One-blade to lift copter

hesham · Veteran Member - Level 3

One-blade to lift copter

Leela25 · Global Moderator

Possibly related?

hesham · Veteran Member - Level 3

Hi,

anther fake one big blade copter.

http://books.google.com/books?id=nykDAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA124&dq=gyroplane&hl=ar&ei=HEEfTObADJX-4AbrsMj3DQ&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=3&ved=0CDMQ6

AEwAg#v=onepage&q=gyroplane&f=true

Stargazer2006 · Former Deputy Administrator

By "fake", what do we mean here, exactly? If that means it never existed, then most of this forum's projects are "fake"! I think the term should apply only to types rumored at some point to exist and later found to have been hoaxes. Perhaps also the projects that emanated from non-engineers (e.g. magazine artists) and could never have flown for real could belong in that category?

I still don't know whether the one blade type aircraft would have been viable or not, but if it is described as "fake", I want to know why!

hesham · Veteran Member - Level 3

Hi Stargazer,

"fake" that expression here means;it is very hard to build a helicopter

like this.

Former Deputy Administrator

No I'm sure it just means that these were never 'real' projects at all, just hoaxes. Everything else you see in the unbuilt and rare section were actual proposals at one point, even if some of the illustrations are just artists' impressions.

Stargazer2006 · Former Deputy Administrator

I guess we'll have to recreate the "Crazy projects" thread in this sub-section then...

Commander31 · Veteran Member - Level 3

Leela25 wrote:
Possibly related?

Nope, that was a demonstrator from Flight International.

hesham · Veteran Member - Level 3

hesham wrote:
Hi,
http://books.google.com.eg/books?id=Fy0DAAAAMBAJ&pg=PA105&dq=helicopter+Jet-propelled&hl=ar&ei=7Ty6TJmYJZGWOr6boZoN&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnu
m=34&ved=0CKkBEOgBMCE#v=onepage&q=helicopter%20Jet-propelled&f=true

By the way,

this helicopter looks like Fairchild M-159-01 very much,but the 159-01

has a low/mid-wing and small wing tail.

Jasper · BANNED

In the picture Leela posted above. ^

I don't think that is a rotor. It must be a boom for refueling from a tanker aircraft.

When that thing rotates it protrudes a few feet in front of the nose cone.

This looks like a night fighter, the front of the fuselage is made of plastic so radio waves to and from the antenna are not blocked.

The smaller and more maneuverable air plane flies behind the tanker and the pilot puts the tube into a cone that is on the end of the fuel hose.

-- Edited by Jasper on Wednesday 18th of November 2015 08:30:39 PM

-- Edited by Jasper on Wednesday 18th of November 2015 08:31:46 PM

retroistic · Veteran Member - Level 2

Jasper wrote:
In the picture Leela posted above. ^
I don't think that is a rotor. It must be a boom for refueling from a tanker aircraft.

How do you figure???

Jasper · BANNED

If that was a helicopter with one blade the vibration would be so intense, they wouldn't even try to build it.

I see that some of the other ones have a counter weight. A counter weight has to weigh as much as the blade it would try to balance. If the helicopter has to carry that weight, it might as well be another blade.

Now if that was a tube, you could swing it around so it would be in front. This way the fighter would not have to come in direct contact with the tanker. There is plenty of turbulence behind a tanker. You need something between the 2 airplanes so they can move around relative to one another with out banging in to each other.

Jasper · BANNED

In the picture posted by Hesham that is not a one bladed rotor. It is the needle on a speedometer.

That may be a flying wing design beneath it, but if it is in the speedometer it must be something else.

The other aircraft mentioned is something like a conventional airplane, with the wings replaced by rotors. The frame keeps two rotors far enough apart so the blades don't hit each other. This is something like a Kamann eggbeater but the 2 rotors are in the same plane of space. There is a propeller in the front that pulls it.

This was the state of the art before world war II.

Jasper · BANNED

Look, I had and electric fan with a propeller from which one of the blades had broken off of i.e. it had been a 3 blade prop, after the accident there were 2 blades on one side and none on the other. On high speed it shook so much ,it looked like it was going to self-destruct.

