henshaw
14th Aug 2007, 17:17
Hello, I am new to this Forum. I am an experienced fixed wing pilot with about 25 years experience. I humbly know little about rotor craft. My day job is Founder and Chief Design of a company called MindMatter Innovates. I had a crazy idea and please bare with my fixed wingeness!
I've heard of failed attempts to design and implement extendible main rotors but when I try to research extendible rotors I come up empty handed. Tried patent searches, Google, NASA... I've heard of some silly ideas such as telescopic blades but without trying to be redundant I can't believe that idea even left the drawing board. Typically there are centrifugal forces to the order of 33,000 lbs on these blades, let alone assymetric and variable centre of pressure & gravity.
Q1: Has anyone heard of such a device and if so can they point me in the right direction please?
Q2: I have a preliminary idea design for an extendible main rotor that is simple, passive or active depending upon the requirement, and that would not implement single point failure at any point in the design or use. If I waved my "magic" design wand and put one of these little creatures into your main rotor would that be useful or useless?
I am not a helicopter pilot however If I may, I would think that if a pilot had use of extendible rotors then they should start out retracted at start up and extend as the pilot required further lift. I would think that there might be a possibility of reducing the angle of attack of the main rotors if one extended the rotor disc therefore reducing the potential to stall the rotor and increasing torque output by running with a finer pitch on the ascent. Perhaps even having a quicker ascent.
I would love some feedback at your convenience. Thanks.
Henshaw.
I've heard of failed attempts to design and implement extendible main rotors but when I try to research extendible rotors I come up empty handed. Tried patent searches, Google, NASA... I've heard of some silly ideas such as telescopic blades but without trying to be redundant I can't believe that idea even left the drawing board. Typically there are centrifugal forces to the order of 33,000 lbs on these blades, let alone assymetric and variable centre of pressure & gravity.
Q1: Has anyone heard of such a device and if so can they point me in the right direction please?
Q2: I have a preliminary idea design for an extendible main rotor that is simple, passive or active depending upon the requirement, and that would not implement single point failure at any point in the design or use. If I waved my "magic" design wand and put one of these little creatures into your main rotor would that be useful or useless?
I am not a helicopter pilot however If I may, I would think that if a pilot had use of extendible rotors then they should start out retracted at start up and extend as the pilot required further lift. I would think that there might be a possibility of reducing the angle of attack of the main rotors if one extended the rotor disc therefore reducing the potential to stall the rotor and increasing torque output by running with a finer pitch on the ascent. Perhaps even having a quicker ascent.
I would love some feedback at your convenience. Thanks.
Henshaw.