The Sabrewing Rhaegal is a proposed American unmanned
cargo aircraft
A cargo aircraft (also known as freight aircraft, freighter, airlifter or cargo jet) is a fixed-wing aircraft that is designed or converted for the carriage of air cargo, cargo rather than passenger aircraft, passengers. Such aircraft usually ...
developed by Californian Sabrewing Aircraft.
Design
The hybrid electric
vertical takeoff and landing
A vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft is one that can take off and land vertically without relying on a runway. This classification can include a variety of types of aircraft including helicopters as well as thrust-vectoring fixed-win ...
full-size Rhaegal-A is powered by a turboshaft engine and has
ducted fan
In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or propeller mounted within a cylindrical duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertical takeoff and landing
(VTOL) applicatio ...
s, a wingspan, a gross-weight, a VTOL payload of in
STOL
A short takeoff and landing (STOL) aircraft is a conventional fixed-wing aircraft that has short runway requirements for takeoff and landing. Many STOL-designed aircraft also feature various arrangements for use on airstrips with harsh conditio ...
mode, a maximum speed of and a range of at up to .
A larger Wyvern could lift a VTOL payload of in STOL configuration.
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Development
By February 2018, Sabrewing was to fly a 65%-scale vehicle in the fall.
By February 2019, a one-eighth-scale model was going to be tested while the first full-size aircraft construction had begun, to fly by the end of 2019 and to enter service in 2023.
By then, the Aleut
The Aleuts ( ; russian: Алеуты, Aleuty) are the indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands, which are located between the North Pacific Ocean and the Bering Sea. Both the Aleut people and the islands are politically divided between the U ...
Community of Saint Paul Island, Alaska
Saint Paul Island (russian: Остров Святого Павла, Ostrov Svyatogo Pavla) is the largest of the Pribilof Islands, a group of four Alaskan volcanic islands located in the Bering Sea between the United States and Russia. The city o ...
, in the Bering Sea
The Bering Sea (, ; rus, Бе́рингово мо́ре, r=Béringovo móre) is a marginal sea of the Northern Pacific Ocean. It forms, along with the Bering Strait, the divide between the two largest landmasses on Earth: Eurasia and The Ameri ...
signed its first order for four Rhaegal and six larger Wyvern aircraft, to resupply Saint George Island, south.Vertical Flight Society
The Vertical Flight Society, formerly the American Helicopter Society (AHS), is the non-profit technical society for the advancement of vertical flight. It has 21 different technical committees and two dozen active chapters around the world. Ther ...
symposium, Sabrewing announced a larger Rhaegal-B was being completed, to be revealed within weeks.
With an increase in wingspan, fuselage length and maximum gross weight, payload
Payload is the object or the entity which is being carried by an aircraft or launch vehicle. Sometimes payload also refers to the carrying capacity of an aircraft or launch vehicle, usually measured in terms of weight. Depending on the nature of ...
increases by in VTOL and over in conventional take-off/landing.
It should load a single LD1 or LD3 container, or two LD2 containers, through the nose without special cargo handling equipment.
FAR Part 23
The Federal Aviation Regulations (FARs) are rules prescribed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) governing all aviation activities in the United States. The FARs comprise Title 14 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR). A wide variety o ...
certification negotiations were to be completed within weeks, to deliver cargo autonomously in any weather and any airspace
Airspace is the portion of the atmosphere controlled by a country above its territory, including its territorial waters or, more generally, any specific three-dimensional portion of the atmosphere. It is not the same as aerospace, which is the ...
.
In July 2020, Sabrewing announced that it had received the first Agility Prime contract from the United States Air Force worth $3.3 million USD for "evaluation" of Sabrewing's Rhaegal RG-1 aircraft. In September 2020, Sabrewing announced that it had received a firm order for 102 aircraft from Arabian Development and Marketing Company (ADMC), a company with IT, telecom, logistics and transportation and media interests, in a deal worth over $600 million. The deliveries of aircraft are to begin in 2022 to support the air cargo transportation needs of the Saudi Arabian Neom
Neom (styled NEOM; ''Neom,'' ) is a city being built in Tabuk Province in northwestern Saudi Arabia. It is planned to incorporate smart city technologies and function as a tourist destination. The site is north of the Red Sea, east of Egypt acro ...
project.
In October of 2022, Sabrewing announced that its RH-1-A drone had lifted a payload of 829 pounds (374 kg) on its first hover flight, saying that this was a heavier payload than had previously been “dead-lifted” by any commercial, vertical takeoff, uncrewed air vehicle.
See also
References
External links
* {{official website, https://www.sabrewingaircraft.com/products/rhaegal/
United States cargo aircraft
Proposed aircraft of the United States