Deeper
As much as I love my spiralling bladed flying machine it is not efficient, in the proper sense of the word.
Scientifically speaking efficieny is the ratio of input to output the bang for the buck principle.
When I hear about the input output raios for my friends fixed wings I can only feel envious. Same engine as mine drives their machines at nearly 200 knots (Long Eze) at a fuel burn of about 22 litres an hour or for the same engine and fuel burn as me carries four fat blokes, their bags and plankers nav bag (Piper warrior) while I have to sweat about whether I take my lunch with me!
But................ I go and land on a beach, go for a swim, go fishing camping and stuff. Land in my mates backyard and fly him to the airport so he can get in his fixed wing etc etc
Its is as efficient as it can be, in the current state of the art but it fills niche (that can't be filled by any other known flying machine) and does that very well, but at poor efficiency.
Dave Jackson
I think even synchromeshes and all other bladed spinning things are still just tweaking round the edges. They are all just variations on a theme. The quantum leap is only going to come when someone discovers some completely unheard of anti-gravity system (God knows what it will be or when it will be - maybe only in a galaxy far, far away)
