In this paper, a nonlinear hierarchical adaptive control framework is proposed for the control of a quad tilt-wing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV). An outer loop model reference adaptive controller with robustifying terms creates required forces to be able to move the UAV on a reference trajectory, and an inner loop nonlinear adaptive controller realizes the required attitude angles to achieve these forces. A rigorous stability analysis is provided showing the boundedness of all the signals in this cascaded controller structure. The development and the stability analysis of the controller do not use any linearizations and use the full nonlinear UAV dynamics. The controller is implemented on a high-fidelity nonlinear tilt-wing quadrotor model in the presence of uncertainties, wind disturbances, and measurement noise as well as actuator and structural failures. In this work, in addition to earlier modeling studies, the effect of wing-angle variations, actuator failures, and structural failures and their effect on the center of gravity of the UAV are rigorously and systematically investigated and reflected in the model. Simulation results showing the performance of the proposed controller and a comparison with the fixed controller used in earlier studies are presented in the paper. Copyright © 2017 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.