Crazy German engineering. Not a helicopter not a fixed wing plane. Hard to describe.
Engineers? Helo bubbas? Thoughts?
http://d-dalus.com/en/home.html
Engineers? Helo bubbas? Thoughts?
http://d-dalus.com/en/home.html
-
Please take a moment and update your account profile. If you have an updated account profile with basic information on why you are on Air Warriors it will help other people respond to your posts. How do you update your profile you ask?
Go here:
Edit Account Details and Profile
D-Dalus. Not a helo, not a plane
- Thread starter wink
- Start date
The first thing I thought of was how big would it have to be to do anything useful. I can't see that thing ever having a useful T/W ratio...especially if they wanna use an electric motor with no gearbox.
The second thing I thought about was how complicated the feedback system for the autopilot must be...
The second thing I thought about was how complicated the feedback system for the autopilot must be...
Valid points. I hadn't thought about the autopilot issue.. I had considered the practicality given the T/W ratio I can imagine. But, all those things were said of helicopters. They had virtually no practical use for years and marginal utility for a while after that. Autopilot, forget about it! The thing might just be ahead of it's time.
speedroller
Rangers
This reminds me of the spinning wings design, which was introduced early on. Look up magnus effect.
I incorrectly said autopilot when I meant flight controls. All those little blades moving independently to vector thrust would be complicated.
I think even the helicopter, in its realitively short 70ish year history, has probably achieved its upper most limit of practical utilization in its current form.
I think even the helicopter, in its realitively short 70ish year history, has probably achieved its upper most limit of practical utilization in its current form.
Based on what metric?
Coaxial rotors (Sikorsky S-97) should reduce hover power requirements by 5% to 10% due to the absence of the anti-torque requirement (tail rotor).
Sikorsky is also advertising a Vh increase of over 30% using the pusher prop (in combination with ABC retreating blade tech)
It appears to be more of a new spin (pun intended) on a ducted fan, rather than a rotating cylinder trying to utilize the Coanda effect. I think they'll ultimately find it to be less efficient than a traditional rotor or ducted-fan aircraft. The CGI videos as depicted are plain fantasy IMO.
But hell, they might learn something useful trying.
But hell, they might learn something useful trying.
I might argue that both the coaxial rotor system and the pusher prop would qualify as "not its current form"...but hey, that wouldn't be any fun would it?