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DP-1
DP-1
General information
Type	VSTOL transport demonstrator
National origin	United States of America
Manufacturer	DuPont Aerospace
History
Manufactured	1
First flight	September 2007

The DuPont Aerospace DP-1 was a subscale prototype for a fixed-wing VSTOL transport aircraft, intended to take off and land like a helicopter and fly like an airplane. The fullscale aircraft, named DP-2, was designed to travel at high subsonic speeds with a greater range than its rotary-wing equivalent, and to allow troops to rappel from the aft cargo ramp. The development of the 53% scale DP-1 aircraft was originally funded in the early 1990s as a backup to the V-22 Osprey program, which was undergoing significant technical and political challenges.^[1] During the construction of the test aircraft, program management changed the requirements, and mandated that the vehicle be tested as a UAV. This change added significant cost and time to the project, but in September 2007, the DP-1 autonomous prototype achieved sustained, controlled tethered hovers of 45 seconds at the Gillespie Field test site.^[2]

On June 13, 2007, the U.S. House Committee on Science and Technology held a hearing about the fate of the DP-2.^[3] In August 2007, funding was finally cut, after a total of $63 million spent over nearly two decades.^[2]

References

^ Slattery, Chad (May 2014). "The Puzzle of Vertical Takeoff". Air & Space/Smithsonian. Smithsonian Institution. Retrieved 2017-11-18.
^ ^a ^b Warwick, Graham (December 2, 2007). "DuPont's V/STOL makes the headlines again". FlightGlobal. Retrieved 2022-09-28.
^ "Archived copy" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 2007-06-12. Retrieved 2007-06-12.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: archived copy as title (link)