 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(June 2008) |
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| Industry | Aerospace |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1955 |
| Founders | Frank Piasecki |
| Headquarters | |
| Website | www |
The Piasecki Aircraft Corporation (PiAC) is a manufacturer of aircraft, principally advanced rotorcraft. It was founded by American vertical flight pioneer Frank Piasecki to develop compound helicopters and other advanced rotorcraft after he was ousted from the leadership of his first company, Piasecki Helicopter. [1]
The company's origins dated back to 1936 with the formation of the P-V Engineering Forum in 1940 and it was renamed the Piasecki Helicopter Corporation in 1946. After a falling out with other owners, Frank Piasecki and some of his design team left to form Piasecki Aircraft Corporation in 1955. [2]
The Piasecki Aircraft Corporation is based in Essington, Pennsylvania and is run by Frank Piasecki's sons; Frederick Weyerhaeuser Piasecki is chairman and John Weyerhaeuser Piasecki is president and CEO. [3]
In 2005, the company was selected by the United States Army as the prime contractor for two Future Combat Systems (FCS) unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) systems The FCS Class III UAV system contract was awarded to the company in late 2006 following a competitive downselect of four competing technologies. As part of that effort, the company flew the world's first autonomous autogyro.[ citation needed ]
The company was the successful bidder when the US Navy’s Naval Air Systems Command awarded a demonstration contract to serve as a testbed to validate the "Vectored Thrust Ducted Propeller" system. [4] Piasecki developed and flight-tested the X-49 experimental compound helicopter, with its first flight in 2007, later completing all Phase 1 requirements.
Piasecki bid on the Future Vertical Lift program, [5] but was not chosen when that project moved into its Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator (JMR-TD) phase in 2013. [6]
In December 2018, Piasecki announced Air Scout unmanned air system (UAS), it is designed to meet emerging cargo logistics requirements consistent with UAS Classification Group 3. Air Scout is sized at 300lbs, with payload potential of 50-150 lbs. [7]
In 2021, the Telemedicine and Advanced Technology Research Center adopted Piasecki's Mobile Multiple Mission Module (M4) as their research asset. M4 was designed to accommodate cargo, patients, troops or a combination of any of these with its rapidly reconfigurable interior. It was planned to be flown using the Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) in 2023. [8]
Piasecki is working for the PA-890, an electric powered helicopter with targets for lower operating cost, reduced noise, and zero direct emissions. The airport is featured in the March/April 2021 Vertiflite magazine. [9] [10]
| Model name | First flight | Number built | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| Piasecki PA-59 Airgeep | 1959 | 2 | Prototype "flying jeep" |
| Piasecki 16H Pathfinder | 1962 | Experimental compound helicopter | |
| Piasecki PA-39 | N/A | 0 | Unbuilt heavy-lift quad rotor helicopter [11] |
| Piasecki PA-97 | 1986 | 1 | Experimental heavy-lift helistat |
| Piasecki X-49 | 2007 | 1 | Experimental compound helicopter |
| Expendable Airlift Glider Expeditionary Logistics System (EAGELS) | N/A | Experimental unmanned glider aircraft used for military transport | |
| Air Scout | N/A | Unmanned rotocraft | |
| Piasecki Turais | 2013 | Unmanned air-launched surveillance UAV | |
| Piasecki ARES | 2024 | 1 | Modular multi-mission tilt-duct VTOL UAV [12] |
The AAI RQ-7 Shadow is an American unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) used by the United States Army, Australian Army, Swedish Army, Turkish Air Force and Italian Army for reconnaissance, surveillance, and target acquisition and battle damage assessment. Launched from a trailer-mounted pneumatic catapult, it is recovered with the aid of arresting gear similar to jets on an aircraft carrier. Its gimbal-mounted, digitally stabilized, liquid nitrogen-cooled electro-optical/infrared (EO/IR) camera relays video in real time via a C-band line-of-sight data link to the ground control station (GCS).
An autogyro, or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. While similar to a helicopter rotor in appearance, the autogyro's unpowered rotor disc must have air flowing upward across it to make it rotate.
AAI Corporation is an aerospace and defense development and manufacturing firm, located in Hunt Valley, Maryland, US. Formerly a wholly owned subsidiary of United Industrial Corporation, AAI was acquired by Textron in 2007. It currently operates as a unit of Textron Systems and employs more than 2,000.
The Piasecki Helicopter Corporation was a designer and manufacturer of helicopters in Philadelphia and nearby Morton, Pennsylvania, in the late 1940s and the 1950s. Its founder, Frank Piasecki, was ousted in 1956 and started a new company, Piasecki Aircraft. Piasecki Helicopter was renamed Vertol Corporation in early 1956. Vertol was acquired by Boeing in 1960 and renamed Boeing Vertol.
