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Fairey Rotodyne.
Hi Folks.
A question from an enthusiast if you don't mind. I was watching a good video clip of the Rotodyne when it was out and about on sales trips, etc. Obviously, and unfortunately, as we know, it all came to nothing. But what did occur to me was the question - when the machine was cruising in forward flight, how was the lift distributed between rotor and wing? Was the stubby wing actually producing much lift, or was it just something to keep the Elands separate? |
Fairey Rotodyne.
The wing was taking up to half the load in flight. The rotor was auto rotating in forward flight, with all the engine power going to the propellers.
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Thanks for that, Dash.
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There is a good (recent) book available on the Fairey Rotodyne ..... I have it but have only glanced at a few pages so far. It has plenty of good content and pictures.
Best way to describe the machine is it has vertical lift capabilities like a helicopter .... and flies forward as a gyro-plane Very seldom mentioned is how noisy the tip jets were. It was quite a concern and is one of the reasons it did not win immediate approval. Otherwise it was a good concept and performed well.. |
I am sure this aircraft has been discussed before on
Prune but it was cost and the absence of launch orders that killed it. The tip jet issue was overcome and in any case they were only on for a very short time during takeoff and landing .Engineers still admire the concept and visit the Helicopter Museum to study the dynamic system which is on display there,together with examples of the tip jets and the silencers,one complete blade and a section of the cabin. The book mentioned is also available too. The museum has recently been refurbishing one of the blade sections and has kept the original skins with a view to selling pieces framed with a photo and certificate of authenticity to raise funds. So if you would like an original piece of Rotodyne on your wall,pm me or write to the museum! |
Fairey Jet Gyrodyne - XJ389
If you go to the 'Museum of Berkshire Aviation' located on what remains of the old Woodley Airfield, nr.Reading, RG5 4UE, you will find the one remaining example of the "Fairey Jet Gyrodyne". This appears to have been a 'proof of concept' test demonstrator for the Rotordyne. Two were built, one crashed if I remember the notes correctly. Worth a visit for the other exhibits on display.
With fraternal greetings, ambi:ok: |
Rotordyne landing at London Battersea Heliport -
also the Avro Rotordyne :E Can anyone say what would have happened if they developed a Rotordyne for North Sea operations, would the cost per unit be more than, the same as or less than the EC 225 or other modern helicopters? |
Having just finished reading "Empire of the Clouds", one of the test pilots remarked that it was a stupid idea from the start to develop the worlds noisiest helicopter and then plan to use it in cities.
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if they developed a Rotordyne for North Sea operations, During the days of the Chinook only certain decks could be used and some only a certain way; something that can be done in a Chinook because of its tolerance to cross and tailwinds. Oil companies have gone off big movers; offshore trials with the EH 101 Heliliner did not come to anything, the beancounters wont risk it. |
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I was lucky enough to be taken in to the RAe Society Garden Party at White Waltham in I think 1958 when I was only 16.The Rotordyne was demonstrated and was very impressive apart from the noise.The other aircraft of interest were a row of Gannets for the German Airforce/Navy ??
Colin |
Perhaps the Rotordyne design could have prevented the development of the Osprey had it gone into Production. |
Rotodyne tip-jet noise
I have copies of all UK National Archive documents pertaining to the Rotodyne. The definitive reason for its cancellation is that the British Government would not meet BEA Chairman Sholto Douglas' demand to provide indemnification of the corporation against noise complaints. BEA was otherwise willing to put the Rotodyne into service.
Another related reason is that the US Army was prepared to place an order for 200 Rotodynes based on the prototype. Fairey's decision to direct further development to the larger Type Z model resulted in abandonment of any further procurement efforts. In either case, had the Rotodyne entered service, the impetus to reduce tip-jet noise would have existed much as occurred with the development of the turbojet into the turbofan. |
Perhaps the Rotordyne design could have prevented the development of the Osprey had it gone into Production. I've found this stamp from Kampuchea which seems to show an image of the Rotordyne but it has also created a number of questions such as did Kampuchea ever buy a Rotordyne? The date 1987 is also a bit strange because Kampuchea was supposed to be Cambodia by then? https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-W...icopter001.jpg Apparently if you were in Kampuchea in 1987 your letter may have had one of these Rotordyne stamps stuck on it. |
The Chinese 1 fen note, about 1.5 inches X 1 inch had a picture of a Russian copy of the Douglas DC3 on it. I've discovered that its actually the Two Fen note! ;) :ok: |
I should hang on to that 2 fen note. Judging by the way the Chinese Yuan is appreciating against other currencies it will be worth a bob or two in the future. I can see that it is a multiple of two because it is green. That note is dated 1953.
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Just out of interest. Rather than using the tip jets, couldn't they have just driven the rotors normally and used assymetric thrust on the turboprops to counter torque? That would have kept the basic layout but cancelled the take-off/landing/hover tip-jet noise.
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Robbo, that's basically what the frogs did with the X3, I think the Rotordyne team probably didn't think of it at the time. Maybe?
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Robbo.....but more complex.the beauty of the Rotodyne was no gearbox or complicated transmission parts to go wrong.The X3 has a main gearbox and auxiliaries,although much more reliable perhaps than the conventional helo transmissions of the fifties.
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Damn! It has been thought of. There goes my patent :-)
Maybe the control systems weren't refined enough at the time? Though I doubt that, to be honest. Maybe it was just a focus on one thing (driving the rotors 'torque free') to the exclusion of alternatives? (Never been guilty of that myself, ever :-) ) Just a little strange that someone on the team didn't think, when assaulted by the noise, "how's about we....?" (edit) Just seen heli1's post. Probably on the money there. |
Perhaps the Rotordyne design could have prevented the development of the Osprey had it gone into Production. |
Shame it didn't. |
Nice to see the interest in this...but please note Rotodyne had no R in the middle!
