Project Caurus 'Nibbio' - A Novel Tilt Rotor Concept for Very High Speed Applications

"Nibbio" is a new generation morphing tilt rotor concept intended to overcome the limitations of current VTOL vehicles. The main innovation of the vehicle is the use of two different propulsive devices for hover and horizontal flight, replacing the prop-rotor of current tilt rotor vehicles. In particular, each nacelle carries a front rotor and a pusher propeller, each one tailored for a specific flight phase. In order to drastically reduce the impact of large hover rotors in forward flight, in airplane mode they are stopped and their blades are folded and stowed within the nacelles. The resulting aircraft, designed to comply with the 31st AHS Graduate Category International Student Design Competition Request For Proposal, shows promising performance improvements with respect to existing VTOL vehicles.