To: NickLappos
It is not a "different way of saying it." It is not an "old school" vs a "new school". The experts then knew it was wrong, but it was close enough, so they let it slide, and a few generatons of plots and mechanics "knew" it was gyroscopic precession. The designers and engineers knew the real story, the old school had some very bright people in it.
Nick if you really believe this then I would strongly suggest that you go to your own service school and set them straight instead of making fun of their "Blue Book" written by John Montgomery and vetted by Ralph Lightfoot.
The preface of the Blue Book says in part: “It is not intended for the engineer or aerodynamicist. Explanations given are simplified and are not in any sense offered as Sikorsky criteria, design or otherwise”.
The blue book, which you have classified as a comic book, has illustrations in it that can be found in most aerodynamic texts.
The Blue Book is intended for pilots and mechanics and suffices to educate them to a level where they understand how a helicopter works. (Or, according to you, they think they know how a helicopter works). If they and I guess myself still believe in Gyroscopic precession then I guess ignorance is bliss. I and I assume many of the posters on these forums do not understand the full engineering descriptions offered by you graduate engineers but they still fly the helicopters and if the opportunity would arise I would continue teaching gyroscopic precession. And, in the back of my mind I would know that I was lying to them.
If Lu tried to take that "rotor" he had built and fly it back then, we wouldn't have to go through this now! That was not a rotor, and the demo he gave was not illustrating rotor blade flapping.
The purpose of the device was to illustrate that a segmented gyro rotor could react in the same way a solid gyro rotor would react to a perturbing input. This was in response to the questions from the students as to how a fully articulated rotor system could act as a gyro rotor. Whether you disagree with the demonstration or not the students came away from the class with a better understanding of gyroscopic precession as applied to a helicopter rotor system.
Remember Nick this was in 1956 and everyone including the helicopter gods believed in gyroscopic precession. By the way, what were you taught in the Army flight school? And did you believe in Gyroscopic precession up until you walked through the front door of Georgia Tech?
