NASA's ten-engine VTOL craft finishes first successful test flight

 

NASA has developed a prototype VTOL (vertical takeoff and landing) aircraft powered by a whopping ten electric engines.

Dubbed Greased Lightning—or GL-10—the prototype was developed by a research team at NASA’s Langley Research Center, initially as an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV).

 

The GL-10 has a 3.05-meter wingspan, eight electric motors on its wings, two electric motors on the tail, and a maximum of 28.1 kg.

 

“We have a couple of options that this concept could be good for,” said Bill Fredericks, aerospace engineer. “It could be used for small package delivery or vertical takeoff and landing, long endurance surveillance for agriculture, mapping and other applications.”

 

Fredericks added that a larger version of the GL-10 could be used as a passenger air vehicle that can carry up to four people.

 

 

The GL-10 is currently still in the design and testing phase, with 12 prototypes of differing weights and body structures.

 

“Each prototype helped us answer technical questions while keeping costs down,” said aerospace engineer David North. “We did lose some of the early prototypes to ‘hard landings’ as we learned how to configure the flight control system. But we discovered something from each loss and were able to keep moving forward.”

 

The GL-10 has already passed previous hover tests where it flew like a helicopter, and the most recent test it underwent shows that it can also fly like an airplane.

 

“During the flight tests we successfully transitioned from hover to wing-borne flight like a conventional airplane then back to hover again. So far we have done this on five flights,” said Fredericks. “We were ecstatic. Now we're working on our second goal—to demonstrate that this concept is four times more aerodynamically efficient in cruise than a helicopter.”

 

The GL-10 will be making an appearance at the Association for Unmanned Vehicles Systems International 2015 conference from May 4-7. It will be the centerpiece of a NASA Langley UAV research exhibit. — Bea Montenegro/TJD, GMA News