Employment of Conceptual Civil Tiltrotor Aircraft in Disaster Response

Government and civilian agencies rely on vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft to perform a variety of missions to assist and protect the public during emergencies resulting from man-made or natural disasters. Helicopters have proven to be critical to the success of post-disaster operations due to their ability to hover, land in physically restricted areas, and enter those areas inaccessible to land or water vehicles. Understanding how technological advances in rotorcraft (RC) technology can be applied to these operations will enhance the effectiveness of emergency services. Thus a research team, using a stochastic queuing model to simulate the emergency response events associated with a "Katrina-like" disaster, investigated the effectiveness of RC fleets, consisting of a mix of conventional rotorcraft (CRC) and conceptual civil tiltrotor (CTR) aircraft, while performing transport, search and rescue (SAR), and evacuation missions.