Move over Robinson R88

[g-mady]

The new robinson R188!

http://i16.tinypic.com/6ays8pe.jpg

[Three Blades]

Did the beast ever fly or is this the Russian 'spruce goose' ?

[Heli-kiwi]

I think I could have flown my first circuit in that........ I mean inside that :eek:. Say... thats a nice collection of bombs in the foreground, looks like there is one for every occasion - No job to big or small.

[g-mady]

no thats the R22, R33, R44, R55.....

Ill get my coat!

[madman1145]

It did fly, this Mi-12, just like the Hughes Spruce Goose did - but only testflights ..

But what I find funny is that this Russian "helicopter" is named Homer :ok: ..
What a name for it. That says it all about the design of it and reminds me about one of The Simpson shows where Homer was asked to design a car :rolleyes: ..

http://www.seti.ee/ff/mi12-i6565.jpg http://www.ctrl-c.liu.se/misc/RAM/mi-12.jpg

- madman

[Dave_Jackson]

The Homer is 'just barely' an Interleaving (http://www.unicopter.com/B263.html#Interleaving_Rotors) helicopter. It appears that only two Interleaving helicopters were ever build. Interestingly, one is the largest helicopter ever built and the other is close to being the smallest.

IMHO, the Homer is the harbinger of tomorrow's transport helicopters.

[Hilico]

I thought 'Homer' was just its NATO code name - helicopter code names all began with H and the two syllables meant something else (cf 'Hark'). Or something.

[rotorrookie]

Madman1145 can you tell us then if its true it could lift 40tonnes?

[NickLappos]

Altitude with 40 000 kg payload : 2 255 m
Date of flight: 06/08/1969
Pilot: Vasily KOLOCHENKO (USSR)
Crew: L.V. VLASSOV, V.V. JURAVLEV, V.P. BARTCHENKOV, S.G. RIBALKO, A.I. KRUTCHKOV
Course/place: Podmoskovnoe (USSR)
Rotorcraft:
V-12 (4 D-25, 6 500 hp each)



and More!



see:
http://records.fai.org/rotorcraft/aircraft.asp?id=3161

[Dave_Jackson]

Some more information on the Mi-12 Homer;

5 pages from 'Soviet Helicopters - Design, Development and Tactics' ~ by John Everett-Heath (http://www.unicopter.com/1469.html)

[Graviman]

Talking to a guy who started his career as a stress engineer at MIL, yesterday. Apparently the FBW intro'd in '94 on the Mi-26, which in an earlier form sourced the Mi-12 powertrain, allows 74 degrees of pitch! This allows some incredible rates of climb, and transition accel. I assume he meant unladen, as machine mass is equal to it's payload.

http://www.b-domke.de/AviationImages/Halo.html

It would be interesting to hear from other sources about that rotorhead. The FBW apparently controls the hydraulics through the ECU, rather than bushless DC motor which is more common now. Kindof wishing i had taken that aero stress engineer job myself (although the salary was awful)...


Dave, from your ref i gather the Mi-12 config was chosen as a compromise over tandem to allow STOL at MAUM, by virtue of wings and both rotors in clean air. Tandem would have allowed VTOL, but at reduced MAUM. Not sure why advancing over wings would have helped clearance though, since flapback would be the same with either rotation.

Mart