Sikorsky Cypher
A ducted-rotor UAV with coaxial rotors in a toroidal shroud.
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The Sikorsky Cypher is a vertical takeoff and landing unmanned aerial vehicle developed by Sikorsky Aircraft. It is notable for its use of two opposing rotors enclosed in a circular shroud, a design that improved handling safety and added lift.
Background
Sikorsky started developing the Cypher in the late 1980s. This small drone used coaxial rotors housed inside a doughnut-shaped shroud. The circular duct made the vehicle safer to handle and generated extra lift.
The first test model was 1.75 meters across, 55 centimeters tall, and weighed 20 kilograms. It first flew in the summer of 1988, powered by a 2.85 kW four-stroke engine. For early forward-flight tests, engineers mounted it on a truck.
A bigger prototype came next, measuring 1.9 meters in diameter and weighing 110 kilograms. It ran on a 40 kW Wankel engine. That aircraft first flew in April 1992 and achieved its first free flight in 1993. Over the rest of the decade, it completed more than 550 demonstration flights for U.S. government agencies.
The Cypher could carry a sensor package on top of its fuselage or haul external loads up to 23 kilograms. This program led to the larger Cypher II, which Sikorsky entered into the U.S. Navy’s VT-UAV competition.
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Sources
Compiled from Wikipedia and the sources listed below. Text from Wikipedia is available under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is adapted from it.
- Wikipedia: Sikorsky Cypher (CC BY-SA 4.0).
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