The development of the electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) UAV industry is actively gaining momentum, attracting the attention of both major airlines and government agencies. At the Paris Air Show 2023, Embraer-backed Eve Air Mobility signed an agreement to supply up to 150 eVTOL aircraft, and in May 2023, Lilium announced agreements with two private firms to supply its aircraft.
Wisk Aero, owned by Boeing, has emphasised fully autonomous UASs. This strategy aims to reduce costs and make eVTOL more accessible to more people. Wisk Aero has already conducted the first public demonstration of a fully autonomous fixed wing eVTOL. According to the company’s management, autonomy is a key factor for the future of eVTOLs, and the company plans to complete certification of such aircraft by the end of this decade.
Russia is also actively developing the direction of electric hovercraft. Several companies are engaged in the topic of aircraft with vertical or shortened takeoff and landing. The most famous of them are Ecolibri, Transport of the Future, and Angraviti. The Moscow Aviation Institute, NITU MISIS, and SibNIA are also developing projects for a shortened takeoff and landing aircraft. ODK has created a demonstrator of a hybrid propulsion system based on the VK-650V turboshaft engine. Engineers from Strongwings (Ekaterinburg) have created a bonneted fan for eVTOL, which provides increased safety for cargo and passengers.
The Ecolibri hybrid-electric aircraft will fly up to 1,200 kilometres at a speed of about 270 km/h. Transport of the Future has two modifications of the ABC – an aerotaxi and a large cargo drone with a take-off weight of 700kg. Two to five UAS of each type are assembled in Togliatti every month, primarily for testing, resource validation and development of models for typical applications. The Angraviti UAS will be able to carry up to 2,000 kilograms of payload for a distance of up to 1,500 kilometres at a speed of up to 300 kilometres per hour. The cost of a flight hour, according to the engineers’ calculations, will be 30 thousand rubles, which is five times less than an hour’s operation of a Mi-8 helicopter.
Russia has created marching bonneted electric drive fans for small aircrafts
It became known in February 2022 that Sukhoi Design Bureau designers together with engineers from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) are developing a cargo unmanned vertical takeoff and landing aircraft “Atlas”. It was assumed that the UAV will be used to deliver cargo to remote sites where there are no aerodromes. One technician is enough to operate and maintain the Atlas. According to the developers’ calculations, due to the reduction of labour costs for pilots and other personnel, it is possible to reduce the cost of cargo delivery by 40%.
Sukhoi and UAC presented a heavy UAV of vertical take-off and landing
On 12 August 2024, the first day of the International Military-Technical Forum “Army”, UAC presented a full-scale prototype of the S-76 unmanned transport system for vertical take-off and landing. This is the Atlas, which in the winter of 2022 Sukhoi Design Bureau told us about.
If we create an unmanned aircraft with the same approaches as in manned aviation, it will not be possible to drastically reduce the cost of cargo delivery and the cost of an aircraft flight hour. Evgeny Rubtsov (Sukhoi Design Bureau), project manager and chief designer of the BTS-VAB, noted during the presentation of the S-76 at the Patriot congress and exhibition centre that a comprehensive approach is needed to solve this problem.
“We have to solve this issue with a set of measures. And the name of this complex of measures is “Unmanned transport system of off-airfield basing with a family of S-76 aircraft”. We are talking about a system that includes unmanned aircraft with a high degree of automation of control systems, a single operations centre that interacts with the aircraft, with air traffic control for integration into a single airspace, with ground landing sites and ground infrastructure, as well as with end customers and consumers. If we manage to create such a simple and convenient system, we will be able to show a significant reduction in the cost of cargo delivery,” said Evgeny Rubtsov.
He added that the key element of the unmanned transport system is the vertical take-off and landing transport aircraft, which is presented at the Patriot ECC.
Eight electric motors are used to perform vertical takeoff and landing. Horizontal flight is provided by the aircraft’s supporting wing and a piston petrol engine with a pusher propeller located in the tail part of the fuselage. The piston engine together with the wing provides high fuel efficiency for long-distance flights compared to helicopters.
Sukhoi Design Bureau has conducted flight tests of a prototype of a vertical take-off UAS
The area required for take-off and landing of the C-76 can be 17×17 metres. The C-76 is 7.2 metres long, 2.9 metres high and has a wingspan of 11 metres. The Sukhoi Design Bureau notes that the wing increases the UAV’s fuel efficiency.
The S-76 has a take-off weight of 1,500kg, a cruising speed of 180km/h, and a flight altitude of up to 4,000m. Automatic ground control ensures ease of operation. The flight is fully automatic, following the route pre-set in the on-board calculator. Communication between the operations centre and the C-76 is maintained by the operator via GLONASS, one operator can control up to 12 C-76 hovercrafts.
The BTS-VAB can be operated in the Far North. The range of flight with 300 kg cargo without refuelling is 1000 km. If it is necessary to deliver the cargo to a site where there is no possibility to refill the fuel tanks and return back, such a site should be located at a distance of no more than 500 km.
The volume of the hovercraft cargo cabin is 2 cubic metres, it can hold two standard 800x1200x144 mm pallets or two transport containers. Intrafuselage cargo placement and maintenance of the necessary temperature in the compartment allows to ensure cargo safety. The compartment is equipped with a convenient system of guides for loading/unloading pallets or containers, and there are also locking devices to prevent cargo movement during the flight.
The S-76 project will allow Russia to deploy cost-effective autonomous hovercrafts that will perform air cargo transport with minimal human involvement. According to Evgeny Rubtsov, the BTS-VAB S-76 project is now at the stage of testing key technologies and basic technical solutions.
