The Open Aircraft Project is an initiative by the UK Complex Autonomous Aircraft Systems Configuration, Analysis, and Design Exploratory (CASCADE) Programme Grant team to create small unoccupied aerial system (SUAS) designs which are freely available to all. Starting with a representative but challenging set of mission requirements, two individual teams have designed, built and test flown competing vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) configurations. This paper describes the contribution made to this project by the University of Bristol. A tail-sitter configuration was explored in order to achieve launch and recovery within restricted spaces. The wing design was chosen to achieve a compromise between low-speed, range and endurance objectives. The resulting aircraft show improved performance over existing designs that will be invaluable in facilitating volcanic survey flights at ranges and payloads greater than currently achievable. Results are given for both a scaled version and the final 2.6 m span aircraft.
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