The Fairey Rotodyne, Brussels to London
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 13 ต.ค. 2024
- Rotodyne promotional video shoot during a demonstration flight from Brussels to London via Paris in the 1950's
The Fairey Rotodyne was a 1950s British compound gyroplane designed and built by Fairey Aviation and intended for commercial and military uses. A development of the earlier Gyrodyne, which had established a world helicopter speed record, the Rotodyne featured a tip-jet-powered rotor that burned a mixture of fuel and compressed air bled from two wing-mounted Napier Eland turboprops. The rotor was driven for vertical takeoffs, landings and hovering, as well as low-speed translational flight and autorotated during cruise flight with all engine power applied to two propellers.
Aircraft Type: Fairey Rotodyne
Period: 1950's
I joined Fairey in 1972 as a machine shop apprentice and remained with the firm for nearly 30 years from Heston to Bristol.
You rarely hear stories like this anymore, glad to see your proud of your career.
Кроме шума слышал , аппараты не дешево получались. Для людей думаю на много удобней индивидуальные ЛА, или на семью. И для еще большей экономичности полета конструкцию не плохо изменить.
this would be perfect for like the coast guard. no one wants a rotodyne?
@@АлексЭкологActually these gyro planes are FAR LESS expensive , Lighter , Less complex, More Reliable, Faster and had Greater range than ANY conventional powered rotor wing aircraft... This design which was created over 70 years ago was set aside to be replaced by powered rotor-winged aircraft...
Quite possibly , one of the greatest mistakes ever made in the history of aviation, was to replace this design with powered rotor helicopters...
@@randomrazrUnfortunately, Westland bought this design, only to scrap it - and provide a much more lucritive roadway - to create tax-payer funded, powered rotor helicopters... That happened over 65 years ago... The Wide World of Politics at it's worst... This SHOULD have replaced the powered rotor helicopters, 70 years ago....
👍 Brilliant. Thanks for posting.
Sadly, for Rotodyne, the revolution never happened.
Glad you enjoyed it
in 2021 this looks so advanced !~!!
Thanks fro the visit!
Has a real “Thunderbirds“ feel to the design 😂
I remember those Cartoons!!! Created by ITC!!;
It was in Captain Scarlet as the Magnacopter.
Hopefully, in the future we can bring this back and solve the problems the rotodyne had along with being more eco friendly.
Я инженер в области экологии, но транспортом давно интересуюсь. Самолеты еще совершенствовать и совершенствовать, самолет с вертикальным взлетом может стоить намного дешевле, чем большинство людей могут представить. Но законы пока не позволяют такие вещи производить, многие бизнесы развалятся и государства следом.
@@АлексЭкологкакие законы не позволяют производить какие самолёты...?
It looks brilliant.
This thing could have been doing the job of the V-22 Osprey for the US military, or any military, since the 1950s??!! Seriously, cancelling this was the greatest mistake ever, and noise was NOT the issue. Can anyone argue that noise would have been a problem for the US Navy operating this of ships and aircraft carriers? This thing could have landed Marines ashore, done the COD job of the C2 Greyhound, done Vertical Replenishment of ships at sea, been flying into US Army firebases from Vietnam to Afghanistan. Hell, I could see this flying the US President of the lawn of the White House.
Completely agree
Yeah, except it was British and in direct competition with American helicopter companies.
Except the US already had heavy lift helicopters and others in development. They also just put into service the c130 which could be landed at short runways. The issue with this was the maintenance and the suscessblity to damage. The biggest issue is the size of the rotors. The osprey is a tilt rotor aircraft that can fit on carrier decks. This can't. It's too big. And they would have to come up with a way to fold everything up to fit not only on an aircraft carrier but also assault ships. Trying to compare a 1950s prototype to a modern osprey is hilarious. The 1950s was a time where aviation was moving forward quite quickly. One day something is state of the art, next it is antiquated. There is a reason this was just a prototype look past the cool factor. Too many things were in the process of being designed and made that superseded this thing look at the Cheyenne heavy lift helicopter already in military service. It already does what this thing does but carries more
Spot on. I was thinking the same after watching this.
Amazing what we achieved back then.
A beautiful aircraft, sad it never became a financial success.
