Freewing tilt-body concept

[hesham]

Hi,

http://www.freewing.com/1997rfi.pdf

 

[hesham]

Hi,

and freewing tilt-boom UAV.
http://freewing.net/history.html

 

[hesham]

Hi,

the MAE tilt-body UAV concept.
http://www.freewing.com/CNA_study/FinalCNAtiltbody.PDF

 

[hesham]

Hi,

a free-wing free -trimmer concept.
http://ntrs.nasa.gov/archive/nasa/casi.ntrs.nasa.gov/19790013869_1979013869.pdf

 

[luedo34]

Does anybody know "real" these concepts are? Especially the tilt boom concept.

 

[mz]

Does anybody know "real" these concepts are? Especially the tilt boom concept.

I assume you know of the free wing UAV tech demonstrator, Scorpion:
http://www.freewing.com/movies.html

I don't know about the boom one. Might simplify some control problems a lot but probably only works at small scale.

 

[Stargazer]

There seems to be a confusion here between the top of the page, which deals with the Freewing company, and the bottom part, which depicts "free wing" configurations!
For the record, the Freewing Scorpion UAV started life as Burt Rutan's Scaled Composites Model 233.

 

[Apophenia]

I presume that the tilt-boom UAV is called the Spirit because the "inventor" is channelling the ghost of Kārlis Irbītis. His pivoting boom VSTOL design used tip jets and wasn't a contraprop but, otherwise, it was mostly there in 1954.

Irbītis also worked on a "floating" tilt-wing concept (circa 1968-70). His tip elevon solution is very similar to the surfaces shown on NASA's "baseline light aircraft". (Thanks for that paper Hesham -- the forward trimmer ideas were very interesting.)

 

[Woody]

Fascinating thread - thanks guys.

I've been interested in the freewing concept for many years or more specifically: how it's aerodynamics could be employed to enhance maneuverability on a variable incidence winged fighter. We've all seen how the AFTI programme intended to use variable incidence wings to allow fuselage pointing independent of flight vector and presumable they would offer spectacular roll rates but were they ever used to enhance agility?

In most probability the AoA would have to be controlled by a FCS so would not strictly be freewings but the aerodynamic principle is the same. Here are a couple of diagrams of how I think it would work, compared to a conventional TVC fighter (F-22 or Su-30).

Cheers, Woody

 

[Stargazer]

A 1995 promotional leaflet of Freewing's Scorpion tilt-body UAV, which was developed by Burt Rutan as the Scaled Composites Model 233 and initially tested by him as a 40%-scale model.

 

[Stargazer]

More Freewing-related stuff...

 

[Stargazer]

And more still...

 

[Stargazer]

Some Freewing-related documents from my hard disk (though some may still be found online):

 

[mz]

I wonder if the freewing tilt body inspired Rutan to invent the Spaceshipone tilt mechanism. Even the tail surfaces look very much the same.

 

[ScrutorAudax]

I found this free-wing flutter test video. It reminds me of the NA-335 with its single vertical tail complemented with two ventral tails. It also appears that there are canards that tilt on the same axis. Does anyone know more about it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqfNbfcSiGo