The Joby S2 VTOL Concept: Exploring the New Degrees of Design Freedom of Distributed Electric Propulsion

摘要

Despite more than 70 years of vertical flight development, there are only three operational types of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft today: helicopters, the V-22 Osprey tiltrotor and the AV-8B Harrier jumpjet.lt could be argued that VTOL aircraft went through its period of rapid experimentation, and like commercial transports, settled on the configuration that offered the best approach. It could also be argued that the technologies that have developed over the past 40 years (composites, digital avionics, lightweight propulsion, etc.) have simply enabled the same approaches to be better. But a question that's quickly intriguing many VTOL aircraft design experts is whether the emerging electric propulsion technologies require us to fundamentally question which configuration approach offers the best value proposition for civil and military mission capabilities.