Leela25 · Global Moderator

Jasper wrote:
If that was a helicopter with one blade the vibration would be so intense, they wouldn't even try to build it.

Of course and that's why its in the fake projects section. xD No one takes the unbalanced single-blade rotor seriously and is only fantasy concepts produced in a time that we were exploring new ideas for vertical lift.

The one in Hesham's first post is the most plausible due to the jet-driven counterweight, kind of like a ramjet, except its totally inefficient and impractical. A single-blade rotor would only require a counterweight to balance the disk, which has been tested with success. Unfortunately this is also inefficient (it produces less lift than conventional rotors) and that's why no one has explored the concept further.

Trust me the pic I posted from Flight was a hypothetical concept for a single-blade rotor layout not a refueling probe. :P

Jasper wrote:
In the picture posted by Hesham that is not a one bladed rotor. It is the needle on a speedometer.
That may be a flying wing design beneath it, but if it is in the speedometer it must be something else.

Lolz are you trolling us? XD

Jasper · BANNED

Look at that picture again does that thing look more like it is a part of a speedometer, or does it look like what should be on top of a helicopter.?

The Picture you posted looks like it's a De Havilland Mosquito to which something has been added. If there were 2 things that looked like a blade, it might appear to be a rotor on a design for a vertical take-off aircraft. Considering the power to weight ratio of the wooden mosquito, such a thing might just work, if there was a good way to connect the rotor shaft to both engines. But since it only has one blade we know that can't be what the designer was thinking. If that was a tube there would be a theoretical possibility that it was used for mid air refueling.

-- Edited by Leela25 on Thursday 19th of November 2015 01:27:23 PM

Jasper · BANNED

The Picture that Hesham posted is from a 1948 popular science magazine. You can view the rest of this magazine in the post.
The feature was called new ideas from the inventors. I suppose that in 1948 there may have been people who were not familiar with helicopters, to whom it would not be obvious that thing would not work,
n.b. that is a drawing, it's not a video of a working prototype.
Below that story there is one about a B-29 that has a boom on the tail, which might be used to refuel another B-29. there are photographs of this.

Leela25 · Global Moderator

Jasper wrote:
Look at that picture again does that thing look more like it is a part of a speedometer, or does it look like what should be on top of a helicopter.?

It looks likea speedometer needle for the same reason you see shapes in clouds. They just look similar. It was a 1930s illustration proposing a flying wing incorporating the single-blade rotor principle.

Jasper wrote:
But since it only has one blade we know that can't be what the designer was thinking.

No. I read the Flight article and it clearly states that it was a hypothetical single-blade rotor concept. :P

If I find it in the archive ill post it here.

-- Edited by Leela25 on Thursday 19th of November 2015 01:21:28 PM

Leela25 · Global Moderator

Found it, Feb 1943... https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1943/1943%20-%200521.html

also here is another Flight article of interest from 1940...

https://www.flightglobal.com/pdfarchive/view/1940/1940%20-%203175.html

Jasper · BANNED

because if they can put one blade on that, they can put 2 blades. All helicopters have at least 2 blades, there must be a reason for that.

In 1943 they were using something called dis-information. This confuses the enemy.

If mid air refueling had been invented during world war II, they would do whatever was necessary to stop the enemy from learning that they had a device for mid-air refueling, because if the Germans knew the British had made such a thing and it worked, then the Germans would make their own.

The German spies read the same newspapers the English do so by putting pictures of that thing in the paper and saying that it was a one bladed helicopter rotor, if a German ever saw one he might think it was there to provide extra lift, not a boom for refueling.

If this article appeared in "Flight" magazine in 1940, the war had started, and this would be disinformation.

