And their target is 500 mph TAS.
I don't know what Lu's going to say about this!!
Aircraft Designer Seeks to Break Mu-1 Barrier
For years, rotorcraft designers have looked for a way to break the so-called "mu-1 barrier," the point beyond which an aircraft’s forward speed exceeds the rotor tip speed. In the past, attempts to break the barrier have resulted in rotor instability at rotor RPM ratios approaching mu-1.
Jay Carter, Jr., president of CarterCopters, LLC, says he’s designed an advanced-technology gyroplane that not only can break that barrier, but has achieved a "mu" value of eight in a 1/6 scale model.
The CarterCopter gyroplane uses a two-blade teetering rotor system with a twistable I-beam spar that runs from tip to tip. To keep the rotor blades rigid and stable at slow tip speeds, 65 pounds of depleted uranium are installed in each tip. The total weight of the rotor system is just 275 pounds.
"Those 130 pounds [in the tips] give us so much energy in our rotor blades that literally on the stored energy of the rotor blades in overspeed mode, we can jump 50 feet in the air and accelerate to 50 mph before the rotor system has slowed to its normal operating RPM," Carter says.
The pressurized gyroplane is capable of brief hovers and true airspeeds up to 400 mph at 45,000 feet. A turbine-powered version may reach airspeeds up to 500 mph. CarterCopters LLC has received a Phase III grant from NASA’s Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program.
This is fantastic news!
Much as I'm a total Concorde fan (not that I've ever flown on it - still saving!) this will be even quicker 'door-to-door' for the rich jetsetters who don't live near LHR or JFK.
