autogyro's Transmission Concept

[autogyro]

Until you can could you not post about it? It's really tedious and it appears you've told us everything about it. If you feel the need to blog, stick it in here.

Sure, I understand the problem.
However it is difficult when I see a solution to a posted problem using my system.

[compo]

what stage of development are you at with it and when do u think it will be unveiled

goony

[Krispy]

Glad to see this has its own topic. Really stimulates my thinking. Thanks

[autogyro]

Here is the reason I am called autogyro.

The Fairey Rotodyne, scrapped by the British government to make way for yankee airliners and second rate helicopters.
The speed record for these helicopters is around 170knots
The rotodyne cruised at 200 in the 1950's.
The latest tilt wing 'Osprey' has already killed over 60 American Marines in crashes. A useless dangerous concept.
A modern version of the BRITISH Rotodyne would eliminate the need for huge runways for medium short haul. The military version would replace and far exceed the capabilities of both the Chinook and the C130 Hercules and what about a rotodyne gunship, awesome.
Watch it and weep, as you realize just how badly Britain has been muzzled.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo

Sorry but you did say off topic. When the rotodyne was flying with nearly all the members of the British cabinet as a fully sorted and much sort after aircraft, I was starting to develop gear systems. A friend of mine was flying with this aircraft at airshows.
Be great for F1 teams going to circuits.

[autogyro]

What the world could have been like for you guys and girls if we had not let the yanks take over.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFk5Y_F- ... re=related

[Mystery Steve]

They are certainly interesting machines, and while they may make very short distances in shorter time, how much would the increase in relative cost be? Is it really that big of a deal to make it somewhere in 30 minutes instead of 2-3 hours if the cost is an order of magnitude (or more..?) different? And yes, if there is one thing that Americans are guilty of, it's going after the "sexiest" option. Case in point was switching to turbojet engines from turboprops despite the fact that the turboprops were more fuel efficient. The problem was they were out-dated by the standards of those living in the space race era who imagined we would have flying cars within a few decades. Unfortunately marketing tends to trump actual engineering.

And while they may have been more technically proficient at short range flights, I would suspect that supply and demand played a major role in the grounding of the aircraft. And they are only more proficient at short range flights. Modern high-bypass turbofans flying at speeds in excess of .5 Mach are much more desirable for medium to long range flights from the perspective of time and fuel.

Another issue I would have with these in urban settings is the noise and wind. Although, the Air France video did mention something about wing tip silencers. Would be curious to know how that works... feeling lazy right now, will have to look into it later.

[autogyro]

The Rotodyne had huge orders when it was scrapped including 'Hundreds' of ordered from the American military.
They did not like that did they, that is why they scrapped it, the American 'Dream' from which we have yet to wake from.
The only routes that would still be more effective using conventional airliners would be trans Atlantic and trans Pacific.
Every where else the rotodyne concept would be faster to population centers, more fuel efficient and more reliable.
I would use airships for the long haul anyway. They do not need to use two thirds of their fossil fuel to reach altitude and although slower would be more direct and far more comfortable.
Scrap fixed wing airliners, they are an obsolete concept.

[Giblet]

I saw a Canadian Forces Buffalo land on the runway sideways. It came in really flapped out, and then reversed the engines before touching down.

I think this is how far they have come, and why the Autogyro's epoch was Mad Max (to me).

In a helo, you trade off the fact that you can't glide for VTOL. The autogyro has no such trade-off, but is just about as useless once you use thrust.

[autogyro]

I saw a Canadian Forces Buffalo land on the runway sideways. It came in really flapped out, and then reversed the engines before touching down.

I think this is how far they have come, and why the Autogyro's epoch was Mad Max (to me).

In a helo, you trade off the fact that you can't glide for VTOL. The autogyro has no such trade-off, but is just about as useless once you use thrust.

You trade off the fact you can't glide for VTOL? How does that work?
An autogyro has an unloaded rotor, it is far more fuel efficient than any helicopter. The buffalo is more dangerous even than any other twin engined helicopter, which are bad enough. They have complex gearboxes that kill you, the buffalo has the addition of a complex tilt wing to make sure. Tilt wings did not work when the rotodyne was proven in service in the 1950's and they do not work safely now.
An autogyro/ helicopter flies most of the time in auto rotate with an unloaded rotor. This allows a far higher airspeed than a shaft driven rotor. If all power is completely lost on an autogyro it still glides almost as well as a sailplane. Tilt wing Buffalos are even simpler with no power or any major problem with the rotor drive, they drop like a brick. The rotodyne is just as efficient as any other helicopter when the tip jets are lit and far easier to fly without a tail rotor and full variable pitch props for lateral control. If power fails on the rotor, it automatically changes the angle of attack on the blades to auto rotate, over a much smaller range than on a shaft driven articulated head rotor. The pilot does not have to juggle three controls and a throttle, or rely on a computer just to stay in one place without losing control when hovering. Much better machine in all operational conditions.

[Mystery Steve]

They do not need to use two thirds of their fossil fuel to reach altitude and although slower would be more direct and far more comfortable.

Two-thirds? I don't think so...

And I don't see how this would be any more direct than the airliners. They would still be required to follow flight patterns for safety and logistical reasons. It's not like airliners are following the highways enroute to their destination, they still fly fairly direct.

Far more comfortable? What does the wing structure have to do with cabin comfort? You still need to maintain a reasonable cross-sectional area of the cabin for minimizing drag. Comfort is relative depending on who you ask anyway...

