X-50A Dragonfly Canard Rotor/Wing prototype completes hover flight

December 6, 2005 Boeing’s second canard rotor/wing (CRW) X-50A Dragonfly unmanned air vehicle (UAV) has successfully completed a four-minute hover flight at the U.S. Army’s Yuma Proving Ground reaching an altitude of about 20 feet above ground. The aircraft combines the vertical takeoff/landing capabilities of a rotorcraft with the high-subsonic cruise speed and agility of a fixed-wing airplane. As its name implies, its versatility is achieved by having a specially designed rotor for vertical takeoffs and landings that can be stopped in flight to serve as a fixed wing for jet cruise. Under an agreement with DARPA, Boeing Phantom Works has built and flight-tested two pilotless demonstrators to assess and validate the advanced rotorcraft concept and according to Clark Mitchell, Boeing Phantom Works program manager for the CRW prototype, the flight was “a significant achievement toward validating the new stopped-rotor technology.”

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