Tigerfish Aviation is an aerospace research and development company based in

Norwood, South Australia Norwood is a suburb of Adelaide, about east of the Adelaide city centre. The suburb is in the City of Norwood Payneham & St Peters, whose predecessor was the oldest South Australian local government municipality. The Parade, Adelaide, The Parad ...

. The company has been developing a retractable pontoon system for the

float plane A floatplane is a type of seaplane with one or more slender floats mounted under the fuselage to provide buoyancy. By contrast, a flying boat uses its fuselage for buoyancy. Either type of seaplane may also have landing gear suitable for land, ...

industry, which has been patented as Retractable Amphibious Pontoon Technology or RAPT since the late 1990s.

RAPT system

Retractable Amphibious Pontoon Technology(RAPT) is a retractable float concept which aims to reduce

aerodynamic drag In fluid dynamics, drag, sometimes referred to as fluid resistance, is a force acting opposite to the direction of motion of any object moving with respect to a surrounding fluid. This can exist between two fluid layers, two solid surfaces, or b ...

by folding the floats into a pannier under the fuselage of the aircraft. The reduction in drag increases performance of the aircraft and reduces its operating cost, such as fuel consumption. Reduction in drag increases the range, payload, speed, and productivity of the aircraft. Drag reduction occurs due to the reduction of surface area exposed to the airstream and concealing the hydrodynamic features of the floats. It is designed as a retrofit, and is potentially capable of application to any existing aircraft. The technology has been applied on a one-sixth scale

Cessna Caravan The Cessna 208 Caravan is a utility aircraft produced by Cessna. The project was commenced on November 20, 1981, and the prototype first flew on December 9, 1982. The production model was certified by the FAA in October 1984 and its Cargoma ...

for concept-proving.

Technical details

As of 2010, Dornier 228 NG is the first proposed aircraft to be retrofitted for the RAPT system, besides the small-scale Cessna. The retractable float system can be used in a varying range of aircraft including regional aircraft, utility aircraft, executive aircraft, military transports, VLJs, and

UAV An unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) or unmanned aircraft system (UAS), commonly known as a drone, is an aircraft with no human pilot, crew, or passengers onboard, but rather is controlled remotely or is autonomous.De Gruyter Handbook of Drone ...

s. The

University of Adelaide The University of Adelaide is a public university, public research university based in Adelaide, South Australia. Established in 1874, it is the third-oldest university in Australia. Its main campus in the Adelaide city centre includes many Sa ...

, with assistance of the South Australian Government, has performed CFD analysis and studies on the

DHC-6 Twin Otter The de Havilland Canada DHC-6 Twin Otter is a Canadian STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) utility aircraft developed by de Havilland Canada in the mid-1960s and still in production today. Built by De Havilland Canada from 1965 to 1988, Viking Ai ...

showing that the RAPT system would result in a cost benefit. Unlike traditional floats, RAPT pontoons are made of lightweight composite materials, but suffer additional mass penalties due to the electric, hydraulic and structural systems required to retract the pontoons. Total mass penalty has been estimated at for a Dornier 228 NG variant.

References

{{Reflist

External links

Video of the RAPT system in operationCFD Analysis of the Tigerfish Retractable Float System on a DHC-Twin OtterTigerfish Aviation WebsiteRUAG Dornier 228 NGAviation Weekly
Aerospace companies of Australia

RAPT system

Technical details

See also

References

External links