The innovative design of the HADA concept relies on that it reconfigures itself in flight by deploying the two half-span wings which are hidden beneath and along the fuselage while in helicopter mode. The objective of the HADA project is the development of a reconfigurable Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) that performs as a helicopter for take-off, landing and hovering flight ( Figure 1a), but that “morphs” to a conventional fixed wing configuration ( Figure 1b) for cruise flight. The “Helicopter ADaptive Aircraft” (HADA) is a project under development since 2007 by a consortium of 26 Spanish companies, universities and research institutions, led by the National Institute for Aerospace Technology (INTA).
In the last 60 years there have been many attempts to design a reconfigurable vehicle that could join the VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing) and hovering capabilities of helicopters and the cruise speed and efficiency of airplanes, as the tilt-rotor concept, the compound helicopter or the XV1 convertiplane. The aircraft with morphing capability provides the advantage of being able to fly multiple missions, which is not possible by those based on the conventional aircraft designs. Reconfigurable or morphing aircraft are flight vehicles that change their shape to effect both a change in their mission and to perform flight control without the use of conventional control surfaces.
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