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Start-up company plans new twinjet STOL aircraft
By: Andrew Healey
Caption: British company Avcen has designed an innovative ducted-fan twinjet, called the Jetpod, that it claims will cruise at 300 knots yet take off and land in sl
Word Count: 435
British company Avcen has designed an innovative ducted-fan twinjet, called the Jetpod, that it claims will cruise at 300 knots yet take off and land in slightly more than 400 feet. The owners are currently looking for investors to help them to move the project off the drawing board and into proof-of-concept flight trials. The owners describe the Jetpod as a very quiet short take-off and landing (VQSTOL) aircraft, powered by directional jets that employ a combination of horizontal and vertical thrust to achieve short-field performance. Avcen managing director Mike Dacre said it also boasts advanced noise attenuation technologies that reduce the noise output of any existing 3,500-pound-thrust gas turbine by up to two stages of jet noise–that is, by as much as 50 percent. He claims that the sticker price for the Jetpod will be less than $1 million. Challenging the HelicopterDacre explained that the company does not intend to compete with inter-city modes of transport; rather, it intends for the Jetpod to compete with helicopters that transport passengers from the outskirts of the city to its center. He claimed that a helicopter would be much more expensive to charter and takes about 15 minutes to get from the London orbital freeway into the city center, versus what he predicts will be three minutes in a Jetpod. He added, “One of the civil variants–the T-100–has been designed to withstand high multiple day and night sector usage. It should be capable of carrying out as many as 50 landings a day, on grass or dirt if need be, using a rotation of pilots.” Should the company line up the investors it needs, the proof-of-concept flight trials will demonstrate whether Avcen has realized its ambitious performance goals for the Jetpod. Although the aircraft will be IFR capable, Dacre expects that operators will use it primarily in a VMC environment. He is confident that the necessary landing room could be made available in city centers and, if that happens, sees Jetpod as the ultimate in point-to-point “hail and fly” air taxis. Clamshell rear doors will aid loading of passengers or EMS payload.Avcen’s ambition extends beyond performance figures. The company is proposing not one of the unconventional aircraft but six variants–two each for the civil, military and unmanned aerial vehicle sectors. At certain fuel loads, the lighter UAV models are expected to be capable of hovering.Dacre concluded, “We believe that the Jetpod represents one of the greatest advancements in aircraft design and related technologies since the Learjet in the 1960s. It is completely out on its own when it comes to reducing aircraft noise and takeoff distance.”