By Sky Sartorius, graphics by Dan Newman
One of the goals in developing GoAERO was to allow for a diverse range of strategies and configurations to be competitive. We anticipated that participating teams would naturally emphasize different aspects of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft design, playing to their individual strengths, priorities, and strategic approach.
The vertical/short takeoff and landing (V/STOL) wheel shows the small handful of major successful configurations out of scores that made it to flight, where nature and physics provide the ultimate test of viability. As history has shown, and as illustrated by the wheel, discovering viable concepts requires exploring a multitude of ideas.
Stage 1 of GoAERO has been remarkably successful in prompting a variety of approaches. To visualize this diversity, we've mapped the Stage 1 submissions onto the new “V” taxonomy being developed by the Vertical Flight Society. This updated classification system provides a more comprehensive way to categorize the various V/STOL aircraft designs, including new and novel configurations.
The evolution from wheel, to color wheel, to “V” taxonomy.
The GoAERO Stage 1 submissions already demonstrate impressive variation, showcasing the ingenuity and creativity of the participating teams. Stage 1 configurations are mapped onto the “V” below, where the size of a bubble correlates to the number of submissions of that family.
The wide variety of GoAERO Stage 1 submission configuration families mapped onto the new V/STOL taxonomy.
Note that the “V” taxonomy doesn’t capture differentiation in power source or systems, presence of wings for forward flight, or quantity or arrangement of propulsors. A conventional single rotor helicopter is the same family as a tandem-wing battery-electric synchropter (two intermeshing rotors). So, large bubbles on the chart encompass a further variety of distinct configurations. The largest bubble, lift with propellers, is the multicopters (from bicopters to tetracosacopters [24]) favored by many teams perhaps to lower development risk on the short GoAERO timeline or simply as a very common default configuration. The competition remains wide open, and with such a diverse pool, Stage 2, where prototypes of these configurations have to fly, promises to be exciting.