-- Edited by Jasper on Thursday 19th of November 2015 05:02:10 PM

hillberg · Veteran Member - Level 2

MBB 103 had one blade

Single blade designs were tested by Sikorsky and Bell using existing airframes, they went 'meh nothing gained"

They also tested a ridged rotor from a Lockheed X 51A on an Bell H 13

Leela25 · Global Moderator

Jasper wrote:
because if they can put one blade on that, they can put 2 blades. All helicopters have at least 2 blades, there must be a reason for that.
In 1943 they were using something called dis-information. This confuses the enemy.
If mid air refueling had been invented during world war II, they would do whatever was necessary to stop the enemy from learning that they had a device for mid-air refueling, because if the Germans knew the British had made such a thing and it worked, then the Germans would make their own.
The German spies read the same newspapers the English do so by putting pictures of that thing in the paper and saying that it was a one bladed helicopter rotor, if a German ever saw one he might think it was there to provide extra lift, not a boom for refueling.
If this article appeared in "Flight" magazine in 1940, the war had started, and this would be disinformation.

Mid-air refuelling has been around since the early 1920s, try again. :P

If you would actually bother to read about the science behind these concepts, no matter how dated, you would understand that not everything is some clever cover-up to fool the masses (or enemy). There is a such thing as trial and error... i have no doubt in my mind that these were early studies for alternative lift methods which are still studied today with updated data based on what we've learned from yesterday's failures.

-- Edited by Leela25 on Thursday 19th of November 2015 06:07:28 PM

hillberg · Veteran Member - Level 2

Jasper wrote:
The Picture that Hesham posted is from a 1948 popular science magazine. You can view the rest of this magazine in the post.
The feature was called new ideas from the inventors. I suppose that in 1948 there may have been people who were not familiar with helicopters, to whom it would not be obvious that thing would not work,
n.b. that is a drawing, it's not a video of a working prototype.
Below that story there is one about a B-29 that has a boom on the tail, which might be used to refuel another B-29. there are photographs of this.

Think that's a KB 50

Jasper · BANNED

Perhaps this illustration will show what I am talking about.
If you have a moving blade on one side of an aircraft you will have lift on that side of the aircraft. If on the other side there is no blade and a counter weight in its place there will be something that is being pulled down by the force of gravity.
In this picture you see a cylindrical or spherical aircraft. The center of gravity is the blue square.
the red one has the blade pulling one side up, the green one has the counter weight in its place pushing it down.
There may be a pendulum effect that will make things even worse.

retroistic · Veteran Member - Level 2

You seem to be missing the point of Leela's posts (and the the entirety of the thread). No one is challenging the aerodynamics because by time these fantasy illustrations were made we had already known how unfeasible they were in reality, thus being in the fake projects section to showcase how ridiculous they are. Just because the concept is flawed that doesn't make it something else entirely. With that logic we might as well conclude that da Vinci's airscrew was some kind of early windmill because it has no feasibility as an aircraft.

Since the early 40s we've concluded that single-rotor layouts must have a counterbalance, be it a weight or a tip-jet. Hillberg's example of the German Bo 103 illustrates this; single rotor with counter weight on a teetering hub similar to the Huey. It first flew in 1961 and was even stable enough for hands free flight. There is absolutely no doubt that an unbalanced version of this would be a disaster, but tell that to the people who drew these designs way back in the day.

Jasper · BANNED

If the Germans could get the B O 103 in the air, they'd have better made sure they had plenty of air sickness bags on board!

Jasper · BANNED

Yes Leela, There is something in the speedometer of my car that looks just like that. Although that gauge has been right there in my face for hundreds of hours. I keep thinking ,what is that thing that looks like a one bladed helicopter rotor and a counter- weight?

hillberg · Veteran Member - Level 2

Talking to the Folks from MBB then Eurocopter now Airbus the 103 was a smooth flying machine but the lack of the extra blade made it limited in flying

with in its manifold pressure limit for the engine, for the altitudes above 6000 ft it had too much disk/blade element loading but at sea level it was a very pleasant

helicopter to fly he even went on to say it was fun.

Inertia of a main fuselage will keep a single rotor bladed with a counter weight helicopter upright during operation as I stated it was tested and worked'

A single blade on a two or more bladed helicopter doesn't work out so well as I witnessed with N131AT a Bell Jet Ranger owned by Hiser Helicopters.

After loosing a 6 ft chunk of blade it promptly rolled over on its left side during a hover over the pads in front of the office.

No injuries just a wrecked helicopter.

1987??????