Leonardo says that the Next Generation Tiltrotor (NGCTR) is a research and innovation project aimed at developing an advanced concept for a new tiltrotor design. The aim of the project is to define new technologies and "an innovative tiltrotor architecture" to increase performance and operational capability with respect to current tiltrotor configurations.
The NGCTR will have a cruise speed around 280 knots, twice that of typical helicopters and close to turboprop aircraft speeds, with a range of around 1,000 nm.
The NGCTR project involves the construction of various technological demonstrator versions of the main systems, as well as a full-scale demonstrator for flight testing and validation of the architectures and new technologies.
The Leonardo effort is also part of the Clean Sky 2 initiative, which is funded under the European Commission's Horizon 2020 Framework Program.