Bell Trail Rotor convertiplane (stowed rotor)

AeroFranz

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Going over an AHS paper I found some nice artist's impression of their trail rotor concept - sadly of poor quality and B&W.
The trail rotor concept is similar to the folding tilt rotor (Bell/Boeing FASTR program) but the rotor pylons tilt back.


for FASTR, see http://www.secretprojects.co.uk/forum/index.php/topic,14644.msg63621.html#msg63621
 

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My understanding is that it used a 'convertible' engine. A turbofan in cruise flight, and a turboshaft in hover mode. IIRC, NASA tested a TF-34 which had some fan inlet vanes and an additional power take-off shaft that enabled it to switch from one mode to the other. And yeah, putting shafts in those pylons would be a challenge.
 
DARPA hard?

(As in one of the likely contenders for new DARPA program)
 
First trail rotor concepts emerged at Bell in the early sixties. It was later picked up by MD in the eighties (I think).
The problem of a dedicated convertible engine remains. It's not that I don't think it can be done. It probably requires less consecutive miracles than other DARPA programs I am familiar with, but the convertible engine should be a DARPA program on its own.
 

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