Anyway,three follow up points 1) When the Helicopter Museum collected a test blade from Aston Down airfield many moons ago they also collected a number of tipjet silencer units,which had been trialled on the blade(attached to a whirl tower). The story goes that these noise tests were actually connected to Rolls Royce work silencing the noise levels of the Viper engines on the HS125 corporate jet but previously had demonstrated significant noise reduction in the Rotodyne application. Certainly the evidence is that by the time of the cancellation the noise issue was much less of a show stopper. 2) Physically moving the blade was and still is a major challenge.It is so heavy as to require about 8 -10 strong men to lift it.....even moving one of the blade arms is a six man job.....so weight was a big issue. Today with modern composites it would be so much more viable. 3) There was another factor in the early 1960s that led to cancellation and that was that when Westland took over Fairey and the Bristol helicopter division,they had three" heavy lift" helicopters on their books but only one had any orders,the Belvedere. As they couldn't afford to develop all three ,the Rotodyne and the Westminster were abandoned. Big mistake in retrospect as the Belvedere never amounted to much( another story of poor government investment when you look at the Chinook story ) and the Westminster also could have been very successful ......perhaps subjects for new threads at some other time? |
The tips jets were only lit up for takeoff and landing.
Not forgetting that you can feel a Chinook coming from almost ten miles away. |
At least we know where the SK Blackhawk got its design idea from......
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...estminster.jpg |
Sasless.....actually the Westminster used a dynamic system based on the experimental Sikorsky S-60, which itself was developed from the earlier S-56 Mojave with big outrigger radial piston engines. Westland installed two Eland turbines and built up the airframe as a testbed.Later the principle went back across the Atlantic to emerge as the S-64 Skycrane.
Two Westminsters were built and both were scrapped ,ending up as tie rods under a concrete platform at an industrial site in a village near Yeovil! I see the Rotodyne in the background of the picture....... |
The tips jets were only lit up for takeoff and landing. Come to think of it, what was the rotodyne's hover performance like? |
Come to think of it, what was the rotodyne's hover performance like? hat, coat. slinks off to read "meccano Magazine " articals,July and November 1958, covering the Rotodyne and it's appearance at Farnborough, that year.:8 |
Originally Posted by SansAnhedral
(Post 7919386)
Or any amount of hover/loiter, correct?
Come to think of it, what was the rotodyne's hover performance like? http://www.jefflewis.net/graphics/ai...Rotodyne_3.jpg |
Interesting stuff, considering it was a 1950's experimental design. This video certainly demonstrates the capability and also the post war attitudes toward flying: gear activation in the hover being just one instance!
The tip jet noise was horrendous but was being sorted: silencers were under development to reduce tip jet noise to below that generated by the blades themselves, but politics involving the UK aircraft industry in the 1959-60 era consigned many a promising company and project to the scrap heap. Rotodyne was just one of them which (if fully developed) had the potential to change the course of rotorcraft operations. Flight magazine had a 1957 article which is also worth reading: remember, this was 56 years ago in answer to a Fairey proposal in 1946 followed by a BEA specification issued in 1951. What amazing foresight and vision, if only we had the like of that in these risk averse times :ok: |
The History channel had a programme on the Rotodyne: in the fourth of these clips it's interesting that on one of two flights into Battersea, the noise measuring down in the street couldn't detect the tipjets above the surrounding traffic noise!
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Out of interest, a modern American company tried to redo the concept quite recently and even had DARPA involved. Unfortunately they ran out of money and also DARPA have gone with a more complex compound aircraft design that has extending blades.
They have instead had a recent injection of cash from the Chinese and have come up with a couple of rather nice autogyro designs instead. Home - Groen Brothers Aviation Global, Inc. Cheers now |
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OG
The Groen Bros machine was much more akin to the CarterCopter demonstrator rather then the tip-jetted Rotodyne. Plus, Jay Carter's machine has been built and is actually flying, even having broken the Mu = 1 boundary a few years back. |
The problem with Groen products is that the company has no money [subject to this supposed Chinese interest] so everything they present is 'What if...?'
It has been like that for a long time and they are therefore just one of dozens of companies across the world producing paper aeroplanes for the ephemera market.... and the autogyro industry has more than its fair share. The favourite ploy is to design something really smart and stick POLICE signs on it..... as if that makes them work much better! |
Sans,
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I understood the Groen (DARPA) machine to be a "tip jet" aircraft. The Carter copter family use a heavily weighted tip to produce extra inertia when spun up, so the aircraft can't hover but it does do impressive jump takeoffs. One of the proposed uses for the DARPA aircraft was long range SAR which would have required a hover capability, possible only with a fully driven main rotor. I have seen the videos of the new prototype Carter machine and it is a real cracker though. Cheers now |
PA News....how could you be so cynical? If the banks think its a great idea and part with the money surely its gonna work!!
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OG
You are correct, I missed your reference to their DARPA specific program (as opposed to their Hawk series craft) My mistake! :8 |
Sans,
No probs. My current favourite contender for most innovative compound aircraft is this beauty. http://cdn-www.airliners.net/aviatio.../0/2160079.jpg I really hope they develop this into a production aircraft. Its not as simple as a tip jet type or plain gyro, but it looks awesome; and it shifts. One wonders if they are using some of the Carter technology under licence, like the slowed rotor. Cheers now |
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