I could see this being useful for say a hop from London to Paris or Indianapolis to Chicago, but long distance flights I don't see an improvement drastic enough to justify replacing entire fleets with them at the moment. I'd be happy to be proved wrong though. And on that note, this is indeed getting off topic (in a thread that was started because other threads were getting of topic, no less). If you're interested in discussing further, go ahead and PM me (or start another thread). I am interested to see fuel consumption figures as a function of velocity to see where this architecture fits with others being used.

[Giblet]

Sorry, autogyro, I was speaking about the twin engine Buffalo aircraft. That was why I was making the comparions to landing distances between prop airplanes and autogyros. Me being wrong apparently about their ability to glide as well as an actual airplane with no spinning rotor on top, plus the Buffalo confusement must have made my post very convoluted.

DeHavilland Buffalo

You are most likely right autogyro, I assumed that with no way of counter rotating, other than forward thrust and the control surfaces, that if an engine failed the craft would eventually succumb to the rotating rotor above, and eventually plummet.

[tok-tokkie]

The Rotodyne had huge orders when it was scrapped including 'Hundreds' of ordered from the American military.
They did not like that did they, that is why they scrapped it, the American 'Dream' from which we have yet to wake from.
The only routes that would still be more effective using conventional airliners would be trans Atlantic and trans Pacific.
Every where else the rotodyne concept would be faster to population centers, more fuel efficient and more reliable.
I would use airships for the long haul anyway. They do not need to use two thirds of their fossil fuel to reach altitude and although slower would be more direct and far more comfortable.
Scrap fixed wing airliners, they are an obsolete concept.

They had no orders. BEA & US military had expressed an interest but orders never materialised. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Rotodyne A pity since it was a great aircraft for really short haul applications.

[mike]

autogyro excuse me for the wild assumption...

you say you system has not clutch what so ever. but you must have mechanism in place to prevent the engine from stalling.
which means:
-there is a "clutch" but doesnt look, work or smell like a conventional clutch
-you also said that it is an electro-magnetic system
which now i would have to assume that it works like a torque converter with high efficiency, it builds up all the energy in repect to time, but it seems like its not your everyday electromagnetic clutch.
-and i thinking that it could be a selector of some sort, since you said no gears are running unless they are powering the system

-one things that i have the most trouble with is the fact that you claim high efficiency, which means its not a complete mechanical to electrical power conversion, or else the efficiency would not be as good.
-only guess i can come up with so far is that your system uses a sort of power steering kind of design that assists rotational power to overcome stall. thats the most effective not non-clutch system so far

[autogyro]

The Rotodyne had huge orders when it was scrapped including 'Hundreds' of ordered from the American military.
They did not like that did they, that is why they scrapped it, the American 'Dream' from which we have yet to wake from.
The only routes that would still be more effective using conventional airliners would be trans Atlantic and trans Pacific.
Every where else the rotodyne concept would be faster to population centers, more fuel efficient and more reliable.
I would use airships for the long haul anyway. They do not need to use two thirds of their fossil fuel to reach altitude and although slower would be more direct and far more comfortable.
Scrap fixed wing airliners, they are an obsolete concept.

They had no orders. BEA & US military had expressed an interest but orders never materialised. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Rotodyne A pity since it was a great aircraft for really short haul applications.

City center to City center all around Europe is hardly very short haul, think again and any modern version would be so advanced compared to fixed wing as to make them look like Wright flyers.
It was because the aircraft was scrapped AND every single design drawing and part accept two tiny items at the British helicopter museum were completely destroyed and burnt. That is why the orders did not materialize, not because the aircraft was in any way a failure. In fact it was fully proven and in service.
It was a really great aircraft but I would like to see any of the brilliant engineers on here access any design details. Perhaps the CIA could help?
There is a TSR2 at Duxford that was scrapped at the same time. That to was superior to anything else but being a narrow task warplane they allowed one to exist as a memorial. The Rotodyne was and is far more controversial and one of this countries major technical blunders that has cost us trillions into the back pockets of Uncle Sam.

[autogyro]

Sorry, autogyro, I was speaking about the twin engine Buffalo aircraft. That was why I was making the comparions to landing distances between prop airplanes and autogyros. Me being wrong apparently about their ability to glide as well as an actual airplane with no spinning rotor on top, plus the Buffalo confusement must have made my post very convoluted.

DeHavilland Buffalo

You are most likely right autogyro, I assumed that with no way of counter rotating, other than forward thrust and the control surfaces, that if an engine failed the craft would eventually succumb to the rotating rotor above, and eventually plummet.

The autogyro is gliding in auto rotation all the time. Helicopters have a powered rotor that uses much more energy to maintain lift and if the power is taken away at least 500 feet is needed in free decent before auto rotate can be applies. Even then, the design of a powered rotor in auto rotate results on average in a 35 knot vertical decent. Hurts your ar-- I can tell you. Of course any failure in the gearboxes engines or tilt mechanism in an Osprey results in a spinning mass of bits.

I have a friend who holds many autogyro records, one was a non stop flight from Lands end to the tip of Scotland in a light autogyro using only 60 horsepower with five gallons to spare. Good enough for efficiency? That aircraft has completed air to ground missile firing against tank Armour and would solve many of the problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. Long range no heat signature practically silent at altitudes up to 20,000ft (altitude is easier without a powered rotor as is speed) where it is invisible, no rotor wash so no mini sand storms or sand damage to engines, costs no more than a police car so you could have over 5000 of them for the price of one silly Apache and military trials have been achieved, one of which delivered the aircraft inside a Hercules(which could carry a dozen) with 50 Gurkha's to a combat zone and was flying on task in three minutes. A bit better than an Apache that takes on average two weeks. It is faster than Apache to on only 60 hp far more agile and has no heat signature.