Development and Flight Test System Identification of an Integrated High Lift Propulsor Testbed
Friday, 24 October 2025
North Texas Joint Webinar: https://aiaa.zoom.us/j/88276861556?pwd=jO2xwOMN4Ef82jiSrY13RsitIs7bWz.1
Passcode: 134198
1-2pm CDT
Outlook Meeting Notice with Tech Paper attached
Byron Ward
Founder and president of Wayfarer Aircraft Research and Development and Principal Investigator for the NASA research. Before founding Wayfarer, Byron worked for 20 years in the civil aircraft industry as an aerodynamicist and flight test engineer on projects ranging from small propeller aircraft to manned spacecraft. Byron received a B.S. and M.S. in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Michigan and he has a commercial pilot license.
Wayfarer Aircraft has developed and patented a novel new form of blown wing lift augmentation called the Integrated High Lift Propulsor (IHLP), which uses DEP integrated with a Krueger flap or slat. The integrated system substantially reduces the thrust and power required for lift augmentation while stowing internally to increase cruise efficiency.
Wind tunnel testing was conducted at Mississippi State University’s low-speed wind tunnel to evaluate the performance of the IHLP. Results confirmed the effectiveness of the IHLP in achieving high lift capabilities. Experimental data generally aligned with CFD predictions, with some differences noted. The findings of the experimental work suggest that the IHLP is a promising technology to advance high-lift capabilities in DEP systems. The paper presents IHLP including its advantages and performance improvements in high lift and cruise conditions compared to conventional distributed electric propulsion (DEP) systems. A reconfigurable, subscale distributed electric propulsion testbed is under development using a heavily modified 35%-scale Cessna 182 (Subscale C-182) radio control (R/C) model aircraft, to provide full-scale representative flight test data. Upcoming efforts on a full-scale Cessna 182 will focus on completing the instrumentation system checkout and calibration followed by an expanded flight test campaign aimed at identifying key aircraft performance and handling qualities using classic and system identification techniques