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If you’ve ever watched a tilt‑wing aircraft like our Aero2 hover with its wing pointing straight at the sky, you might have felt an instinctive concern: doesn’t that big, upright wing act like a sail? It’s a fair question — and one that has followed the tilt‑wing family since the 1960s. The short answer, confirmed by flight test data old and new, is no. In fact, tilt‑wings cope with wind remarkably well, often better than conventional rotorcraft of similar size.
This post unpacks why that is, draws on classic test programmes — including Canadair’s CL‑84 Dynavert and the U.S. tri‑service XC‑142 — and previews how we are expanding the wind envelope for Aero2 to 30 kt (55 km/h) steady winds with gust margins on top. We are sharing some hard‑won knowledge and celebrating the ingenuity that keeps these aircraft steady when the weather is anything but.
The core advantage of a tilt‑wing in hover is that the entire wing sits inside a powerful, uniform propeller slipstream. That slipstream acts like a wind‑tunnel moving with the aircraft, smoothing out external turbulence before it reaches the lifting surfaces. Aero2's 1.2 m diameter propeller at hover thrust produces local flow of 27 m/s (52 kt). A 10‑kt cross‑gust simply modulates that internal flow by a few percent.
Because control surfaces and flight‑control sensors are also immersed in that propwash, the aircraft retains crisp authority; small attitude changes can be corrected in a fraction of a second by the fly‑by‑wire system. Our fully in-house-developed flight computers sense the movement of the aircraft and update command outputs at 100 Hz, keeping well ahead of the frequency range of typical atmospheric gusts.
Key takeaway: what looks like a big sail is really a portable wind‑tunnel, already blowing faster than most ambient winds.
Both programmes recorded pilot comments praising gust stability: “Feels like flying a Harrier on rails” (CL‑84 USN evaluation report, 1973). That confidence came from the same propwash and control‑power principles we apply today, now reinforced by digital flight control and envelope protection.
We are methodically expanding Aero2’s envelope at our test site in the Swiss Alps. So far we have:
For many logistics or emergency medical services (EMS) missions with small/medium helicopters, 30 kt ground‑level wind already represents a “stay‑on‑the‑ground” threshold. By meeting that mark, Aero2 can match the dispatch reliability of the aircraft it intends to replace — while offering fixed‑wing cruise efficiency.
“Doesn’t the vertical wing just catch the wind and push the aircraft sideways?”
In short, the physics are on our side, and our proprietary avionics double down on that advantage.
Strong winds will always be a challenge for vertical flight, but decades of evidence plus modern control tech show that tilt‑wings meet that challenge head‑on. We’re proud to stand on the shoulders of the Dynavert and XC‑142 teams as we push the envelope a little further.
[1] Jim Chung’s Ramblings – “The Canadair CL‑84 Dynavert”, 24 Jan 2024. Describes carrier demo in 65 km/h gusts.
[2] Vertipedia – “LTV XC‑142A Tri‑Service” (accessed May 2025). Notes 100° wing incidence for tailwind hover.
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ABOUT DUFOUR AEROSPACE:
Dufour Aerospace is pioneering drones for critical missions. Based in Switzerland, Dufour develops and manufactures efficient and sustainable aircraft for cargo transportation, logistics, and public safety. The Aero2 drone features distributed electric propulsion and a hybrid module to meet today’s Advanced Air Mobility and medium-sized drone market requirements.