Revolutionary Fanwing UAV

[e292644]

Link Here (http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flight-international/2008/07/video-exclusive-revolutionary.html)

[SPEED-E-FLYER]

Pretty Cool

[I.C.O.N.]

Sweet!

I bet with that technology you could actually make a flying wing. By diverting the thrust and having two "fans", one per wing, you could have independent control.

Have to keep an eye out for these guys going forward.

Andy

[jasmine2501]

Almost as interesting as the last time it was posted... :)

I find it to be one of those "why didn't I think of that?" designs. Seems to work very well, but I wonder about the durability of the motor moving all that metal around.

[Xpress..]

The torque effects would not make that possible. Would roll the entire time, and not fly at all.

I bet they just took one of those Ionic Breezes and ripped the fans out of them, and thought that they could make a plane fly with those.

But the whole concept actually working is pretty friking sweet :D I thought for sure that plane would nose into the ground without getting airborne, once I saw the tail pitch up high like that.

[Challenger 413]

This isn't new, I remember reading in R/C Modeler or MAN magazine back in the mid to late 90's about a glow powered model like this.

Challenger413

[airmcn_3]

LOL, Wonder what happens when you loose your motor......... :D

[nick.sargeant]

LOL, Wonder what happens when you loose your motor......... :D

Exactly...

[FrankC]

When you lose power the name changes to "brickwing" :rolleyes:

[FrankC]

I have watched the video several times and the flight characteristics do look good. I am not the most gifted aerodynamicist in town, so two questions: How does it actually generate thrust? How does it actually generate lift? I can't see anything that really looks like an airfoil. While watching the video I tend to look a little :confused:

[jasmine2501]

It generates thrust and lift at the same time - kind of like how a helicopter does. It pulls air in from above and in front at the same time, giving an upward and forward thrust vector...

http://www.fanwing.com/faq.htm

This is not a new idea - it is "revolutionary" in one sense of the word, but the idea has been around for a long time - more than 10 years ago I heard about it.

[FrankC]

Thanks Jasmine, interesting info. It says it will do something similar to an autorotation if the engine fails. I am old enough to have actually used one of the old manual reel lawn mowers so I don't know if I want to get too close to a fanwing. :D

[jetblackaircra]

Okay, I'll be the first to say it because I'm in a pessimistic mood. Piece of junk. They claim high efficiency.... I want to see numbers. I'd be most curious to see what it does to the tip vortices. I noticed they have control surfaces outboard of the .... engine? rotor? giant piece of crap attached to the wing? what do we call it? fan? There is no way that they could scale that up and keep the weigh reasonable. The fan will be a massive unit and imagine if it threw a blade! Not just an engine gone, a wing gone too. I'll never get near one.

[SPEED-E-FLYER]

Brother, you are pessimistic. :p

I don't think the vortexes would be much difference then any other plane.
And as far as throwing a blade, I'm sure you could engineer it just as safe as any other part of a plane.
It would be like worrying about throwing a compressor blade or worrying about losing a wing or some other piece or part.
This is not suppose to be a high speed plane but a high lift design.
I don't know for fact but I'm sure they have run the numbers for scaling it up and would not be wasting their time if they did not think they had something.

Time will tell
Forever the optimist
Larry

[Lomcevac]

The concept has been around for a few years, but it has always been Pat's design.

If the motor stops the aircraft glides, the blades continue to rotate.

Efficiency compared to a helicopter will be the key factor - Pat is confident that it stacks-up.

"In the wind-tunnel tests at Imperial College some designs achieved 28 grams/watt."
"Efficiency will probably be close to 300 N/kW in horizontal flight and in this flight phase significantly higher than the helicopter."

The aircraft flies very nicely indeed.

[FrankC]

Jasmine, I just noticed your profile. You joined RCG only a month after I did, but you have posted a few more times.

[Gary Mortimer]

So it autorotates like a helicopter really?? Some sort of sprag clutch??

Somebody has to make one look like a lawnmower though

[jasmine2501]

Jasmine, I just noticed your profile. You joined RCG only a month after I did, but you have posted a few more times.

Hehe... I used to have a job I hated with a high-speed internet connection and an office with a door... now I have a job I love but with a fairly open cube... so I'm not posting as much.

I really love this stuff though... this fanwing thing is pretty cool. It is designed to be a UAV, so I'm thinking they probably aren't going to scale it up very much. I've been involved in aviation in some way for most of my life, and I've seen this before, but I wonder about it - there must be some reason the technology hasn't matured.

[FrankC]

It is an interesting concept Jasmine. The video clip makes it look fairly stable in flight. I also grew up around aviation so I know it really takes hold. At the moment I am between jobs (darn layoffs) but I have filed the paperwork to incorporate my own business and will have some software on the market soon. If this works out I am kissing the corporate world, and their cubicles, goodbye. On a semi related topic though my second software release will be a package to track the usage, maintenance, and damage for rc airframes. It also tracks fuel usage and purchases and battery purchases and recharging. That one is on hold waiting for the main program to complete beta testing and go on sale, then I will release that one too.

[macboffin]

This isn't new, I remember reading in R/C Modeler or MAN magazine back in the mid to late 90's about a glow powered model like this.

Challenger413 Was called a "Wirblewing".

[jetblackaircra]

They specifically mention in the video they want to scale it up to a large scale aircraft....

At the scale of the UAV in the video the structure of the fan is not very substantial. Doesn't rotate incredibly fast and it's not very massive so balance, etc aren't an issue. But throwing a blade would most definately be an issue. Imagine the size of a 30 foot span fanwing. The amount of kinetic energy stored in one rotating blade section would be incredible. Could slice through the wing and bring the whole thing down if it let go at the wrong moment.

And there is a reason the technology hasn't matured... not enough benefit to make it worth while. Same reason a lot of "more efficient" designs haven't matured. The conventional airplane and the helicopter have evolved long enough to fill just about every corner of the envelope. No need to try to scrape together another 5% efficiency when it costs years of research and creates more problems than it solves (large high speed rotating structures)

[Bilbobaker]

I'd be a bit afraid of debris, birds and maybe even rain.

Cool looking plane.

[FASTBEN]

I'd be a bit afraid of debris, birds and maybe even rain.

Cool looking plane.
i don't think there will be any problem with debris a fencing will solve that problem, rain, at that speed of rotation rain will not even get close to the rotors.
ben