They had a contract to build a larger version and then the government changed the company which dropped it
@Douglas Hamilton, the design was, and still is superior in every way, than mast driven helicopters.... Politics killed this program....And the Westland group made sure the Rotodyne was quickly wiped from the face of the Earth, because it literally up-staged the complex/expensive shaft driven helicopters in every possible way.... Not even a single example was saved for museums... That alone shows what was going on to rid themselves of their competition using their political influence.... Other companies have done this too.... Completely destroy the evidence of much better designs then what they had to offer... Politics...
@@MyNameIsChristBringsASword , the Rotodyne was a proof of concept design that showed the potential of these aircraft... And that is what made the Westland VTOL group very nervous... Westland had the various groups of companies combined, by the direction of who provided the majority of contracts there.... That was the British ministry of defence... Westland spent BILLIONS of dollars trying to make their rotor-mast driven helicopters work... The Fairey Rotodyne was a large gyro-copter with a superior design that out-performed ALL of the rotor shaft-driven helicopters in every way.... Safer, lighter, simpler, higher payload capacity, faster, higher ROC, greater range, fewer parts, easier to maintain, far less expensive to maintain, far less expensive to produce.... It completely left the competition in the dust.... It was a far better machine, and THAT is what killed it.... The major players (Westland) who were in close friendships with key government officials (British ministry of defence)... Does this sound familiar?
Makes you wonder whether Fairey were "got to" again by someone across the pond like in the case of the TSR2..
As a kid I seem to Remember having either a Corgi or Dinkey die cast model of it.
remember making an Airfix model of it.
They need to make a new version of this. Was such a good safe design. Always in auto rotation so who cares if the engine fails.. You just float down.
the designer of fairey helicopters was belgian he was called Oscar Tips he also made some ww2 fairey fighters (fairey fantome and fairey feroce) and he made some light civil airplanes tho
Nice invention
Let us not forget the politicians who cancelled Black Arrow because launching satellites was never going to make money.
A bit like TSR2, this'll always go down as something that just needed a little more investment and would have changed everything
Vote Labour, you know it makes sense. I remember when first travelling to US doing business with aircraft manufacturers in mid 80’s. Many UK engineers where recruited by US manufacturers. Seattle had many in particular.
This was parked outside the ATC hut in Southampton for years, then it disappeared?
it was scrapped, except the main transmission, I'm pretty sure.
@@manchiststechnicolourarchi5606 ...that's disturbing, depressing and infuriating...stupid and Ignorant people make stupid decisions, especially Bean counters 🤔
I never understood that, the United States has destroyed dozens upon dozens of prototypes, test units, and research aircraft, and spent 100's of millions doing so. What a waste 🤨
Why is this winning technology not developed...???🤔
It had jets in the rotor tips to spin them up, and they were as loud as a jet taking off - too loud to use in the middle of a city. And if you couldn’t fly this thing in and out of a city center, you might as well fly a regular plane from a regular airport.
are you kidding me? it still took a normal airplane Three hours from Brussels to London, how is that possible, how could a normal airplane be so much slower?
At the end she landed near Concorde .
"Look forward to Rotodyne travel." We're still waiting 😕 The Rotodyne's gone and the Concorde is gone, we just can't have nice things. Other docus show it was cancelled due to the machinations of self-serving politicians. The designers almost had the sound problem licked.
Yes apparently the sound of the tip jets was greatly reduced, but they were still struggling with vibration and shimmying in the rear fuselage, which was they say not strong enough to hamper flight or endanger the airframe, but stronger than any passenger would tolerate. It seems like that ought to have been a resolvable problem too, given time.
Would be interesting to see the design revived, with electric motors instead of tip jets.
Rotodyne
O rotodyne não foi para frente, por ser melhor e mais barato do que helicópteros.
British Genius betrayed again! .there is still time and a market for this unique engineering.
I remember when Sir Ralph Evans wanted 10 Rotodynes for a private helipark serving the wealthy people in West London. Pretty much everyone told him not to do it, as it won't pay off, or that they would eat through his money like mincemeat.
He had a bunch of rotodynes and helicopters on the left side of the park at the domestic terminal, and a bunch of GA aircraft and rotodynes on the righthand side terminal flying to Europe.
I can't remember which side of the park had the accident, but I'm pretty certain that it was caused by the right bunch of Faireys.
Really ?
