Airbus Defence and Space Gmbh

Berthold Karrais

Michael Judas

Jan Van Toor

Wolfgang Stangl

Clemens Gerlach

Friederike Stratenberg

Thomas Krauss

Werner Scholz

An aircraft is provided, which comprises a support structure and at least four lift rotors. Each of the lift rotors is attached to the support structure and comprises at least one propeller. The lift rotors are constituted such that a rotational plane, in which the at least one propeller of the lift rotor rotates, is tilted with respect to a plane formed by the support structure.

Vertical take-off aircraft

The invention relates to an aircraft which can both take off and land vertically and can hover and also fly horizontally at a high cruising speed. The aircraft has a support structure, a wing structure, at least three and preferably at least four lifting rotors and at least one thrust drive. The wing structure is designed to generate a lifting force for the aircraft during horizontal motion. To achieve this the wing structure has at least one mainplane provided with a profile that generates dynamic lift. The wing structure is preferably designed as a tandem wing structure. Each of the lifting rotors is fixed to the support structure, has a propeller and is designed to generate a lifting force for the aircraft by means of a rotation of the propeller, said force acting in a vertical direction. The thrust drive is designed to generate a thrust force on the support structure, said force acting in a horizontal direction. The lifting rotors can have a simple construction, i.e. they can have a simple rigid propeller for example, and a vertical take-off or hovering of the aircraft can be controlled, in a similar manner to quadcopters, by a simple control of the speeds of the lifting rotors. High cruising speeds can be achieved as a result of the additional horizontally acting thrust drive.

Aircraft capable of vertical take-off

Growing community of inventors

Epfendorf, Germany

Berthold Karrais