Cheeseman Award Paper: Bluecopter Demonstrator: The State-of-the-Art in Low Noise Design

The present paper intents to present the state-of-the-art in current rotorcraft noise reduction technologies using the example of the innovative BLUECOPTER™ demonstrator (Figure 1). All described noise reduction features, notably the active rudder and the Fenestron® noise measures such as the advanced rotor blades, the evolved stator design and the innovative Fenestron® lining concept, contribute to the challenging and ambitious objective of reducing the noise emission of the rotorcraft directly at the source in a wide range of operationally relevant flight states. The paper incorporates results from the latest BLUECOPTER™ acoustic flight test campaign in final configuration and demonstrates the exceptional low noise signature of the BLUECOPTER™ demonstrator in various flight conditions.