FOA Capt Hollywood

[g-mady]

Did the new Robinson R88 project ever get off the ground (no pun intended)? Has all gone quiet? Funding must have been cut???


MADY

[ShyTorque]

Well - there's a picture of it on the wall of the engineers' office at Sloane Helicopters.

Maybe it will be the future replacement for the Agusta 109 Grand?

[Upland Goose]

ShyTorque

We should advocate refurbishing Whirlwinds - an eight pax Queen of the Skies. We could join the queue - just so long as they put EFIS up front/upstairs!

Don't chop the Grand in yet - not until I have had shottie, can't wait.

UG :ok:

[Freewheel]

Interestingly, that conversion of the 55 to the 5 blade rotor did look quite intriguing. Whisper Jet was it called?

I can't imagine why it wouldn't get more airspeed, but I'm sure Nick can tell us.

Anyway, it wasn't THAT much slower than the R44 as it was. (dons helmet, dives into trench for cover)

[ShyTorque]

Upland, OK but I'm not sure about all that new fangled TV screen stuff.
I was a bit phased by that R-88, it looked a bit too modern for me.

How about building a nice galley downstairs, instead?
Perhaps with a pot-bellied stove to power it all? We could have the kettle on all day then. :ok:

[SASless]

An S-55 could not get much slower....anything would be an improvement on the old Darling!

[Head Turner]

It's me again.......you remember me....I'm the haplass one with the skinflint boss who has bulging pockets....well my boss is prancing up and down in his office wearing a path in the 3 inch deep carpet pile wanting to know what the hell has happened to his dream of a helicopter project.
He has accused me of keeping the info to myself and got even hotter under the collar when I told him that the project was stiffled. He immediately blamed the CIA and now believes that there is an underhand plot by the Bush administration to force our Tony into another bit of business somewhere on this planet. I told my boss not to over react but had to agree with him about the CIA, 'cause from what I read in the novels they are a sneeky group of guys.
Anyway this isn't getting the bosses blood pressure down. So Capt Hollywood could you use your influence to urge the R88 project into forward motion, you know..apply a bit of forward cyclic and a suitable amount of collective lever

[NickLappos]

freewheel posted:

Interestingly, that conversion of the 55 to the 5 blade rotor did look quite intriguing. Whisper Jet was it called?
I can't imagine why it wouldn't get more airspeed, but I'm sure Nick can tell us.

Like all helos of its era, the rotor was designed for hover efficiency and not for high speed, because who needs high speed if there is no payload? The reason why payload is so poor on the old machines is NOT rotor technology at all (their rotors are about 95% as efficient as a modern one). It is because the old recips weighed almost three times as much as a modern turbine engine, for the same HP, so they needed tricks to get enough payload to spark sales. By designing the rotor to be almost at stall in a hover, the hover feeiciency is great, so some payload can be lifted. But that also ment that there was little blade stall margin in cruise, so the Vne had to be quite low. [This is precisely the design case for a tilt rotor, which has near-stall blade loading in a hover, and only about 80 knots available in helo mode before deep rotor stall is experienced.]

Adding the 5th blade would allow the machine to go considerably faster before blade stall set it, certainly, but it also is married to an airframe that was designed for 80 knots, so the horizontal tail and control rigging would have to be dramatically changed, and the entire airframe would have to be requalified. Every FAR paragraph would have to be satisfied, all over again. I am sure the team that added the blade found it was easier and cheaper to add the blade and just requalify those affected components (head and swashplate) and stay within the old limits for everything else.

[Capt Hollywood]

It seems the R88 project started to run out of steam (pun intended!) due to lack of commercial interest. (Well that and the head designer getting married and buggering off to the US for honeymoon!) You never know though, great designs that are ahead of their time have a habit of popping up again some time later.

CH :cool:

[500e]

Nobody mentioned a "flash boiler" and a holiday in the US to go with it as well.

[Freewheel]

Aaaaahhhhhhh!!!!


Thank you Nick, succinct in detail and devastating to my plan to buy up S55's, stick a new head on them and put the R88 to the sword.

Roll on Hollywood! (but make sure the blades are stuck together well)