DARPA has selected Aurora Flight Sciences to build a full-scale X-plane to demonstrate the viability of using active flow control (AFC) actuators for primary flight control. The award is Phase 3 of the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors (CRANE) program.
The X-65 breaks this [flaps] century-old design paradigm for flight control by using jets of air from a pressurized source to shape the flow of air over the aircraft surface, with AFC effectors on several surfaces to control the plane’s roll, pitch, and yaw. Eliminating external moving parts is expected to reduce weight and complexity and to improve performance.
In concept that’s an interesting idea. No moving surfaces, which reduces wear on the items and maintenance. No vibration inducted wear or friction on moving control surface, removes the time to lube the control rods and surfaces too.
The idea of a LRU as opposed to tradition control surfaces is pretty cool. Fly-by-wire was probably just as crazy as this when it was proposed.
Although, thinking about it a bit more… Will there really be a reduction in maintenance?
Those airflow generators will have a load of internal stress on them. Blocked or restricted outflow could have some huge consequences for control.
Hopefully you could generate that compressed air from the engines. After that, it’s just a compressed air tank and some pipes? Albeit every single pipe will need it’s own valve/solenoid etc to work… Yeah, that’ll get complicated pretty quick!
