Airbus Vahana

Vahana
Vahana Alpha Two (N302VX), Paris Air Show 2019
Type:	electric tilt-wing convertible aircraft
Design country:	United States
Manufacturer:	airbus
First flight:	January 31, 2018
Number of pieces:	2 prototypes

The Vahana is a vertical take-off, tilt-wing , convertible aircraft powered by eight electric motors with propellers that steers itself. It is a prototype that was developed by A3 at Airbus in San José , USA .

history

The convertible aircraft design , known as Vahana ( Sanskrit : " vehicle ") and financed by the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus , was started in 2016. It is being developed at A³ ("A-cubed"), Airbus' expanded project and partnership outpost in Silicon Valley . Airbus can “imagine that Vahana will be used by commuters in everyday life as a cost-effective replacement for local transport such as cars or trains.” In 2017, small models flew in Santa Clara to try out the Vahana concept. Vahana is to become part of mobility in urban airspace . The prototype Vahana Alpha One (N301VX) was presented to the public for the first time at the Paris Air Show in June 2017 . During the first flight on January 31, 2018 in Pendleton (Oregon) , Vahana took off independently and reached an altitude of 5 meters within 53 seconds. By August 2018, more than 25 hover flights had been completed and the transition to forward flight was also tested.

After around 50 short test flights, the aircraft made its first long-haul flight on February 12, 2019.

Airbus discontinued the Vahana project in December 2019 in favor of CityAirbus . The last of 138 test flights with a total flight time of over 13 hours and a distance of 900 km took place on November 14, 2019.

construction

The Vahana Alpha was designed as an inexpensive electric vertical take- off aircraft with initially one passenger . Additional accumulators are planned to increase the range . The two most convincing configurations are the electric helicopter and a tilt-wing version with eight propellers . For both configurations, an estimate of the hover power was carried out on the basis of the blade element momentum theory. Currently, the configuration of the electric helicopter is more convincing at low altitudes, while the configuration with tilt wings is more favorable for longer distances. The tilt sash configuration offers other advantages such as less noise and increased safety for urban air mobility. It is also more economical due to the lift from the wings.

Vahana is being developed as a self-steering aircraft, among other things, because the developers expect a flight volume for which the current number of pilots would not be sufficient. Another reason is the higher payload and the saving of labor costs . In contrast to autonomous driving, autonomous flying requires navigation at a significantly higher speed and in three instead of two dimensions. This requires higher computing speed and faster sensors and actuators.

Technical specifications

Data from Electric VTOL News by the Vertical Flight Society (updated May 2018)

Parameter	alpha	beta
crew	self-steering
Passengers	1	2
Hull length	5.7 m	5.86 m
span	6.25 m
height	2.81 m
payload	90 kg	200 kg
Empty mass	475 kg
Max. Takeoff mass	815 kg
Cruising speed	200 km / h	230 km / h
Service ceiling	1524 m (at 35 ° C)	3048 m (at 35 ° C)
Range (with reserve)	60 km	100 km
Engines	8 electric motors with 45 kW each and propellers

Additional weight information

For both aircraft variants, the mass of the lithium polymer batteries is around a third of the take-off mass. The power density of a helicopter transmission is assumed to be 6.3 kW / kg. In both configurations, 15 kg each is provided for avionics components and 15 kg for a fall-proof seat. Electric actuators require 0.65 kg each (8 units for helicopters and 12 units for tilt wings). In addition, the bottom-hung sash has two actuators (4 kg each). Another 10% require fittings and various hardware .

Performance characteristics

The cruising performance of the tilt-wing aircraft is lower than the cruising speed of the electric helicopter . The charging process for both configurations is similar to that of many existing light helicopters. The hover flight of the electric helicopter is weaker than that of the tilt-wing variant with short ranges.

See also

• List of aircraft types

Web links

Commons : Airbus A³ Vahana  - collection of images, videos and audio files

• Airbus SV project - Vahana website
• Vahana characteristics in the Electric VTOL News by the Vertical Flight Society
• Project Vahana source code on GitHub

Individual evidence

1. ^ Zach Lovering: Our Story: Part 4. In: https://vahana.aero/ . November 27, 2019, accessed December 16, 2019 . 
2. ↑ ^{a b c} A³ Vahana. evtol.news, accessed on December 15, 2018 . 
3. ↑ Rodin Lyasoff: Welcome to Vahana. In: vahana.aero. September 23, 2016, accessed March 2, 2018 . 
4. ↑ Vahana. Retrieved March 2, 2018 . 
5. ^ A³ Vahana. In: The Electric VTOL News. June 9, 2017, accessed March 2, 2018 . 
6. ^ Zach Lovering: Our Story: Part 2. In: vahana.aero. November 10, 2019, accessed December 16, 2019 . 
7. ↑ Vahana: This is the autonomous air taxi from Airbus. June 19, 2017, accessed March 2, 2018 . 
8. ^ Karl Schwarz: Vahana takes off for the first flight. In: Flugrevue.de. February 2, 2018, accessed December 16, 2019 . 
9. ↑ A³ Vahana eVTOL Tiltwing. Retrieved February 24, 2018 . 
10. ↑ Airbus shows his drone taxi in flight. Retrieved April 14, 2018 . 
11. ↑ Elan Head: Vahana eVTOL aims for 'direct to autonomy'. verticalmag, October 10, 2018, accessed on December 15, 2018 . 
12. ↑ Airbus A3 Vahana eVTOL flight test video. In: AviationWeek. February 22, 2019, accessed April 30, 2019 . 
13. ↑ Oihab Allal-Chérif: VW, Airbus, Google, Uber, Boeing: The run on the taxi drone Airbus: Vahana. In: Handelszeitung. March 25, 2019, accessed April 30, 2019 . 
14. ↑ Airbus hires Vahana and relies on City Airbus. In: aerotelegraph.com. December 19, 2019, accessed December 27, 2019 . 
15. ↑ Compiled by the editorial staff of eVTOL.com: Vahana's Final Flight. In: evtol.com. December 16, 2019, accessed December 27, 2019 . 
16. ↑ Cheyenne MacDonald: Airbus set to begin testing radical single person 'Vahana' flying taxi in Oregon. In: dailymail.co.uk. November 13, 2017, accessed March 2, 2018 . 
17. ^ Arne Stoschek: Exploring Sense-and-Avoid Systems for Autonomous Vehicles. In: vahana.aero. December 20, 2017, accessed December 15, 2019 . 
18. ↑ Our UAV DACH - member AIRBUS made the successful first flight in the full-scale test with Vahana. Unmanned Aviation Association, accessed March 15, 2019 . 
19. ^ Vahana Configuration Trade Study - Part II. Accessed February 24, 2018 .