What type of organization is Garrow Aircraft?
Is Garrow Aircraft in the business of manufacturing aircraft?
Is Garrow Aircraft open to partnerships?
Does Garrow Aircraft welcome new design ideas and inputs from other inventors?
What are the primary applications of this type of equipment?

Is Garrow Aircraft engaged with any real prototyping effort?
Does Garrow Aircraft limit the range of applications of the Verticopter?
What is the Verticopter?
What category of convertiplane is it?
Why is the thrust vectoring unique?

What angles are covered by the thrust vector?
Are the props turning at different rates/RPM?
What is the largest challenge to control this plane in hover mode?
How precise does the CG management has to be?
What techniques are being covered in the Verticopter's Utility Patents?

Is the Verticopter protected by a Design Patent?
Is it possible to experience the flight performance of different Verticopter applications?
Is the Verticopter simulator design copyrighted?
What hardware or investment is needed to operate the flight simulator package?
Who provides the content to our online GuestBook?

What element produce lift in this plane?
How does it compare with cantilever wing airplane?
How is the Verticopter's stall performance?
Could the Vortex Ring State condition affect the Verticopter?
Why did so many flight simulator users report about the ease of piloting the Verticopters, especially during VTOL operation?
Are augmented controls like the artificial stabilization required to operate this aircraft?