Cobblers, but funny.
hmm, I'm pretty sure that no one had a bunch of rotodynes in commercial operation anywhere...
This was probably a concept someone had sketched out, that of course never came to be... it is interesting that the concept is being revisited, but this time involving E-Stol hybrid fixed wing aircraft, with multiple electric motors on a blown straight wing...
The UK Parliament as well as the Soviet Union proved repeatedly that a government cannot run businesses better than businesses can run businesses. (Due to the recent coup America will learn that lesson also.) The Fairey Rotodyne and the Bristol Brabazon were prime examples of left-field ideas fueled by the British Government's lack of entrepreneurial ability that would not have progressed beyond an early proposal stage except for people in big government with little business sense and too much authority forcing the project forward.
Read the entire article for reasons for the inevitable failure: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fairey_Rotodyne?wprov=sfla1
Selected hand to the forehead issues:
(Did everyone notice the absence of a tail rotor?)
The termination has been attributed to the type failing to attract any commercial orders; this was in part due to concerns over the high levels of rotor tip jet noise generated in flight.
The Rotodyne featured a tip-jet-powered rotor that burned a mixture of fuel and compressed air bled from two wing-mounted Napier Eland turboprops.
(In this short film the hinged vertical stabilizers were purposely avoided.)
To avoid striking the vertical stabilisers on startup, the tips of these fins were angled down to the horizontal. They were raised once the rotor had spun up.
(It's not actually a helicopter - it's an overgrown autogyro with tip-jet rotors.)
The rotor was driven for vertical takeoffs, landings and hovering, as well as low-speed translational flight, but autorotated during cruise flight with all engine power applied to two propellers.
England does not have a parliament, England does not even have a government. I assume you mean the UK parliament.
@@georgebarnes8163 what other hairs do you split so accurately? Knowing that the UK is England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland is a bit of trivia that is relatively unimportant on this side of the pond. But I will edit the comment so it meets with your sense of propriety.
@@curtislowe4577 Not splitting hairs just pointing out the fact that England does not have a parliament , you must be another one who does not know the difference between the UK and England, seems to be an US persons trait (please note I never stated American).
@@georgebarnes8163 exactly the point I was making, smart guy. In the late 18th century we won our independence from who? England, not the UK. In the 20th century we helped, then entirely bailed out who in two world wars? England, not the UK. Yes you're right but I don't care.
Mr lowe you're incorrect also regarding the "government run business" generated by the brabazon committee. It generated the successful Viscount, the successful Britannia, and the almost successful comet. The 1 failure out of 4 was the bristol brabazon.
Cancelled because it was too noisy. They should have made an exception for the infrastructural value.
I'll bet there was more skullduggery behind cancelling this.
The noise people had to put up with from Concorde, 747's etc. outstripped this.
I was wondering about the noise levels as I watched the video. I was assuming it was relatively expensive too but wikipedia says they only built one prototype so I guess that was never proven.
@@huw3851 I am citing a book called world's worst aircraft.
And how noisy is the BOEING USA Chinook, which was NOT cancelled! If you want to see skullduggery, look across the ocean to our cousins ...
@@nickthompson9697Original research is rare most people just rehash what was said before. Just come from a long YT post so not going to repeat that exercise here but somewhere I've seen sources saying it wasn't half as noisy as it’s famed to be. Plus they did variations to quieten the tips.
We got robbed
another ridiculous UK CANCELLATION
Meanwhile, Boeing , Bell , Sikorsky and numerous other manufacturers are continuing to struggle with very complex and expensive/heavy , relatively short ranged , powered rotor helicopters with lower performance than these Auto-Gyro aircraft.. This design that is featured here in this classic footage, was available, over 70 years ago... Westland bought it, and promptly scrapped it... What a tragic WASTE !!! This was a SUPERIOR design to compete against powered rotor aircraft in so many ways... I guess that since these aircraft were also capable of competing for military contracts, and do a FAR better job for FAR less money (provided by taxpayers), Westland decided it wanted to scrap the entire program to save face of the much more lucritive powered rotor helicopters.... And try to hide the existance of these SUPERIOR auto-gyro aircraft , by Not even leaveing a single aircraft in tact for museums... The Wide World of Politics, at it's very Worst......
@BritishHelicoptersHistory >>> 👍👍
-------& let's destroy all design documents, prototypes & everything else related to the project.