Gyrostat,The brainchild of Dr.Igor Bensen,

[scandtours]

Do you want to read the whole story o this Gyrostat....Dr. Bensen was controlling forward motion and Sidney Conn altitude- steered the vehicle in a perfect clockwise circle..........
Really very funny story that youll not stop laughing.

 

[ckurz7000]

I am continually amazed at your sheer endless fundus of stories and pictures. Where do you get them all, Giorgos?

And can you post the whole story of the "Gyrostat"?

-- Chris.

 

[C. Beaty]

One of Bensen’s wildest contraptions was a pair of McCulloch engines mounted at the opposite ends of a beam facing downward, with him seated in the middle and flying this thing with vanes in the propeller slipstreams.

I’ll bet Giorgos has pictures on file.

 

[okikuma]

Chuck,

You mean the B10?

Wayne

 

[C. Beaty]

Even has an N number.

Thanks, Wayne.

 

[scandtours]

Even has an N number.

Thanks, Wayne.

I am sure Mr Beaty you know everything about this machine. (Dr Bensen mention this somewhere in his Bensen Flying News)
Comment No. 4 below isn't it yours? It would be nice to hear more
from you regarding this contraption.
http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/bensen_b-10.php
Thanks

 

[C. Beaty]

Different “Chuck,” Giorgos.

My only knowledge of this contraption was from having seen pictures.

 

[Arnie Madsen]

Didn't Mr Bensen also build what he called a ..... "flying bedstead" .... I recall 4 (or 6) engines on a framework with downward thrusting props. I think control was by varying the throttles of each engine.

Saw it in an old Popular Science magazine I think.

 

[Lee Scatt]

I like the leg guards. Looks like something he pulled off of a shopping cart.

 

[C. Beaty]

It’s a shame there’s no biography of Bensen. His story is unique.

I’ve heard bits and dabs; like the time he landed GE’s Kellett on a frozen lake and couldn’t get enough traction to spin up the rotor and had to be towed off.

The Kellett had a 100 HP prerotator and was used as a dynamometer to drive the Doblhoff* tip jet rotor for cold measurements. Most likely a Kellett XR-3 that had swash plate cyclic.

He was flying the Doblhof helicopter at GE’s flight test center in Schenectady, NY when it broke into air resonance, splattered and resulted in severe spinal injuries that led to Parkinson’s disease in later life.

Bensen served as chief engineer of Kaman Helicopters after leaving GE and before forming his own company.

Wish I knew more.

*Full report is here:

http://retromechanix.com/article/ro...f-342-v4-evaluation-by-general-electric-1948/

 

[Arnie Madsen]

Didn't Mr Bensen also build what he called a ..... "flying bedstead" .... I recall 4 (or 6) engines on a framework with downward thrusting props. I think control was by varying the throttles of each engine.

Saw it in an old Popular Science magazine I think.

Here is the one I was talking about ..... known as the Bensen B-12 "Sky-Way" or "Sky-Mat"

.

 

[EI-GYRO]

I wonder if the gyrostat lost height on downwind turns ???

 

[Jazzenjohn]

Did Igor Bensen invent the multicopter?

 

[C. Beaty]

The single main rotor/tail rotor helicopter, pioneered by Sikorsky, was a relative late comer,.

Early helicopters usually had more than one main rotor to balance torque.

The De Bothezat helicopter, built for the US Army in 1924, was an early quadrotor:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/De_Bothezat_helicopter

 

[WaspAir]

I wonder if the gyrostat lost height on downwind turns ???

Santos Dumont did it a bit more elegantly (note the attire) back at the turn of the century. Come to think of it, his circuit around the Eiffel Tower might have been the real "turn" of the century.