It's flying in this configuration, with a rotary wing for take off and landing that becomes a stationary wing for high speed flight.

This is the same machine? Naaaaahhh....

Not the same, another iteration. This one has the rotary wing added for controlled take offs so the Chinese food doesn't spill.

:rolleyes: Where did this stupid photo come from, it’s a prank. That stupid looking thing couldn’t fly two feet… ask me how I know?

Why don't you enlighten us, rather than taunting us? That's kind of how this whole message board thing works. Occasional wise ass comments do work well (it's a life skill many of us have mastered), but if you make a provocative statement, you should be prepared to back it up. Not every post needs to be brilliant, or contain APA formatted references, but at least say what you were intending to say.

APA formatted references.. what a great idea!

The aircraft in question is missing basic configuration components. You are looking an engine cowl with some little wings attached. In technical terms it would be called “Short coupled”. Its aerodynamic components lack leverage. In layman’s terms… its wider then it is long, which is not something an aero engineer would consider because of instability considerations. It also lacks axis controls on the edges of the aerodynamic components… which would be required for low speed control and vertical takeoff and landing.

APA? Pah. MLA, baby. From here out all websites will be reference like this:

Last, Firstname. "Article Name." Website Name. Date visited.

And if you accidentally underline the period after the website's name, you'll have five points removed from your grade.

Jimf747, Is that you Radar? It just so happens that aircraft that you say can't be true, is being flown by Boeing and the DOD as we speak. So not only are you a condecending asshole, you have nothing to be condecending about because you're wrong again.
:shotgun:

The aircraft you saw in the picture is not being flown, because it couldn't fly. And by the way you name calling peace of garbage, I''ve been an Aeronautical Engineer for 25 years working on some of these projects!

A rotary wing which becomes a fixed wing? There's some serious problems with that idea (all the angular momentum of the wing has to go somewhere when you stop it), but I doubt DoD is going to release details on how they solved them.

As for the original pictured -- sure, it's not stable. An aircraft doesn't have to be stable to fly.

You right about the stability question, however there has to be some resemblance of a logically thought out airframe. The F-18 is dynamically unstable… but if you moved the center of gravity forward you could probably fly the thing without stability augmentation. This thing we are looking at has violated every know aerodynamic law that makes any aircraft fly to begin with. The only way to make that thing stable would be to launch it like a bullet (Mach 2 +) and keep it at that velocity, but that inlet speaks of “ducted fan” technology which is not transonic etc.

Looks to me, especially with the big fixed gear, that all they are doing is testing the hover mode. Doesn't look like they've gotten it to go forward or backward, yet.

Bruce, what's the source of the rotary wing aircraft you posted? I've looked at Aurora's site, and it shows them hover testing a prototype that looks a lot like the one that started this thread, minus the horizontal flight control surfaces.

"Boeingnews Now" site on Boeings internal web. Basically it said Rick Baily, vice president and deputy of Integrated Defense Advanced Systems, or IDeAs, commended the team shortly after the Phantom Work's Canard Rotor/Wing concept completed its first flight Wednesday at the U.S. Army Yuma Proving Ground in Arizona. Under joint development by Boeing and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, of the DoD, the CRW incorporates a rotor designed not only to spin for vertical takeoffs
and landings but to convert into a lift-providing fixed-wing configuration for high speed cruise.

Of course Jimf747 says it can't so they'll just have to scrap the whole project, destroy the data and deny it happened.:p