Variable Speed Aerial Refueling Drogue

"The proposed work is intended to begin the development of a variable airspeed aerial refueling system emphasizing a novel drogue concept, the "ring flap" drogue, designed to control the drogue drag over the 95-280 kt airspeed range. The drogue willprovide adequate drag at low speeds to maintain the drogue attitude sufficiently close to horizontal to allow a receiver aircraft to couple while limiting the drag at high speeds to avoid excessive hose tension. The system concept will also addressshaping of the hose catenary as required to provide adequate clearance between the hose and rotorcraft blades and to set the position of the drogue below the tanker as required to minimize tanker wake disturbances. The system will be designed to minimizedrogue oscillations that would interfere with receiver coupling. The Phase I effort will define quantitative functional and design requirements and synthesize preliminary system designs. In Phase II, the designs will be further analyzed and refined;prototypes will be fabricated and tested in wind tunnels and in flight. The developments of this project could improve military aerial refueling operations by allowing a wide range of fixed wing aircraft and rotorcraft to operate from a single variablespeed drogue type that can be reconfigured in flight. Derivative technologies might be used in a variety of cargo airdrop and towed sensor platform applications for military and commercial application