"CTOL Trials Are An Essential Step Towards VTOL Aircraft Development..."

A milestone has been met in Samad Aerospace's Starling Programme, as November 2020 saw the successful conventional take-off and landing (CTOL) flight test of the company's 50% scale fully electric aircraft.

Samad's Chief Technical Officer, Norman Wijker explains, "CTOL trials are an essential step towards VTOL aircraft development. Ticking off the CTOL flight capability is a crucial step towards the validation of all flight modes. With CTOL trials complete, we will begin hovering trials and the flight trials will be concluded by transition between hovering flight and aerodynamic flight in both directions"

During the CTOL flight test (November 2020) the aircraft took off at a length of 250 meters, demonstrating potential for Short take-off and landing (STOL). Take-off and landing were smooth, and the vehicle maintained a comfortable cruise at a speed of (90 mph) airborne for over five minutes.

The flight tests included evaluations on aircraft flight dynamics, performance as well as handling qualities. As the e-Starling adopts a semi blended wing body (BWB) design, it requires a low angle for take-off; it is important to understand when the aircraft is capable of taking-off and at which speed.
 
Apart from slow and fast taxiing on the runway as well as take-off and landing; the half scale demonstrator also performed banking manoeuvres in addition to tests on yaw, pitch and roll. The results reportedly show it to be very stable in terms of handling quality. Among other tests of subsystems were brake, telemetry, redundancy links, and ensuring the centre of gravity (CG) of the aircraft is at the correct design place. The aircraft's performance matched the predicted calculations made during preliminary and detailed design stages. 

"The data provided by the flight tests were sufficient and invaluable for us to feed into fine tuning the aircraft for auto pilot to allow us to conduct a subsequent test on auto pilot mode," says one of the engineering crew on-site.

Samad Aerospace has been developing its manned and unmanned aircraft with two scaled prototypes (10% and 20%) successfully built, flown, and showcased in international air shows such as Singapore, Geneva and Farnborough.

Preparations for the e-VTOL flight tests are already well underway. 2021 will reportedly see the completion of the 50% e-VTOL version of the e-Starling.

FMI: www.samadaerospace.com