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Airmid Industries, offering you a range of Search and Rescue Services, including Operations Set-Up, Training and Human Factors Courses. We are pioneering the implementation of the new aircraft category Powered Lift and can provide early access to these cost-effective and versatile aircraft.
Powered Lift Aircraft Category
Powered Lift Aircraft is an aircraft category that has its origins in the 1950s; several projects in this period carried out flight tests and development. The term Powered Lift has been designated by the International Civil Aviation Organisation as:
"Powered-lift. A heavier-than-air aircraft capable of vertical take-off, vertical landing, and low-speed flight, which depends principally on engine-driven lift devices or engine thrust for the lift during these flight regimes and on non-rotating aerofoil(s) for lift during horizontal flight."
— ICAO Annex I, Chapter 1.1 Definitions
The Bell XV-3, tilt-rotor from the 1950's
Within the aircraft category, there are a number of variations, within three sub-categories. Convertiplanes, Tail Sitters and Direct Thrust.
Convertiplanes utilises rotor power to vertically take off and land and converts the thrust angle through either tilt-wings, tilt-rotors or rotor wing (a rotor that is stopped in forward flight and becomes a wing surface). The latter has few development programs and has mostly been abandoned.
Tailsitters are aircraft that sit on their tails pointing vertically up, they use rotor or jet thrust to depart into vertical flight and then rotate into horizontal returning to the ground by reversing the process. A small number of programs did achieve some success and did not go beyond the early development program.
The V22 Osprey is a direct descendant of the Bell XV-3 program
Direct Thrust, is thought to be the only successful Powered Lift program developed in the 1960s. The Vectored Thrust, Harrier jump jet continues to fly to this day and the latest fighter jet the F35B Lightning II will replace this amazing aircraft.
In this sub-category, the thrust is vectored by turning the jet nozzles to the desired angle; horizontal for forward flight and then through 90 degrees for vertical flight.
A USMC AV8 Harrier, the most successful Powered Lift aircraft to come from the 1960s VTOL experimental programs
Lift Jets is another sub-category; the German Dornier DO 31 had large nacelles at the end of its wings with vertical Lift Jets for Vertical take-off and landing. The aircraft showed real promise as both a military and civilian aircraft displayed at the 1969 Paris airshow. However, the German government cancelled the program in 1970 due to a lack of interest by other NATO countries and a smaller useful load compared to conventional aircraft.
The Dornier DO31, the only jet VTOL transport aircraft
F35 Lightning II uses a combination of lift fan and vectored thrust
Lift-Fans is the final sub-category; large fans located in traditional wing surfaces and the fuselage create lift for vertical or short take-off flight. The aircraft either shuts them down or rotates them for conventional forward flight. The F35 uses a lift fan directly behind the pilot to compliment the vectored tail nozzle to achieve vertical lift.
We cannot leave the early development of powered lift without discussing the most successful flight program of the 1950s and 60's era.
Despite losing two out of the four prototypes, the Canadian Tilt Wing CL-84 development program was a huge success. The versatility of powered lift was demonstrated with carrier operations, search and rescue (including personnel being winched), weapons firing, and logistics operations.
Despite an amazing and successful evaluation and development program. The CL-84 was a victim of time, as the Vietnam war was drawing to a close, which caused a surplus of helicopters, and coupled with a 'buy-in house' policy by the US government, sealed the aircraft's fate with no US orders. The Canadian armed forces showed great interest, providing test pilots to the program. However, again no orders were forthcoming despite over forty test pilots from the Canadian Army, Air Force, RAF, USN, USMC, USAF, US Army, NASA, and Canadair. Sadly the program was cancelled in 1974.
The first commercial certified powered lift aircraft, the AW609, was developed initially by Bell and had a strong lineage to the V22, XV-15 and XV-3. It uses standard turbine engines, and like its military counterpart, the V22 is a Tilt Rotor. Its development program has been long and troublesome, with numerous parties joining and leaving throughout its long development, with the helicopter producer, Leonardo taking full control of the development process in 2011. Certification is tantalisingly close, and the first commercial aircraft have started production.
As we started the new century, technology has helped create modern manufacturing, materials and advances in computer design software. Several start-up companies have started a new field of design and concept models for powered lift aircraft. Many of the engineers and designers' issues in the 50s and 60s can be overcome with composite modern materials, computer design software, and advanced flight management software.
This has led to hundreds of patents being registered and some great little aircraft emerging on the Transport Up website; there, at the time of writing this webpage, some 18 designs on the watch list and 68 designs in total.
Our concept aircraft is a tilt-rotor variant of eVTOL, and our partners have a tilt-wing aircraft. The consensus is going towards the fully autonomous, non-piloted taxi concept. This we believe will be a long way off, and piloted air taxis will be the first powered lift aircraft in use. Through our collaborations, Airmid can obtain early access to these amazing aircraft.
