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Old 12th Jul 2021, 03:55
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NickLappos
 
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Tip Rocket, Tip Jet

The Rotordyne had rotor tip ram jet thrusters fed fuel along the blades. The Hughes H 17 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hughes_XH-17) used tip jets that were fed air from engines on the fuselage. I think the Rotordyne was the first machine to fly with ram jet tip thrusters, the second was probably the Dutch single rotor blade helicopter (!) the NHI H-3 Kolibrie (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NHI_H-3_Kolibrie) which was relatively successful and flew in the late 1950s. Seated in that picture in Wikipedia is Rene Van Der Harten, a founder of KLM Nordzee, a personal friend and one heck of a pilot. It takes lots of courage to strap yourself into a one-bladed tip jet helicopter in the 1950's!

All these machines had no torque and so no anti-torque devices. I would suppose they would fly quite similarly. They were all reportedly able to extremely efficiently turn fuel into noise.
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