Performance and Trade Studies of a Mono Tiltrotor Design

The Mono Tiltrotor (MTR) is a proposed, innovative heavy-lift rotorcraft architecture. The emerging military strategies most suited to potential application of the MTR are Navy Sea Basing with Ship to Objective Maneuver, and Army Future Combat Systems with mounted maneuver and air mobility. The capabilities of the MTR are predicated on the combination of an advanced coaxial rotor system and sophisticated kinematics that morph the aircraft topology for efficient flight over the entire operational envelope. The MTR rotorcraft integrates a coaxial rotor, a folding lifting wing system, a lightweight airframe and an efficient cargo handling system that is capable of rapidly and economically transporting a variety of mission tailored payloads. A series of design and performance trade studies have been conducted to evaluate the characteristics of the MTR design concept. These studies include lift-to-drag ratio estimation, wing sizing, mission parameter studies, and a point design optimization for heavy-lift, long range missions, including a full performance summary of the resulting configuration.