Thomas
08-09-2004, 05:30 PM
Blue skies to all,
I have been scanning the post for a little while but refrained from making any comments because I am very new to the ultraLight and ultraSport scene. I have a commercial helicopter and fix wing (s.e.l.) rating and have been wondering if there are any machines you might have heard of that are a hybrid of gyro-heli-plane? I have been out of the sky for many years and the new attention given to the ultraLight community has sparked by interest in getting back into flying as more pleasure than work.
As such I have had some ideas bouncing around in my head over these years and wonder how feasible some of these ideas really are. I worked out a schematic for a control system design that is kinda complicataed but seems to be doable. My question; is the integrated mechanics of such a beast feasible?
The idea is to eliminate the aniti-torque provided by a tail rotor, which is a drag on power, and eliminate the airspeed restriction caused by retreating blade stall. The added power could be applied to forward airspeed enhanced by fixed airfoils doubling as engine mounts thereby reducing the load on the rotor disk at higher speeds.
The two counter rotating push props would act as both thrust and anti torque. A third engine would be belted to the rotor mast enabling the craft to hover. Once forward airspeed reaches a minimum the rotor drive can be dissengaged making the vehicle a gyro. As higher airspeeds are reached the wing assembly, mounting the thrust engines, would reach their maximun lift capacity at cruising speeds and the load could be taken off the rotor disk. Forward airspeeds then could be increased with reduced non productive drag (by eliminating a tail rotor) and parasitic drag (by reducing the rotor disk loading).
Has anyone heard of this and what do you think might be the problem with attempting to build such a thing?
Thanks.
Thomas (http://thomas-retzlaff.tripod.com/index.html)
Always Looking for Work
I have been scanning the post for a little while but refrained from making any comments because I am very new to the ultraLight and ultraSport scene. I have a commercial helicopter and fix wing (s.e.l.) rating and have been wondering if there are any machines you might have heard of that are a hybrid of gyro-heli-plane? I have been out of the sky for many years and the new attention given to the ultraLight community has sparked by interest in getting back into flying as more pleasure than work.
As such I have had some ideas bouncing around in my head over these years and wonder how feasible some of these ideas really are. I worked out a schematic for a control system design that is kinda complicataed but seems to be doable. My question; is the integrated mechanics of such a beast feasible?
The idea is to eliminate the aniti-torque provided by a tail rotor, which is a drag on power, and eliminate the airspeed restriction caused by retreating blade stall. The added power could be applied to forward airspeed enhanced by fixed airfoils doubling as engine mounts thereby reducing the load on the rotor disk at higher speeds.
The two counter rotating push props would act as both thrust and anti torque. A third engine would be belted to the rotor mast enabling the craft to hover. Once forward airspeed reaches a minimum the rotor drive can be dissengaged making the vehicle a gyro. As higher airspeeds are reached the wing assembly, mounting the thrust engines, would reach their maximun lift capacity at cruising speeds and the load could be taken off the rotor disk. Forward airspeeds then could be increased with reduced non productive drag (by eliminating a tail rotor) and parasitic drag (by reducing the rotor disk loading).
Has anyone heard of this and what do you think might be the problem with attempting to build such a thing?
Thanks.
Thomas (http://thomas-retzlaff.tripod.com/index.html)
Always Looking for Work