NASA Personal Air Transportation Technologies

The ability to personalize air travel through the use of an on-demand, highly distributed air transportation system will provide the degree of freedom and control that Americans enjoy in other aspects of their life. This new capability, of traveling when, where, and how we want with greatly enhanced mobility, accessibility, and speed requires vehicle and airspace technologies to provide the equivalent of an internet PC ubiquity, to an air transportation system that now exists as a centralized hub and spoke mainframe NASA airspace related research in this new category of aviation has been conducted through the Small Aircraft Transportation (SATS) project, while the vehicle technology efforts have been conducted in the Personal Air Vehicle sector of the Vehicle Systems Program. The PAV sector technology research conducted over the past several years is described, including intelligent avionics for ease of use, integrated low noise propulsion, advanced internal combustion engines, low cost variable pitch ducted propellers, lean design structures, quality assurance based certification regulations, a laminar flow fuselage with integrated aero-propulsion, advanced vehicle concepts, and high density airspace simulations. INTRODUCTION This paper provides the technology development portion of a trilogy of papers that report out the results of the Personal Air Vehicle (PAV) Sector of the NASA Vehicle Systems Program (VSP). The NASA VSP was cancelled over the past year as part of the Aeronautics Enterpr ise restructur ing, being replaced by the Fundamental Aeronautics Program. Since no further investment is currently planned relating to small aircraft, transitioning this research to industry is imperative to maximize the potential societal benefit. These three papers present the project research, incorporating the overarching system of systems perspective of th is vehicle sector (The Third Wave of Aeronautics: OnDemand Mobility SAE paper 2006-01-2429), the technology portfolio investment required to enable PAV sector capabilities (NASA Personal Air Transportation Technologies – SAE Paper 2006-01-2413), and the integrated vehicle concept development required to achieve a balanced and complementary technology portfolio (Next Generation NASA GA Aircraft Concept – SAE Paper 2006-01-2430). The PAV Sector was the smallest of the six VSP vehicle sectors, with a full cost investment of $10 million dollars over the 3 years. While not the solution to all travel, PAVs would provide a new, better choice for mid range trip distances of 50 to 500 miles where airlines and automobiles provide poor block speed service. Since this travel market accounts for almost half of all person trip miles in the U.S, it is more than a niche market that deserves effective cost to uti l i ty solutions to provide societal benefit. This supplemental personal air transportation network would do what car, airline, or rail could never do; combine ondemand access with high speed to yield a direct extension of the wireless, fax, and internet on-demand service age. At the same time, this new capability could maximize transportation capacity, robustness, and productivity. The f irst figure indicates how specific technology investments could yield integrated solutions which would offer increasingly distributed air operation capability. An analogy is presented to the computer industry which has transformed itself over the past 30 years from a highly centralized market solution, into an incredibly distributed market solution. This computer market revolution was driven by a combination of performance, packaging and cost technologies, which when combined with ease of use technologies (the Windows and Mac operating systems), the result was a much broader market with greatly increased revenues, while serving the customer better. The current aviation market offers an ‘innovator’s dilemma’ of trying to meet entrenched market needs through ever smal ler incremental improvements to existing customers, instead of developing disruptive technologies that create new value networks. A detailed discussion of this potential ‘Third Wave of Aeronautics: On-Demand Mobility’ is presented in SAE paper 2006-01-2429. At the commencement of the PAV sector efforts, an industry/academia/government working group was established to provide guidance on technology content and priorities. In addition, an independent review panel o f i n dustry ‘grey-beards’ provided continuous improvement of the technology project efforts. These meetings established a PAV sector GOTChA (Goals, Objectives, Technology Challenges, and Approaches – see Appendix) documentation set which decomposed efforts into a capabil i ty-based research plan with tracking metrics. These desired end state capabilities are listed below in Table 1, and are discussed in more detail within each technology approach section. The technology approaches were prioritized into near-term 5year and far-term 15-year efforts, with available funding limiting current research to primarily the near-term set except for a few exploratory far-term efforts. A n important distinction which occurred at the start of the research planning was defining the PAV as a selfoperated vehicle meeting personal transportation needs; therefore a PAV is not necessarily personally owned or maintained, since fractional ownership offers dramatic benefits in cost through increased utilization. A n important realization from this capability set is that the PAV technology efforts are not centered around achieving improved performance, but instead focus on improving the ‘ilities’ of the operational experience. In fact, as with most disruptive technologies, the focus is no t on improv ing ex is t ing cus tomer demands (established pilots) for improved performance, but instead meeting new customer requirements that would permit the current market to greatly expand, and reach greater economies of scale for all. Required Capability SOA 5-Years 15-Years Ease of Use (equiv. safety) SEP-IFR* Haptic Auto-like Community/Cabin Noise SEP Motorcycle Auto Emissions (HC/NOX/Lead g/mile) .5/1.0/.2 .05/.10/0 .03/.06/0 Acquisition Cost (2004 $ K) 450 150 100 Safety (accidents/100K hr) 6.5 2.0 .5 Cruise speed (mph) 200 200 150 Range (statute miles) 600 600 300 Efficiency (mpg) 13 16 40 Field Length (feet to clear obstacle) 250