The wind tunnel model on the rotor test stand Taking off from
the centre of one town and landing in another without passing
through large airports – with tiltrotor aircraft, this is no
longer just a dream. This combination of helicopter and airplane
can help in handling the continually increasing traffic to
airports. The German Aerospace Center (Deutsches Zentrum für
Luft- und Raumfahrt; DLR) Braunschweig is working on just such
an aircraft as part of the EU’s Novel Innovative Competitive
Effective Tilt Rotor Integrated Project, NICETRIP. Tiltrotor
aircraft can help to relieve the load on airports, since they
combine the advantages of helicopters and conventional
airplanes. They take off vertically, so that they can be
operated from nearly all helipads. Then, at a certain altitude,
the rotors tilt and the aircraft flies in the relatively
inexpensive manner of a normal airplane. This gives it an
advantage especially for short trips: passengers can fly
directly from one city centre to another, quickly and econo