Royal Aeronautical Society Light Design: Methods and Tools 2013 Personal Aerial Transport Systems A Flight of Fancy or a Realistic Goal?

Dr. M. Jump Monday 11th November 2013 Outline • Introduction • Personal Aerial Transportation Systems (PATS) Landscape • Challenges • Airframe Design for Mission • Training (Can it be flown safely?) • Regulatory (Is it safe to fly?) • Environmental • Social • Concluding Remarks • Acknowledgements

Introduction • Dr. M. Jump • BEng Aeronautical Engineering, University of Bristol 1994 • Aerodynamicist BAE Systems, MRO Consultant • PhD (Pilot Guidance Displays), University of Liverpool, 2007 • Lecturer in Aerospace Engineering 2007  date • PPL(A) since 1997 Introduction • I should declare an interest… • …because I am Principal Investigator at Liverpool for…

http://www.mycopter.eu

Project funded by the European Union under the 7th Framework Programme

See: Jump et al., myCopter: Enabling Technologies for Personal Aerial Transportation Systems, Proceedings of the RAeS Rotorcraft Group Conference: The Future Rotorcraft – Enabling Capability Through the Application of Technology, 15th – 16th June 2011 PATS - Landscape PATS - Landscape PATS Landscape • These sorts of presentations usually start with a history of flying … • http://darkestlondon.com/2011/10/23/kings-cross- airport-1931/ PATS - Landscape • Some might say that we already have a personal aerial transportation system…

PATS - Landscape • …but for a population of ~60 million

(No. driving licenses = 37million1)

1. Anon. Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency - Driver License Source: CAA Statistics. [cited 2011 17th May]; Available from: http://www.dft.gov.uk/dvla/foi/Disclos ure/Driver%20Licence%20Statistics. as px?keywords=statistics.

• Cannot be claimed to be a PATS adopted by the populace at large c.f.

PATS - Landscape • So what problems/need is personal aerial transport trying to solve/fulfil? 1. ‘Intermediate’ distance travel • UK domestic air travel transition point ~ 350 miles1 US & Continental • US travel transition point ~ 500 miles2 Europe?  Roadable aircraft/flying automobile solution? • Realistic for the UK?

2. Short distance commute congestion relief Europe?  VTOL solution? 3. Fun/leisure travel?

1. Anon., National Travel Survey: 2012, Dept. For Transport, 30th July 2013 (Revised 19th September 2013) 2. Sarh B., Advanced Flying Automobile, AeroTech Congress & Expo, Montreal, Canada, September 25th 2013 PATS - Landscape • Perhaps a North America/Europe split due to our perception of delayed travel and distance to travel.

From: Fleischer T. et al., Design Criteria Report (Mycopter Deliverable D7.2), May 2013 Data Source: TomTom International

PATS - Landscape • The topic has attracted attention from some credible players… • CAFE (Comparative Aircraft Flight Efficiency) Foundation • US-based non-profit development and flight test organisation • Born out of drive to develop efficient aircraft • Repository for NASA Langley PAV work • NASA – PAV Challenge (but GA focus) • The Community Noise Prize ($150,000) • The Green Prize ($50,000) (MPG) • The Safety Prize ($50,000) (Handling, eCFI) • The CAFE 400 Prize ($25,000) (Speed) • The Quietest LSA Prize ($10,000) • NASA Puffin concept

PATS - Landscape • European Commission • Out Of the Box – EC response to concern re stagnation of innovation in air transport system • EPATS – European Personal Aerial Transportation System. Small, smart all-weather operation (AWO) aircraft for non-hub destinations • PPLANE – The Personal Plane Project. PATS concepts for 4 – 8 occupants • myCopter – Enabling Technologies for PATS. PATS concepts for commuters • IFATS – Insertion of as much automation as possible into the air traffic system to remove human error • ALICIA – All Conditions Operations and Innovative Cockpit Infrastructure. Development of new cockpit architecture for AWO • sFly – Autonomous small helicopter operations in city-like environments

PATS - Landscape • Various PAV requirements (NASA): • Seats: Less than 5 passengers.(myCopter = 1+1) • 150–200 mph (240–320 km/h) cruising speed. (150 – 200km/h) • Quiet. () • Comfortable. () • Reliable. ( but how reliable? 90%?) • Able to be flown by anyone with a driver’s license. (~) • As affordable as travel by car or . () • Near all-weather capability () enabled by synthetic vision systems • Highly fuel efficient (able to use alternative fuels). () • 800 miles (1,300 km) range. (100km) • Provide "door-to-door" transportation solutions, through use of small community airports that are at closer proximities to businesses and residences than large airports. (door-to-office)

PATS - Landscape • Lots of airframe design (list below far from exhaustive) • (roadable aircraft) • Carplane (flying automobile) • Aeromobil (flying automobile) • PAL-V ( car) • CarterCopter (compound autogyro) • GyroJet (autogyro) • Terrafugia (tilt rotor car) • FALX (personal tilt rotor) • Moller (sky car) • E-volo (personal multi-rotor aircraft) • Puffin (VTOL Tail Sitter)

PATS – Challenges • Airframe Design for VTOL – Preliminary Design Study • Reference flight: • Climb to cruise height @5m/s (500m) • Cruise to destination @ 175km/h {~95kts} (30km) • Vertical descent to land @-5m/s (500m) • Not very ‘realistic’ but a start point

Parameter Value (note, this is Gross Weight 450kg already a challenging target cf C150 or R22) Power Required =~90hp Number of Rotors (ducted) 4 T/P = 7 (optimistic?) Rotor Radius 0.86m V = 28m/s Number of rotor blades 3 downwash (Beaufort scale 10, Storm) Blade chord 0.11m PATS - Challenges • Airframe design for flying automobile • Aircraft require upward force (for lift), cars require down force (for grip) • Cars ideally require even distribution of weight on wheel base, a/c nose is lightly loaded • For a/c, high aspect ratio desirable, road vehicle maximum width is restricted • etc. • Designs such as Carplane, Automobil appear to address some of these issues via folding wing design

PATS - Challenges • Training (can it be flown safely?), First question – who/what is doing the flying?

