If you could design your own rotorcraft...
 

If you could design your own rotorcraft...

-- How many blades would it have?
-- What would its maximum range be?
-- What would be its maximum speed?
-- What engine would it have?
-- What type of tail rotor would it have?
-- What color would it be?

Further considerations:

• Payload
• Critical hover or vertical climb condition
• Maximum maneuver load factor
• Maximum disc loading
• Maximum physical size
• Maximum noise level
• Minimum one-engine-out performance
• Minimum autorotative landing capability

Scaled down Sky Crane. Removable passenger/cargo pod (in minutes), no extra crap that pilots don't need. Super reliable engines and built like a tank, only better. Just a bit bigger than the KA-26. Co-axial rotors.

Solar powered. It could only fly on bright sunny days with enough range to fly from bar to bar.

5.
260nm.
135kt.
RR250C20
2 Bladed
Black.

Oh, it was already designed... in 1963!

As above except with a slightly bigger rear cabin for pax and blades that a pilot can fold it so you can get more that two in a hanger that can fit 10 jetties.

I'd prefer something close to the AW609, but with a fully autonomous flight control system. And maybe engines a bit more current than PT6's.

Krypton John's H500(E) would be right up there on my list though I might go for a Notar for the safety and less concern about the back end. Disadvantages are absence of luggage space and horrible back seats. Gazelle ticks all boxes & would be hard to beat with a quieter engine - fast, spacious, low slung for easy access, still one of the best looking helos out there, fenestron for safety and above all a clutched rotor for loading/unloading disengaged with engine running, a very big advantage.
If I needed family transport then a 206L3 on low skids would be ideal.

Riff raff, "fully autonomous control system". You want a pilotless self-flying helicopter? Where's the fun in that, except it'll take you home pissed at night!

It's already been built - it's called the Fairey Rotordyne - lots of room, big payload, and lets everyone know you're coming.

Colour - gun metal grey.

A tail rotored MD 600 would fit my needs nicely, especially if you could buy a second hand one at the same price has a Notar one ( 1200hrs TT for $ 700 !! )

Yes, a great opportunity missed*, an amazing aircraft far in advance of its time (*or rather, thrown away).

But only one 'R' in the name Rotodyne.

Rotodyne!!!

Did it actually have anything going for it? Wasn't it finally scuppered by the Andover and the fact Westland's took it over and everybody cancelled their orders, including the MOD. Nostalgic maybe but thats about it!

Surely the opener of this thread missed the most important question off his spec list - what do you want to do with it!

As a private / simple charter ship, the EC120 with EC130 engine, gearbox, rotors and tail. Best cabin of any light helicopter, but would benefit from more oomph!

Yes, a missed opportunity to combat discrimination by rendering the entire population of the known universe completely deaf.

It was a flawed concept that was continued long after its fundamental faults were known to be insurmountable - something that epitomises what was wrong with the UK aircraft industry at the time (cf TSR2, princess flying boats etc etc).

PDR

PDR,

I did say that the Rotodyne was far ahead of its time. Don't forget that the aircraft was designed and flying almost sixty years ago!

It is generally agreed that the rotor tip jets were very noisy, but in truth were only lit for takeoff and landing. Modern technology could no doubt considerably reduce their noise footprint, as it has with other aircraft engines, bearing in mind that the similarly noisy turbojet engines of that time would not pass muster today, by a very long way. Same with the noise of the thrust engines and their propellors.

The Rotodyne had an incredible payload/APS weight ratio compared to any helicopter, even by today's standards, because it lacked a main rotor transmission system and had no tail rotor. It could also fly at speeds that would still be seen as highly respectable today.

...which is (of course) the point in the mission profile where noise is of the biggest concern.

I seriously doubt it. If they remained as ramjets they would remain noisy. The onlt real alternative would be to replace them with turbojets or even turbofans, but there's a long list of reasons why that would be a bad idea (even if you overlooked the cost aspect).

That rather proves the point - turbojets never could be adequately muffled, and so have become a "dead" technology for most civil aviation purposes.

It's essentially a compound helicopter. We could do much the same today by extracting power from the "thrust" engines to drive the rotor. The weight of the gearbox would be offset by losing the instrinsic and consequent (structure) weight of four turbofans at the rotor tips. The rotor torque coul;d effectively be opposed using differential thrust on the propulsion engines (the same mechanism as used by the rotodyne for yaw control at rotor-borne speeds).

The tip-jet noise issue was identified very early on in the rotodyne programme, but was never the focus of any significant effort while they pressed on with the design. It should have been identified as the potential show-stopper that it was and the remainder of the project put on hold while they tried to find a cure or an alternative. But they didn't, they just birned through money in the vague hope that they'd be able to bluff it out.

It's the same as the TSR2 project where the whole weapn concept depended on an extremely complex integrated sensor/navigation/weapon system of a kind never previously seen. Without it the aeroplane was just airshow-fodder for plane-spotters. So the project SHOULD have focused on de-risking the integrated avionics concept to show it to be achievable (which with the available technology it ultimately wasn't, of course) before continuing with the simple bit (the airframe).

The british aircraft industry has always been rubbish at identifying the key issues and focusing on fixing them in any systematic manner. If the British Aircraft Industry had been Mark Watney they'd have been focussing all their efforts on lightening the second MAV only to die long before they reached it hbecause no one focussed on how toi avoid starving for the next 3 years...

PDR

It would not have a Bell Helicopter Pilot Seat I can promise you that!

PDR, You had best get your pencil sharpened and drawing board out. Can you provide details of any helicopter of that era with a payload well over its own empty weight? The obvious answer is the early CH-47, but it wasn't anywhere near as good as the Rotodyne.

Anyhow, I'd still want to fly the latter; although I have flown the former in the guise of the Chinook HC-1.

I've always thought that with the Fairey Rotodyne concept it could have further been developed to allow the gases from the turboprop engines, with some half decent plumbing, to be squirted out the tips of the rotor blades much like that of a water sprinkler.

That's easy.....subcontract crewseat design to Recaro.

MDHC flew a 520N with a six-blade rotorhead back in the early 1990's. That might have been a nice machine to fly. At the moment, a lightly-loaded MH-6M MELB is probably as good as it gets.


500 Fan.