGenCTR project. In the area of CO2 emissions reduction, NextGenCTR will continue and develop engine installation and flight trajectories optimisation (this is currently carried out using analytical models and with scaled model tests, whereas Clean Sky 2 will validate it at near full scale).

Specific new activities in Clean Sky 2 which focus on drag reduction of the prop-rotor and airframe fuselage and wing will be necessary (due to a new generation of prop-rotor, modified fuselage-wing architecture). The key enabling feature of a Tiltrotor, namely the tilting mechanism enabling vertical take-off and landing, will be completely redesigned based on new capabilities in aerodynamic and structural analysis, design, and next-generation manufacturing and assembly principles. This will also allow important operational cost reduction to address the competitiveness of the architecture and solutions adopted.

A new prop-rotor will require substantial research (aero-acoustics, by modelling/by tests) to reduce noise emissions (to be validated at near full scale). In Clean Sky 1, noise reduction is mainly addressed through trajectories optimisation (this will in any event continue in Clean Sky 2, and will be linked to SESAR concepts where necessary). Clean Sky 2 transversal subjects will cover new materials (e.g. thermoplastics, surface treatments, less hydraulics and more electrical systems) validating them at full scale and in real operational conditions, and sustain the development of the Technology Evaluator for the case of the Tiltrotor.

Parameters need to be defined to show Clean Sky 2 achieves progress in line with a specific Tiltrotor roadmap (a direct comparison with conventional helicopter architecture would be inappropriate as the two configurations must be regarded as substantially different types of rotary-wing platforms).

Today, certified tiltrotors are not available in the civil sector (while only one product is available in the military). Hence, a database from which baseline information for the current state-of-the-art can be extracted is not available. Therefore, ‘key performance parameters’ (KPP) will be introduced to show NextGenCTR’s progress with respect to reference data taken as baseline (mainly referring to technologies which have been tested or conceptually designed in the period 2005-2012). Objectives will be defined considering tiltrotor specifics and in line with the main pillars of Horizon 2020 (towards Smart, Green and Integrated Transport), and Clean Sky 2 (which addresses environmental compatibility - Greening Objectives – competitiveness, Industrial Leadership, and mobility).

Attention to the project’s impact on the EU Economy and job creation will also be considered, looking at potential revenues, workforce productivity, rate of new employment (in particular of higher educated personnel) and R&D expenditure.