Here's an old aircraft I came across while surfing around, called the Nemeth Parasol:
This aircraft reminded me of the Starship Enterprise.
But it also reminded me of the old gyroplanes from Juan de Cierva's era -- except that instead of a rotary wing, it had a full disc in a fixed-wing configuration.
When I read that it was a stall-proof aircraft, I was a bit surprised -- how can something be stall-proof like a gyroplane, when there's no autorotation going on?
Then I realized that strictly speaking, it's not the autorotation that causes a gyroplane to be stall-proof, it's actually that the rotation of the overhead rotor makes a perfectly circular minimum aspect-ratio, which combined with the weight distribution of the aircraft, is what's really eliminating the possibility of stall.
So shouldn't it then be possible to take even a modern gyroplane (Cavalon, Calidus, Sportcopter, etc) and replace the rotary wing with a fixed disc-shaped wing, and still be flight-worthy with comparable aerodynamic handling characteristics?
And so then, why even fly a gyroplane instead of a disc wing? Wouldn't a disc-wing then have the superior glide ratio compared to a gyroplane, and thus perhaps better STOL characteristics?
The disc-wing wouldn't have the same stability against turbulence and cross-winds as a rotary wing though.
I was also imagining that for forward flight, you'd probably want some kind of ellipsoid shape rather than a perfectly circular-shaped wing.
This aircraft reminded me of the Starship Enterprise.
But it also reminded me of the old gyroplanes from Juan de Cierva's era -- except that instead of a rotary wing, it had a full disc in a fixed-wing configuration.
When I read that it was a stall-proof aircraft, I was a bit surprised -- how can something be stall-proof like a gyroplane, when there's no autorotation going on?
Then I realized that strictly speaking, it's not the autorotation that causes a gyroplane to be stall-proof, it's actually that the rotation of the overhead rotor makes a perfectly circular minimum aspect-ratio, which combined with the weight distribution of the aircraft, is what's really eliminating the possibility of stall.
So shouldn't it then be possible to take even a modern gyroplane (Cavalon, Calidus, Sportcopter, etc) and replace the rotary wing with a fixed disc-shaped wing, and still be flight-worthy with comparable aerodynamic handling characteristics?
And so then, why even fly a gyroplane instead of a disc wing? Wouldn't a disc-wing then have the superior glide ratio compared to a gyroplane, and thus perhaps better STOL characteristics?
The disc-wing wouldn't have the same stability against turbulence and cross-winds as a rotary wing though.
I was also imagining that for forward flight, you'd probably want some kind of ellipsoid shape rather than a perfectly circular-shaped wing.
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