Fully Fully Manual Autonomous Pilot’s Driver’s Operator’s license license+ license? 2 modes Highly Augmented Full Autonomy envisaged: High level user No flight control flight path control input required inputs from driver/pilot PATS – Challenges • Training – Highly Augmented Aircraft • Adopted a handling qualities approach

Mission Task Element Definition (After ADS33E)

“Non-physical” vehicle dynamics modelling

Test subject aptitude testing PATS – Challenges • Training – Highly Augmented Aircraft • ‘Optimising’ TRC Rise Time

PATS – Challenges • Training – Highly Augmented Aircraft Cont’d • Not using test pilots so subjective ratings limited in scope

RCAH

Hybrid

Hybrid = Higher precision spread over wider aptitude range plus lower perceived workload

Perfect P., White MD. And Jump M., Towards Handling Qualities Requirements for Future Personal Aerial Vehicles, Proceedings of the 69th AHS Forum , Phoenix, Arizona, May 21 – 23, 2013. PATS – Challenges • Regulatory (is it safe to fly?) • How safe do we want it to be? • Current ‘airline’ safety, CS-25: 1 Hazardous incident per 107 flying hours • Hazardous – ‘Serious or fatal injury to a relatively small number of people’ • Current accident rates (per 100,000 flying hours)1:

Large ~0.01 Regional Commuter ~0.1 General Aviation ~6.5

1. AOPA Report 2007 PATS – Challenges • Regulatory (is it safe to fly?) Cont’d • How much PAV traffic will there be?

¼ peak traffic

• ~12.5E6 cars on road at rush hour (www.eta.co.uk, 2006) Rush hour flight hours = 12.5E6 x 0.25 x 2 x 0.25hr = 1.6E6 hours 1 UK Hazardous incident every 6.25 days, assuming 1 fatality per incident, 60 deaths per year

 c.f. 1754 killed and 23,039 seriously injured on UK roads 2012 (DfT) PATS – Challenges • Regulatory (is it safe to fly?) Cont’d • How might this be achieved? AMC.1309  but expensive • Traffic density would warrant ‘collision avoidance’ (autonomy?). Associated guidelines/standards: • DO-178B/C: Software considerations in Airborne Systems and Equipment Certification (Complex Software) • DO-254: Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware (Complex Hardware) • ARP 4754: Certification Considerations for Highly Integrated or Complex Aircraft Systems • ARP 4761: Guidelines and Methods for Conducting the Safety Assessment Process on Civil Airborne Systems and Equipment • CAP 393: The Air Navigation Order (would current Air Transport Network/Infrastructure cope with an extra ~3million aircraft?)

PATS – Challenges • Regulatory (is it safe to fly?) Cont’d • Other CS/lower level of safety?

• Back to current GA issues • But could be a start point? PATS - Challenges • Environmental • Fuel Source  whatever the airlines use? • Emissions  reduction c.f. cars on congested roads? • Noise • All Weather Ops

• Car Sharing  “If average car occupancy were to increase by half - with 2.37 persons per car rather than 1.58 - it would lead to a one-third fall in traffic” (Friends of the Earth). • http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-24606108

PATS - Challenges • Social • Opposition to spending money ‘frivolously’ “I'll get flamed for this, but this is why Greece is where they are today. I'm a pilot and engineer, and this kind of nonsense - cool and awesome as it is - is an enraging waste of taxpayer money that exemplifies the current fall of European socialism.” http://www.paulnuttallmep.com/?p=1397 • ‘Not Above My Back Yard’ • Cost of ownership • Insurance

PATS - Solutions • ASTRAEA – but PAV traffic density higher? • Automatic car technology (plus ‘Executive’ = autonomy?) • e.g. http://www.volkswagen.co.uk/technology • Google Driverless Cars – building autonomous transportation operations hours/experience • Car leasing and/or taxi model

PATS – Concluding Remarks • There has been a long history of mass personal transportation via flight • Significant challenges remain • Technological • Regulatory • Environmental • Social • But there are pieces of the jigsaw that are under investigation, problems being solved

PATS – Concluding Remarks

“In response to xxx xxxxx: Well said! However, dreaming does lead to reality. NASA engineers (I was one of them for ten years) get paid lots of your tax dollars to dream, and MOST of their dreams do not come to fruition. Those that do, though, have some huge, positive impacts on our lives.” • So, for now, such a system perhaps has to remain a flight of fancy, but when it happens, I fancy a flight

Acknowledgements • Bianca Gursky at DLR Braunschweig for the preliminary design calculation data • Dr. Charles Patchett for insights into certification

Any Questions? ANY QUESTIONS ?

Dr. M. Jump Flight Science & Technology The University of Liverpool [email protected]