TEXO PROGRAM: TANDEM TILT-WING, HYBRID-ELECTRIC, MULTIPURPOSE VTOL

Texo

Texo (Hummingbird in Amazon Yanomami language) is a cutting-edge Tandem, Tiltwing VTOL Aircraft design Program started in early 2018. The airframe design is in its stable version since late of 2021.

This aircraft concept is optimized for operationally complex missions, where aircraft logistics are constrained, hovering is sometimes required, and payload distribution could affect position of center of gravity, as is the case of cargo hauling.

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 unecessary weight to the aircraft (fuel engine when taking off and landing; and all electric engines used for those operations when in cruise flight.

The tandem tilt-wing configuration enables this platform to:

  1. Vertical take-off and landing operation.
  2. Fixed-wing leveled cruise velocity and efficiency.
  3. Flexible cago distribution in the payload compartment (CG shifting tolerance).
  4. In-flight hoovering capabilities
  5. Take-off and land on moving platforms.

General Specifications

Why Tandem Wings?

  1. Tandem wings have a wide gap between wings, enabling the CG to shift, granting more flexibility for loading and distributing cargo. 
  2. Tandem wings add to lifting, stability, control, and trim.
  3. Proper alignment between front and rear wings reduce the angle of attack of the rear wing, causing the front wing to stall first, improving low speed flight.
  4. Four wings are smaller than two and cause less structural stress, and complexity. This allows better payload arrangement with less structural strain.

Why Tiltwings?

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

Why Hybrid Powerplant?

The hybrid-electric powerplant is structured with a combustion engine powering a generator to charging lithium-ion batteries, and 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.

Why multiengine propulsion?

The multiengine electric propulsion located along the wings, offers higher propulsion efficiency, and gliding performance, enabling a distributed air flow, reducing the effect of transversal winds.

Texo is configured with eight distributed smaller engines, with higher thrust-to-weight ratio, adding safety in redundancy, while reducing cost of acquisition, service, and replacement.

Moldular design

Texo is designed with modular airframe architecture for fast manufacturing, easy servicing, and cost-effective maintenance.

Texo Versions

This aircraft is optimized for urban SIGINT and ISR intrusive operations, where aircraft logistics are constrained, hovering is sometimes required, and aircraft should be almost silent.

Texo TL

This Tactical Logistics aircraft concept is optimized for operationally complex missions, where aircraft operations are spatially constrained, and payload distribution could affect the position of the center of gravity, as is the case of cargo hauling.