R22 engine
I never thought and I was never told about this so sorry if my question is somehow dumb.
Why piston engines rev at such low rpms?
Robinson always struggled to make the R22 a light aircraft so wouldn't have been better to put a smaller, lighter block instead of a 5.9 litre and make it rev at higher rpms to produce the HP required?
The answer I gave myself is because he (Robinson) used a fixed-wing engine and those kind of engines rev at low rpms otherwise the tip of the blades would go supersonic or something like that..
But I don't have anyone telling me if I'm right or wrong hence this post.
If this is the case, do other piston helicopters out there use engines made for helicopters?