The Piasecki X-49 "SpeedHawk" is an American four-bladed, twin-engined experimental high-speed compound helicopter developed by Piasecki Aircraft. The X-49A is based on the airframe of a Sikorsky YSH-60F Seahawk, but utilizes Piasecki's proprietary vectored thrust ducted propeller (VTDP) design and includes the addition of lifting wings. The concept of the experimental program was to apply the VTDP technology to a production military helicopter to determine any benefit gained through increases in performance or useful load.
Frank Nicolas Piasecki was an American engineer and helicopter aviation pioneer. Piasecki pioneered tandem rotor helicopter designs and created the compound helicopter concept of vectored thrust using a ducted propeller.
The Boeing A160 Hummingbird is an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) helicopter. Its design incorporates many new technologies never before used in helicopters, allowing for greater endurance and altitude than any helicopter currently in operation.
A gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that is driven by its engine for takeoff and landing only, and includes one or more conventional propeller or jet engines to provide thrust during cruising flight. During forward flight the rotor is unpowered and free-spinning, like an autogyro, and lift is provided by a combination of the rotor and conventional wings. The gyrodyne is one of a number of similar concepts which attempt to combine helicopter-like low-speed performance with conventional fixed-wing high-speeds, including tiltrotors and tiltwings.
A rotary-wing aircraft, rotorwing aircraft or rotorcraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings that spin around a vertical mast to generate lift. The assembly of several rotor blades mounted on a single mast is referred to as a rotor. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines a rotorcraft as "supported in flight by the reactions of the air on one or more rotors".
The Sikorsky X2 is an experimental high-speed compound helicopter with coaxial rotors, developed by Sikorsky Aircraft, that made its first flight in 2008 and was officially retired in 2011.
The American Helicopter Museum & Education Center (AHMEC) is located at 1220 American Boulevard, West Chester, Pennsylvania, United States. The transport museum focuses on the history, science and technology of rotary wing aviation. The collection contains over 40 civilian and military, autogyros, convertiplanes and helicopters, including some early generation models. The museum also has an extensive research library, the Renzo Pierpaoli Memorial Library, which contains documents, artifacts, films, and memoirs that museum members can use.
The BAE Systems Ampersand unmanned autonomous system (UAS) is an unmanned autogyro technology demonstrator, first announced at the 2008 Farnborough International Air Show. The Ampersand is based on the RotorSport UK MT-03 autogyro, with a sensor suite derived from the BAE Herti UAV. It is capable of being flown manned, for flight test purposes.
The Carter PAV is a two-bladed, compound autogyro developed by Carter Aviation Technologies to demonstrate slowed rotor technology. The design has an unpowered rotor mounted on top of the fuselage, wings like a conventional fixed-wing aircraft mounted underneath, and a controllable pitch pusher propeller at the rear of the fuselage. Heavy weights are placed in the rotor tips to enhance rotational energy and to reduce flapping.
Carter Aviation Technologies is a privately held aviation research and development company based in Wichita Falls, Texas, United States.
The slowed rotor principle is used in the design of some helicopters. On a conventional helicopter the rotational speed of the rotor is constant; reducing it at lower flight speeds can reduce fuel consumption and enable the aircraft to fly more economically. In the compound helicopter and related aircraft configurations such as the gyrodyne and winged autogyro, reducing the rotational speed of the rotor and offloading part of its lift to a fixed wing reduces drag, enabling the aircraft to fly faster.
The Aerial Reconfigurable Embedded System (ARES) was a concept for an unmanned VTOL flight module that can transport various payloads. The concept started as the TX (Transformer) in 2009 for a terrain-independent transportation system centered on a ground vehicle that could be configured into a VTOL air vehicle and carry four troops. ARES' primary function was the same as TX, to use flight to avoid ground-based transportation threats like ambushes and IEDs for units that don't have helicopters for those missions. It was to be powered by twin tilting ducted fans and have its own power system, fuel, digital flight controls, and remote command-and-control interfaces. The flight module would have different detachable mission modules for specific purposes including cargo delivery, CASEVAC, and ISR. Up to 3,000 lb (1,400 kg) of payload would be carried by a module.
The Eurocopter X³(X-Cubed) is a retired experimental high-speed compound helicopter developed by Airbus Helicopters. A technology demonstration platform for "high-speed, long-range hybrid helicopter" or H³ concept, the X³ achieved 255 knots in level flight on 7 June 2013, setting an unofficial helicopter speed record. In June 2014, it was placed in a French air museum in the village of Saint-Victoret.
Future Vertical Lift (FVL) is a plan to develop a family of military helicopters for the United States Armed Forces. Five different sizes of aircraft are to be developed, sharing common hardware such as sensors, avionics, engines, and countermeasures. The U.S. Army has been considering the program since 2004. FVL is meant to develop replacements for the Army's UH-60 Black Hawk, AH-64 Apache, CH-47 Chinook, and OH-58 Kiowa helicopters. The precursor for FVL is the Joint Multi-Role (JMR) helicopter program.
