A Study of Civil Tiltrotor Aircraft in NextGen Airspace

Tiltrotor aircraft have long been envisioned as being a potentially viable means of commercial aviation transport. Preliminary results from an ongoing study into the operational and technological considerations of Civil Tiltrotor (CTR) operation in the Next Generation airspace, circa the 2025 time-frame, are presented and discussed. In particular, a fleet of CTR aircraft has been conceptually designed. The performance characteristics of this CTR fleet was subsequently translated into BADA (Base of Aircraft DAta) models that could be used as input to emulate CTR aircraft operations in the ACES and AvTerminal airspace and terminal area simulation tools. A network of nine North-Eastern corridor airports is the focus of the airspace simulation effort; the results from this airport network will then be extrapolated to provide insights into systemic impact of CTRs on the National Airspace System (NAS). Future work will also be detailed as to attempts to model the systemic effects of noise and emissions from this fleet of new aircraft as well as assess their leveraged impact on public service missions, in time of need, such as major regional/national disaster relief efforts. The ideal outcome of this study is a set of results whereby Next Gen airspace CONOPs can be refined to reflect potential CTR capabilities and, conversely, CTR technology development efforts can be better informed as to key performance requirement thresholds needed to be met in order to successfully introduce these aircraft into civilian aviation operation.