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M A Y 2 0 1 4 | 1 9 NEWS NEWS uilt in less than a month by The Boeing Co. (St. Louis, Mo.), a pro- totype of the Phantom Swift has been accepted by the Defense Advanced Re- search Project Agency (DARPA) Vertical Takeoff and Landing (VTOL) X-plane program. Boeing is one of four program participants to produce a workable prototype in the program's frst phase. The other Phase I prime contractors are Aurora Flight Sciences Corp. (Manas- sas, Va.), Karem Aircraft Inc. (Lake For- est, Calif.), and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp. (Stratford, Conn.). DARPA hopes to mature a new aircraft confguration capable of effcient hover and high-speed cruise. "We were look- ing for different approaches to solve this extremely challenging problem, and we got them," says Ashish Bagai, DARPA program manager. "The proposals we've chosen aim to create new technologies and incorporate existing ones that VTOL designs so far have not succeeded in de- veloping. We're eager to see if the compa- nies can integrate their ideas into designs that could potentially achieve the perfor- mance goals we've set." DARPA plans to select one of the four models for fabrica- tion and fight demonstration in 2015. Under its agreement with DARPA, Boe- ing will receive $17 million (USD), with which it intends to continue developing B DARPA VTOL X-Plane program accepts Boeing's Phantom Swift prototype Boeing joins three other Phase I primes in hunt for optimum hover/high-speed cruise capability the aircraft's previously incompatible target capabilities: It must not only take off and land vertically and hover, but it also must be able to achieve forward travel at speeds up to 400 knots. Boeing's Phantom Swift design current- ly features two large lift fans — inside the fuselage — that provide effcient vertical lift. When the aircraft transitions to cruise mode, the fans are covered. Smaller, ducted fans on its wingtips pro- duce forward thrust, and also provide additional lift and control when the air- craft hovers. "Proving these capabilities in a single aircraft has been the Holy Grail for tac- tical military aviation," notes Dan New- man, Boeing Phantom Works Advanced Vertical Lift capture team lead. "We're confdent that Phantom Swift could be the solution. Designing an aircraft to per- form a vertical takeoff, while maintaining adequate low-speed control, is challeng- ing. Sustaining effcient hover is also dif- fcult, and adding a high cruising speed is even more challenging," Newman adds. Last year, Phantom Works used rapid prototyping and additive manufac- turing techniques, such as 3-D printing, to quickly design, build and fy a scaled- down Phantom Swift. SEE HPC's Special Report about ad- ditive manufacturing technology in this issue, on p. 44. BIZ BRIEFS Luxfer Group (Salford, U.K.) announced on March 24 that it had acquired Vexx- el Composites LLC (Brigham City, Utah), a manufacturer of high-pressure composite cylinders for compressed natural gas (CNG). The company will operate as part of the Group's global Luxfer Gas Cylinders Division. Found- ed in 2012, Vexxel specializes in Type IV (polymer-lined) carbon fber com- posite cylinders for use as fuel tanks in CNG-powered alternative-fuel vehicles. Luxfer Group CEO Brian Purves says, "This acquisition provides our gas cyl- inder business with a facility purpose- built for the manufacture of new Type IV composite cylinder products, which will be targeted primarily at the Class 8 heavy-duty truck market, where a high rate of conversion from diesel to CNG is widely anticipated. Luxfer is in the fnal stages of developing a new range of larger-diameter Type IV cylinders for growing CNG markets to complement its existing lightweight range of Type III aluminum-lined cylinder products and systems." Source: Boeing 0514HPC New&Briefs-OK.indd; 19 4/22/2014 2:55:36 PM