Reduced Drag Aircrafts : crane program

DARPA’s CRANE program, which stands for the Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors program, aims to eliminate the need for traditional moving flight controls on the exterior of the wings and tail. The company recently awarded Aurora Flight Sciences a phase 2 contract for this program. The program will reduce the weight and mechanical complexity of traditional control surfaces, improve overall performance, and enable higher angles of attack.

The aircraft will use Active Flow Control (AFC) to fly, which uses a series of nozzle arrays along the wings connected to a pressurized air system. These nozzle arrays can blow controlled bursts of air to directly modify the air pressure and flow around the aircraft, effectively creating virtual control surfaces out of compressed air. Aurora Flight Sciences is currently in the process of building a full-scale unmanned AFC test plane with a 30-foot wingspan and the capability to fly at speeds up to Mach 0.7. If the program moves forward with phase 3, the aircraft will be completed and in-flight testing by 2025. This new technology has the potential to change the way aircraft are designed and built in the future.

Image Credit: Aurora Flight Sciences