Enter the Era of VTOL
by Dan Wright
Vice Presidend of Operations, Morgan Aircraft

Never in the history of aviation has there been a bigger push to develop a technically disruptive, vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft. Though the concept of VTOL flight is not new; the demand by end users is.

With airports becoming land locked by urban crawl, roof top business landings becoming more desirable, and the military need to operate from small, remote locations there is only one way to go….up…straight up. The problem is not only is there a need to go up, but also the need to go fast. Over 75% of all aviation resources, whether development or purchase capital, are currently going toward fixed wing aircraft. This is due to the fact that once an aircraft is airborne, completing the mission safely and as quickly as possible is job one. Pleasure commuters want to spend more time at their destinations rather than getting to them. Business passengers and crews want to get to their meetings in time to return, or move on to the next client the same day. And the military, especially the Navy, is pressing for aircraft and UAV’s that can be launched from smaller and smaller areas yet fly fast, far, and quiet. Add reduced operating costs, larger payloads, and better reliability to the fast, far, and quiet requirements and you have the “new performance requirements” being asked for by the end users.

Though there have been some impressive advances in VTOL capabilities over the last few years with the V-22, the Sikorsky X2, and Eurocopter’s X³, adding a pusher system to a helicopter or a rotor system to a fixed-wing is not going to gain the advancements needed. No, an entirely new approach is required which starts from a clean sheet of paper. Enter the Morgan EM-J series aircraft.

With the cost overruns and apparent safety issues of the V-22 program, most companies have chosen the challenging path of making a helicopter fly faster. At Morgan Aircraft, we believe the V-22 had the right idea; it just had the wrong configuration. There is no arguing fixed wing aircraft are superior over helicopters when it comes to speed.  And if 90% of most missions are spent in the forward flight mode, why try to make a helicopter do what it was not designed to do for most of its mission? Why not let a fixed wing type aircraft do what it was designed to do for the bulk of the mission and ask it to be out of its element only 10% of the time or less? The latter is exactly what the engineering team at Morgan Aircraft is developing.  To quote Brian Morgan, Co-Founder and CEO of Morgan Aircraft, “we are developing a fixed wing aircraft that just happens to be able to take off and land like a helicopter.”

Like the V-22 or its civil counterpart the BA609, the Morgan EM-J aircraft will be capable of vertical takeoff and hover, and will transition into forward flight as flight conditions allow. Unlike the V-22 or BA609, the EM-J aircraft will accomplish this with a much safer and more cost effective dual propulsion system. The Morgan EM-J aircraft incorporates patented core technology, which allows the aircraft to be lifted vertically by one system and sustain forward flight by another. By utilizing dual systems, each can be designed to do its job as efficiently as possible. When in vertical mode, the EM-J’s patented rotor-in-wing system is designed to safely sustain the gross weight aircraft in a hover and only assist in forward propulsion until the aircraft is flying on its wings. Once on the wings, the lift rotors shut down and the perfectly sized pusher thrust system takes over. With the lift fans shut down and the propeller system sized properly for the fixed wing aircraft, the EM-J will be capable of much faster speeds and much further distances than any of the VTOL technology currently being developed.  Not only will the EM-J significantly outperform other VTOL aircraft, it is the only VTOL aircraft in development that is capable of taking off or landing in either a helicopter mode or a fixed wing mode and is capable of gliding in a complete power loss condition. The V-22 and BA609 aircraft cannot land conventionally as a fixed wing due to their inefficient and oversized “props” which would strike the ground well before the aircraft’s landing gear.

The future of aviation is VTOL and the future is here. The demands and needs of the end users are quite clear and it is up to the aviation world to listen and respond appropriately. At Morgan Aircraft, we believe we have done just that. We are designing the VTOL aircraft of the future today. With efficient vertical lift, superior forward flight, maximum range and payload all surrounded by a safe and affordable system, the EM-J aircraft will be the leader in the era of VTOL.

copyright Morgan Aircraft 2011