DARPA whirly-wing jet gyrocraft hits noise snags DARPA*, the Pentagon warboffinry outfit for whom the only field worthwhile is the left one, is having some problems with its "Heliplane" programme. The Heliplane is essentially a modified autogyro (aka gyrocopter or gyroplane), an aircraft that gets its lift from a rotor disc outwardly resembling that of a helicopter. However …
Am I being even more stupid than normal or would it not be possile to use a turbine to 'draft' the rotor around in the initial stages? This seems so obvious in these days of NOTAR helicoptors (no tail rotor for those behind the pack with acronyms) as it could use the exhaust gasses from the forward motion engines and greatly simplifies the main rotor construction.
If no-one has thought of it then dibs on the patent...
Fantastic film.
Aah the days before MBAs and outsourcing, when stuff got built quick and the future was shiny and bright, and the managers actually understood the stuff their minions built (or at least knew enough to keep out of the way). I doff my cap to the boffins , engineers and assorted technicians that made it happen. Am I alone in thinking that we'd struggle to build such a thing today ?
Getting my (lab) coat already...
I too was going to say I'd built the model - first time of seeing the film. Looked bloody good too. I believe it was cancelled by the then old Labour government under Wislon along with the TSR2 - which was another those 'what if we'd carried on with it' aircraft - who knows. Re-inventing wheels again!
<sigh>
What do you get if you cross a bunch of clever people, hardly any cash and box that your not allowed to think inside of?
Stuff the Yanks reinvent in 50 years later!
Where's our government pork going then? I'd rather it was on this sort of stuff than ID Cards. Apparently we are in a knowledge economy now, uh oh i think that means we are in trouble unless the Chancellor splashes some cash on the mad project boffin brigade.
What you have to remember is the jet tips use cold gas. It's bad enough having all the plumbing from the engine to the rotor tips, but imagine having to lag it all. The rotors would be 4 foot thick.
I seem to recall Fairy's had a small version of the Rotordyne called the Gyrodyne, which they managed to launch off the back of a 3 ton truck.
Anyone wanting to be really depressed by all the nice toys our 50's & 60's boffins cooked up only for the govt to tell them to stop or we'd upset the Yanks should get hold of a book called Project Canceled.
The rotodyne was a fantastic aircraft - and the scientists at the time seemed to have resolved the noise issues.
I say lets re-start this project before the Americans grab the market with one of their over-engineered solutions.
If the Government could channel a tiny fraction of the money that it wastes on NHS bureaucracy to projects on this kind, it would really help boost British industry and encourage youngsters to study science.
Interesting stuff, and yet more evidence that ideas are rarely unique - the only variations are whether the end product ever gets completed, delivered and works.
Or people just repeat the previous concept unknowingly, and find the exact same flaws. Sometimes knowing some history can save money.
Checking some of the old UK programs out is always interesting - Avro 730 & Bristol 188 looked like they could have been good stuff (like so many other things); somehow I couldn't see anything like that happening today, except maybe the same kind of destructive political input...
Regarding the statement in the article of the V-22 attaining VTOL and high speed, that's true, but the V-22 has very high disk loading, and so is limited in its gross weight. A large, single rotor would have much lower disk loading, and allow higher gross weights for the same power.
For a small bit of self-promotion, I work for a company that has a similar concept. We are aware of the Fairey Rotodyne and the problem of noise with tip jets, so we are using a more conventional gearbox & driveshaft system.
http://www.cartercopters.com/heliplane_overview.html
Unleash British boffinry on the problem.
A quick squirt of hydrogen peroxide should be enough to spin the rotors. Hot steam and oxygen: add a bit of kerosene and you have a satellite launcher.
Morris dancers building a steam rocket: if you put that in a movie, nobody would believe it.
"Yeah! What were the yanks ever doing back then?
Except going to the FUCKING MOON"
I didn't think the original poster was being anti-american. Not all discussions have to centre on the USA- the discussion has been around great stuff we have done and what might have been. By understanding what has happened in the past we might learn how to do things better in the future e.g. not putting square windows in a pressurised cabin.
Also some would say the Apollo programme's success owes a great deal to Wernher Von Braun and the other german rocketeers who moved to the United States after the war (and the bucketloads of cash) so maybe not the best example of American genius (of which there are plenty - the Liberty ships, the airframe of the P-51, ILM etc ).
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