In the upcoming future, Helicopters might fly like Aeroplanes

The upcoming future is good for helicopters. The failing and crippling during the operational missions have made defence research teams to think a lot more about an aircraft that could combine the speed and range of jet with the vertical lift of a helicopter. We have already seen a lot of such creations in movies. But in reality, most of the defence research teams are working hard to find out a solution which can help the hostage-rescue operations and troopers. The very fair example of helicopters failing in missions was in 1980, when Iran hostage-rescue attempt has a disastrous turn, when three of eight helicopters failed and crippled during the mission. This lead U.S fleet to find a new solution. In the very response they designed the tilt-rotor V-22 Osprey. It can carry two dozen troops 1000 nautical miles at speed around 250 miles an hour. It is considered as one of the most versatile craft in U.S Vertical take off and landing fleet (VTOL). 

In between a vertical take off model of the modification of U.S fighter F-35 Lightning 2 was developed. But it wasnt up to the task. The vertical launch fan, coupled with the jet engine, weighs more than two tons- more than the jet engine. The fan works only during take-off and turns into useless "dead weight" in level flight. "To overcome this problem, DARPA launched VTOL X-plane program to challenge traditional aviation technologies and at the same time to go beyond certain limits in four areas:speed, performance management, effective range and pay load" said program manager Ashish Bagai. However this is a very hard work and have to create something beyond imagination. Meanwhile, Israeli company Urban Aeronautics also develops a project of high-speed UAV VTOL based on AirMule, reports Flightglobal, the website of Flight International magazine. The company has achieved impressive progress. The work was began in 2009, when the first tests of the unmanned vehicle were made in a wind tunnel. 

Currently research are going on to improve the speed, range, and hover efficiency of VTOL aircraft. Two programs have been launched in this year. A new technologies are also on run, which includes new designs in next generation rotor craft. Hopefully by 2017, we might see advanced aircrafts with advanced weapons, developed in a combine effort of DARPA and army research teams. 

What is VTOL aircraft? It is an aircraft that can hover, take off and land vertically. This classification includes fixed-wing aircrafts as well as helicopters and other aircraft with powered rotors such as cyclogyros/cyclocopters and tiltrotors. 

The U.S Marine corps parachutists free fall from an MV-22 Osprey at 10,000 feet above the drop zone at Fort A.P.Hill