Design competition from Royal Aeronautical Society focuses on eVTOL

The Roy­al Aero­nau­ti­cal Soci­ety (RAeS) is wel­com­ing entries for its fourth design com­pe­ti­tion aimed at pro­mot­ing major inno­va­tion in the gen­er­al avi­a­tion air­craft sec­tor, with a spe­cif­ic focus on eVTOL.

Run in asso­ci­a­tion with the Light Air­craft Asso­ci­a­tion (LAA), entries are invit­ed from under- and post-grad­u­ate engi­neer­ing stu­dents, pro­fes­sion­als and ama­teur air­craft design­ers. Teams of engi­neer­ing stu­dents are par­tic­u­lar­ly encour­aged and the sub­mis­sion dead­line is 31st August.

The mis­sion for the air­craft is med­ical evac­u­a­tion, and detail­ing the syn­op­sis, the RAeS said: “A hur­ri­cane has just swept across the Caribbean island of Domini­ca, destroy­ing almost all build­ings and block­ing most roads (as hap­pened in 2017).

“Those injured need to be tak­en to hos­pi­tals on neigh­bour­ing islands. A ver­ti­cal take-off, elec­tric air­craft is need­ed to evac­u­ate them, prefer­ably to those islands that are not already over­whelmed with med­ical cas­es. So achiev­able range is of the essence.”

In the rules and guid­ance doc­u­ment, any air­craft entered should have gen­er­al char­ac­ter­is­tics com­pli­ant with the require­ments of EASA
SC-VTOL and, where applic­a­ble, fixed wing han­dling and per­for­mance char­ac­ter­is­tics com­pli­ant with the require­ments of CS-23 Amend­ment 4, Sub-part B.

It should accom­mo­date a pilot, atten­dant and stretch­er case, with the fol­low­ing char­ac­ter­is­tics:

• Pilot – height up to 2000mm, weight up to 90 kg
• Atten­dant – height up to 2000mm, weight up to 90 kg
• Stretch­er case – 2000mm length x 650mm width x 550mm height, weight up to 120 kg
• Easy access for pilot, atten­dant and stretch­er
• The mis­sion is per­formed in ISA con­di­tions (sea lev­el pres­sure 1013 mb, tem­per­a­ture 15c) with zero wind

The mis­sion pro­file includes the fol­low­ing phas­es:

• Ver­ti­cal take­off from zero ft to 50 ft alti­tude, with a climb rate of at least 500 fpm
• Tran­si­tion to climb, with a climb to 1000 ft
• Cruise for max­i­mum range (in a straight line except where nec­es­sary to avoid hills)
• Descent and tran­si­tion to hov­er at 50 ft
• Ver­ti­cal descent to zero ft.

Take­off is from Melville air­field in Domini­ca in the Caribbean. The air­craft can then be flown to any oth­er Caribbean island, and land any­where rea­son­ably flat and close to sea lev­el –not nec­es­sar­i­ly at an air­field. There are islands to suit any range. Max­i­mum range is
mea­sured from take­off to land­ing.

Entries will be judged by a team of pro­fes­sion­al aero­nau­ti­cal engi­neers from the RAeS and the LAA, with win­ners being announced at the RAeS GA Group’s Light Air­craft Design Con­fer­ence held on 16th Novem­ber.

For more infor­ma­tion about the com­pe­ti­tion or to reg­is­ter your inter­est, vis­it https://www.aerosociety.com/news/raes-international-general-aviation-design-competition-2020/