Aurora, VTOL top R&D story

One of the Top 10 storylines of 2014 out of the Pentagon’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) was the Phase I contract award for the VTOL X-Plane – a new design for vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. DARPA’s VTOL Experimental Plane program that seeks to overcome these challenges between the fixed-wing and rotary-wing worlds to make radical improvements in vertical and cruise flight capabilities. In an important step toward that goal, DARPA awarded four prime contract designs for Phase 1 that included Aurora Flight Services. The VTOL X-Plane program was scheduled for three phases over 52 months - from October 2013 and February 2018 - with the first demonstration flight slated for 42 months after the initial award last February. (Source: DARPA, 12/29/14) Central Mississippi Note: AFS will build its version of the VTOL at its Columbus, Miss., plant.