Texo

Even though tilt-wings with multi-engine distributed propulsion architectures are complex and relatively difficult to implement, we avoided more simple design approaches, like basic combos of electric engines for VTOL with a fuel engine for cruise flight.

These designs are easy to implement but lack of powerplant synergy, adding unnecessary weight to the aircraft (fuel engine when taking off and landing; and all electric engines used for those operations when in cruise flight.

Why tandem wings?

1. Tandem wings add to lifting, stability, control, and trim.
2. Four wings are smaller than two and cause less structural stress, and complexity. This allows better payload arrangement with less structural strain.
3. Vertical take-off and landing operation.
4. Take-off and land on moving platforms.
5. Proper alignment between front and rear wings reduces the angle of attack of the rear wing, causing the front wing to stall first, improving low speed flight.
6. Fixed-wing leveled cruise velocity and efficiency.
7. Flexible cargo distribution in the payload compartment (CG shifting tolerance).
8. In-flight hoovering capabilities.

Why Tiltwings?

1. Even though tilt-wings are less efficient for vertical take-off and landing than rotorcraft architectures (helicopters), in tiltwing architectures, the slipstream from the rotors goes through the wings, applying higher lifting power.
2. It is easier to transition from VTOL to leveled cruise flight.
3. As in rotorcrafts, tiltwings eliminate the need of airstrips, or ground launching/ catching equipment (causing airframe strain, shorten its life).
4. Tiltwings allow the use of bigger, slow tip speed propellers for reduced noise and better VTOL.

Why Hybrid Powerplant?

Our >50kg MTOW Texo variants are suited with hybrid-electric power system powering eight distributed electric engines along the wings. The batteries add power for VTOL, hovering, and in case of emergency landing, and power the payload.

The basic advantage of using this hybrid architecture is that, as the energy density of lithium-ion batteries is much lower than aviation fuel, the use of a small fuel engine to power a generator increases the flight range compared to an only-electric aircraft, at a lower weight.

The hybrid electric propulsion system is implemented with distributed, independent electric engines with tolerance failure (relative asymmetric redundancy), and lower noise flight segments (turning off the gas engine) during when missions require stealth.