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What type of organization is Garrow Aircraft?
Garrow Aircraft is comprised of a small group of engineers, designers and aviation industry enthusiasts. We are in the process of structuring the company into a business entity to enable further development of the Verticopter and other aircraft designs. This should be achieved in Q4 of 2008.
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Is Garrow Aircraft in the business of manufacturing aircraft?
At present, we are not. Our initial activity is to design, patent, promote and market our aircraft solutions.
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Is Garrow Aircraft open to partnerships?
Indeed, we rely on partnerships. Investors, Manufacturers and then Distributors and Representatives are invited to contact us via our open line at http://verticopter.com/contactus.php
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Does Garrow Aircraft welcome new design ideas and inputs from other inventors?
Probably not at this time, our designs are 95% mature and not a lot might change.
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What are the primary applications of this type of equipment?
Primary applications include: air surveillance, search & rescue, medical evacuation, military reconnaissance, border patrol, aerial journalism, industrial surveillance door-2-door parcel delivery and personal transport. Future models could be adapted and developed for commercial transportation and consumer travel industries as well.
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Is Garrow Aircraft engaged with any real prototyping effort?
Yes, the first R/C prototype was launched in November 2007 and flew successfully. (please check our onsite video). Since then, Garrow Aircraft has built and continues building R/C models to observe the performance of this configuration in various flight envelope, and to test and verify the flight-simulator reports.
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Does Garrow Aircraft limit the range of applications of the Verticopter?
Certainly not. We are glad to review any proposed application. However Garrow Aircraft reserves the right to grant licensing rights only to applications that are deemed safe and compatible with its capabilities.
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What is the Verticopter?
It is a “convertiplane”, which is an aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing (VTOL). It can alter its flight path from vertical flight to horizontal flight and back while in the air.
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What category of convertiplane is it?
The Verticopter uses a standard tilt-prop solution that has a unique characteristic of operating at a constant CG. Also unlike the helicopter, the Verticopter can operate with fixed-pitch props.
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Why is the thrust vectoring unique?
It has two co-axial props that are counter-rotating. Another unique feature is that the props are placed at the exact center of gravity (CG) of the whole structure.
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What angles are covered by the thrust vector?
The vector goes from 0 degree (full vertical) to 90 degrees (full horizontal). Other angles are possible with this system but we determined that they were not useful to the aircraft operation.
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Are the props turning at different rates/RPM?
The props normally operate at the same RPM, although in opposite directions. A sophisticated yaw control system can vary the relative RPM of those props, hence creating a difference of torque and a solution to controlling yaw in vertical flight. The props should always turn at the same RPM when in horizontal flight.
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What is the largest challenge to control this plane in hover mode?
The Verticopter was not designed to be a perfect hovering machine, and is not intended to replace the helicopter. Instead, the Verticopter excels at short take-off and landing maneuvers and "jump take-offs". Tight hovering maneuvers require a fine control of the weight distribution and may also call for the use of compressed air puffers if the wind conditions are weak.
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How precise does the CG management has to be?
The CG management is a key design feature in this aircraft. Indeed our design was conceived to alleviate this task. Garrow Aircraft has developed several techniques to implement CG management, when the payload in the cockpit and the fuel load vary. Please contact us if you are interested in a more detailed explanation.
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What techniques are being covered in the Verticopter’s Utility Patents?
The patents address especially the CG management challenges in great detail.
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Is the Verticopter protected by a Design Patent?
Yes, an ornamental patent has been filed to protect the design.
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Is it possible to experience the flight performance of different Verticopter applications?
Yes, we designed a complete family of Verticopter planes to be flown in the flight simulator called X-Plane 9, five derivative implementations have been released, including unmanned and manned versions, and are available to purchase for a very low licensing fee. (<$20)
This software, available for PC, MAC and Linux machines, offers a very faithful simulation level and provides sim pilots with a genuine flight response.
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Is the Verticopter simulator design copyrighted?
Yes, every aspect of the Verticopter design is copyrighted by Garrow Aircraft. In order to fly this aircraft in the simulator, you will need to read the end-user license agreement and agree to its terms. Similarly, all the documents present on the Verticopter.com website are copyrighted, copying anything from the site needs a prior written approval from our management staff.
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What hardware or investment is needed to operate the flight simulator package?
You need a $600 Pentium-4 PC, with a $150 graphic adapter (G-Force 7 and up), a licensed copy of X-Plane 9 ($70), Garrow Aircraft Sim package ($20) and finally a $100 simulator joystick (typically Saitek X-52) for the manned Verticopters or a 6-channel R/C transmitter box (Futaba $150) and a GWS USB cable ($15) for the unmanned counterparts, so roughly a budget of $1K.
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Who provides the content to our online GuestBook?
Anyone is welcome to send his or her inputs, they will be reviewed before posting. We encourage especially people with some connection with the world of aviation and virtual pilots who experienced our flight simulator to provide educated inputs.
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What elements produce lift in this plane?
There are four different components at work to produce vertical lift: the pair of co-axials produces most of the lift up to 40-50 knots. Beyond this speed, the prop lift combines with the wing lift to enable smooth horizontal transitions at speeds over 50 knots. In horizontal flight, there are three wings that are producing vertical lift: the canard, the main wing and the Vtail wing whereas the props generate horizontal thrust
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How does it compare with cantilever wing airplane?
In the Verticopter, all three wings are producing positive lift in horizontal flight. In a cantilever wing airplane, the rear stab may produce negative lift which is far less efficient.
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How is the Verticopter's stall performance?
Excellent. The Verticopter stalls are very smooth, and the aircraft rectifies itself even without any pilot input. In the simulator, we are not even able to reproduce a stall spin, since the behavior is very stable and neutral at stall speeds.
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Could the Vortex Ring State condition affect the Verticopter ?
No, this is a key difference with helicopters and other rotary wing solutions like the V22 Osprey that could be quite prone to that deadly phenomenon. The Verticopter prevents, as per its design, this condition to occur.
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Why did so many flight simulator users report about the ease of piloting the Verticopters, especially during VTOL operation?
Well, unlike traditional helicopters, the Verticopter was designed with enhanced stability in mind, its several wing surfaces provides advanced stability and control in all 3 roll/pitch/yaw axes.
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Are augmented controls like the artificial stabilization required to operate this aircraft?
No, several pilot assistance modules (like the art. stabilization, the air puffers, the auto-pilot and GPS) were added to help pilots in training and to offer total control in any flight conditions but they are not mandatory and can be disconnected.
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January 7, 2009