March 19, 2014

DARPA’s Selects Four contender companies for new X-Plane Program

Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, The Boeing Company, Karem Aircraft, Inc. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation selected for the new X-Plane Program.





DARPA has tasked four companies with designing new aircraft to revolutionise vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) flight capabilities. The four are Aurora Flight Sciences Corporation, The Boeing Company, Karem Aircraft, Inc. and Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation. The next major milestone for VTOL X-Plane is scheduled for late 2015, when the four performers are required to submit preliminary designs.

All four winning companies proposed designs for unmanned vehicles, but the technologies that VTOL X-Plane intends to develop could apply equally well to manned aircraft. Another common element among the designs is that they all incorporate multipurpose technologies to varying degrees. Multipurpose technologies decrease the number of systems in a vehicle and its overall mechanical complexity. Multipurpose technologies also use space and weight more efficiently to improve performance and enable new and improved capabilities.

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