Hmmm. Beauty really is in the eye of the beholder. ;)

Bravo,
I think you may be right!
It's the the "Grubber" part of me that speaks. I see the mechanical beauty of something as well as the aesthetic. The Rotodyne was just such a beast.
p.s. I even like the Seaking MK7!!

Cheers now

Sorry, late on parade, stumbled across this thread by chance. Here is a contemporary of the Rotodyne with tip driven rotors reverting to autogyro mode in forward flight.

Same very basic origins,as the engineer involved was one of the same team who pioneered this concept in Austria during the war.....another of the team went to France and eventually created the Djinn .

Remember the Rotodyne?
 

I seem to remember seeing the Rotodyne at Farnborough and dont remember it being particularly noisy.

I remember my Dad taking us (I'd have been about 6 or 7 years old) to visit friends, who it turned out lived near where the Rotodyne was being tested. It wasn't just the very high noise levels that startled the bejabers out of us as our hosts' children looked on knowingly, it was the nature of that noise. Can't imagine too many people would've been happy to hear 4 screaming tip-jets at near-supersonic speeds passing overhead on a regular basis.

Lovely idea, though...

...and that picture in the article looks like the airborne version of the proverbial busload of nurses from Rinteln.

....and just like the busload of nurses, it never arrived!!:p

If ever you get the chance to pop into White Waltham airfield (West London) and visit the West London Aero Club you'll see plenty of old original photographs and Fairey memorabilia on the walls there. The Fairey factory was once situated there. The WLAC is also a good place for a chat over a proper pint.

Cheers, FP

Couldn't believe this project was consigned to the scrap bin-one prototype that was broken up after many successful (albeit noisy) flights? Surely this was another missed opportunity in the aviation hall of shame?

It lives on, most recently as the Eurocopter X3. What's old is new again.

The Rotodyne had an exceptional lift capability when compared to its basic weight, even by today's standards.

The tip jets were only needed for very low speed and vertical flight, so cruise noise was far less.

Shameful to think it was axed.

Also shameful that the article mentioned the lack of a city heliport in our capital in the early 1960s and yet even today we still have to rely on the ever more difficult Battersea landing site.

To us kids in the fifties, the Rotodyne was a legend and, as far as we were concerned, a fait accompli.
Airfix put out a kit in 1:72 and it sold very well indeed.
I'm sure I've still got the remains of mine - somewhere in the attic.

...and the remains of the real one are at The Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare...rotor pylon and head,cabin section,tip jets,complete blade on display.

and the Fairy Gyrodyne is at the Berks aviation museum
Fairey Jet Gyrodyne

Gyrodyne XJ 389 was on display outside my ATC Squadron (424) Southampton for many years. Few of us realised the importance of it. We were more interested in English Electric Lightnings in the early 60's !

I am so pleased that XJ389 was preserved, as she was getting tired standing outside.

Many years later, now still flying helicopters, I have reflected on the Rotodyne and realise how innovative and advanced she was. Vibration, plenty in the early stages, which they overcame to the benefit of all of us Rotorheads who followed. Noisy yes, at the time, but they were working on that. Politics was one area that Fairey could not overcome - so RIP Rotodyne.

For those of you who still have an appetite for the aircraft, I can recommend the book 'Fairey Rotodyne' by David Gibbings and there is some lovely, cheesy, but enjoyable stuff, on Youtube. Enjoy !

ShyTorque is an advocate I know - we spent many a leg in the S76 yarning about the Rotodyne - but then he was a QHI and QFI. That's hedging your bets for the future :ok:

.

I still think the Fairey Rotodyne could fulfill a category somewhere between standard helicopters and the highly technical and exotic Boeing V-22 Osprey

The Fairey Rotodyne is fairly simple technology , it is a heavy lifter , reasonably fast , and if you are not flying it downtown the noise would not matter so much.

I have the David Gibbings book on the Rotodyne and it has plenty of info , pictures and mechanical component drawings etc.

Post WW2 we had a surplus of aircraft manufacturers in a world that needed farm tractors , cars , and washing machines. That is why a lot of those good projects were set aside.

.

Jack of all trades, master of none.... :O, but I would certainly have loved to fly the Rotodyne! Way before its time, I reckon. ;)

The latest attempt to produce a true "tip jet" aircraft was by the Groen Brothers aviation company for DARPA. Unfortunately they ran out of money and although they achieved significant progress the project was dropped by DARPA.
Groen Aeronautics Corporation

Cheers all

Back in the day i lived very close to the extended centre line of 23R 5L (apologies if they were designated differently then magnetic changes etc) and I remeber the rotordyne clearly as that runway was used a lot back then with dpertures on 23 and landings on 05 it was a great spot for a kid fascinated by aviation.
As irecall the rotordyne underwent an extensive set of tests at LHR and even now 50 plus years on i can rememebr just how incredibly noisy the Rotordyne was.However it was a very very impressive looking machine at a time when BEA were still flying Daks and Vikings around as mainline aircraft .

Iwas neve sure why it got cancelled other than no one buying it but was that to do with noise, the weird appearance putting airlines off or the focus on early jets and the success of the Viscount as Europes short haul king making people feel it was just too weird.