X-50A crash leaves program in trouble

The second X-50A Dragonfly demonstrator was destroyed in a crash at Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona last week, leaving Boeing and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) pondering whether the envelope-pushing program can continue.

The mishap occurred at 7:46 a.m. Mountain time April 12. There were no injuries or property damage and the cause of the crash is not yet known, Boeing told The DAILY. An accident investigation is under way.

The Dragonfly was an unmanned experimental helicopter featuring an unusually wide rotor designed to stop in flight and act as a wing, a concept known as Canard Rotor/Wing. The first X-50A prototype also was lost in a crash in March 2004 (DAILY, March 31, 2004).

"The Boeing Company and DARPA officials are in discussions regarding the future of the Dragonfly program and Canard Rotor/Wing," the company said. The program has no aircraft remaining.

Like a tiltrotor, the Dragonfly was intended to combine the operational flexibility of a rotorcraft with the speed of a fixed-wing aircraft. With the rotor stopped, lift was generated by the stopped rotor/wing, the airframe itself and canards mounted on the nose. The program had hoped to conduct its first mid-air conversion flights this year.

Boeing was developing the Dragonfly for DARPA under a $51.8 million contract. The first flights of the aircraft in late 2003 were delayed more than a year while engineers grappled with the formidable control challenges arising from the aircraft's unique design.

From here.

There is more information here. This is a follow-on conceptually to the X-Wing Demonstrator of the 1970s and 1980s. It would really be a pity if this didn't pan out. There's not a lot of research globally on VTOL aircraft. The US has been working on alternate concepts since the 1950s and is fielding the V-22 currently, but it would really be nice to see some other concepts make it from the drawing board to actual production. VTOLs (including helicopters) have been a little stagnate lately and most of the rest of the world has been reacting to US developments since the fall of the Soviet Union: the Soviets had their own developmental programs that produced their own innovations such as dual counter-rotating main rotors without a fantail.

I would love to hear of any other nation's innovations or developments to correct my Americentric views of this though...