Rotor-less helicopters

[pagemap]

AMRivlin and I both watched Black hawk down this evening, and he tells me that those accidents could have been avoided had the helicopters had no rear rotors.

I told him it was impossible for the helicopter to fly without the rear rotors because they counterbalance the main rotor blades spin. I have seen some helicopter designs with an air current blowing to the side to counteract the rotors, but not a heli w/ no rear rotors.

I will have to ask my uncle who in an engineer for bell. He designs rotor blades.

[AmRivlin]

I know I have seen NASA no roter choppers... they still use a stabalizng wing, but it removes the mechanical portion that could cause accidents

[pagemap]

My uncle works on this helicopter, the V-22. http://www.bellhelicopter.textron.com/products/tiltRotor/v22/

Very cool aircraft but the downside is that if one engine fails you are screwed.

[hapoo]

sure, you could have two main rotors both spining at the same rate in opposite directions, one right above the other.

[pagemap]

hapoo-
That would kind of defeat the purpose, no? The point was to reduce moving parts that could fail or be destroyed during combat and having one of two huge main rotors fail would be worse than the rear-rotor failing.

[hapoo]

Originally posted by pagemap
hapoo-
That would kind of defeat the purpose, no? The point was to reduce moving parts that could fail or be destroyed during combat and having one of two huge main rotors fail would be worse than the rear-rotor failing.


well, more moving parts, but its the same engine taking up about the same space, just powering two rotors. probably the best solution. I figure if one is going to fail, they'll both fail :)

[Hopper1]

I've seen helicopters with the air coming out instead of a rear rotor. I think it was called the Notar system not sure though. but if the tail was damaged it would still cause the same effect.

[OC]

Yup, Notar. Linky: http://www.kulikovair.com/Notar.htm

-OC

[Nanotech9]

well, its nearly impossible to remove complexity from a helo...

you see, a bird that cant fly on its own (i.e. glide) must rely on a power source, and if the power source fails, too bad.

so if you have one rotor and a tail, or two main rotors, it still all has to be powered, and if any part fails, the bird goes down.

[Paladin]

Indeed a chopper needs that rotor to keep it straight otherwise thr torque from the engine will just spin the Chopper part around the blades making it impossible to fly. As for Rotor less choppers, god luck find one in the Army or AirForce.

If I remember right the V-22 was the most crashworthy plane and over half of them crashed killing lots of marines. Spent way more time on the ground than in the air. Not a good plane/Chopper to be in. and yes If you are in Heli mode and one of those engines quits say goodbye, I thought that in order to reduce the amount of time in Heli mode after take off they switched almost immediatly when high enough, so if the engines quit they could glide somewhere. Watched TLC when V-22 was on neat little things but they were just too accident prone to be used effectivly, all those little moving parts in the wings were not a good idea.