Kaman K-Max Dual Intermeshing Rotor Helicopter Demo - AIN
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 10 ก.ย. 2024
- Kaman Aerospace has delivered the first new-build K-Max “Aerial Truck” helicopter since the first nine-year production run ended in 2003. The bright orange helicopter is now on its way to northeast China, where it will be used primarily for firefighting. Before packing it up for shipment, Kaman put it through its paces at the factory in Bloomfield, Connecticut. Unless you work there, watching a K-Max’s intermeshing rotors spin up is a sight you don’t see every day.
#aviation #helicopter #aircraft
I have never been so anxious for a helicopter.
I just kept expecting it to chop itself to bits 😂
This is the second type helicopter built by Kaman with this rotor configuration the other was the husky built for the Air Force back in the 1960’s I think
Carl Fitzpatrick, no, it’s far from the second. Kaman has designed and built no fewer than ten different types of intermeshing rotor helicopters.
James Fieweger which ones are they I’m curious I only new about the two
Carl Fitzpatrick, my bad it was only nine. They are the K-125, K-190, K-225, K-1125, HTK, HOK, HUK, HH-43 and the K-MAX.
K max is the ant of the helicopter world, it’s lifting capacity to weight ratio is nuts.
Ryan Hampson so it's wight lifting capacity is how many nuts? Don’t say 69.
yeah wonder why not more helicopters went with this design... what are pros and cons of it
Jebi Se size is probably a pro, stability would likely be one, maybe even reduced vibrations.
Complexity would likely be a big negative, lower durability.
no this is very simple design actually...
Jebi Se very simple?
I mean it can’t be that simple, gearing and stuff would make this more complex and more prone to failure than just one rotor, wouldn’t it?
My high school is only 10 min. Away from the factory so I see these K-Max's perform test flights all the time out the window. They are awesome
Great
Get your nose back into your studies and quit looking out the window or you'll grow up to be a retard!
Ah you got a really nice view from your school 🫡
you are so lucky
Its like chinook on a tight budget😂
Very Very tight budget.
Or a thai hooker with broken ankles.
Actually, it looks like a German Flettner Kolibri Fl-282 military helicopter from WW2, the original eggbeater. th-cam.com/video/cOP_-BcRMRY/w-d-xo.html
On a slim budget xD
@@Sk.2500 while the Chinook's rotor discs don't overlap as much, they do overlap due to the increased angle of the front rotor head.
1:10 I am always constantly surprised by German ingenuity. They were a head of the times in many inventions. Just remarkable.
Dude thats not german.. nazi made kalibri and NOT use 2pack of rotorblade.
K max purely american inventions. Like bell , its started in and on capitalis garage.
@@bazzhm1447 "Flettner [the German] became the chief designer of Kaman Aircraft and many of the Flettner design concepts are found in Kaman helicopters of later years." -- en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Flettner
It Kind of makes your wonder what the world would have been like if the right side won.
@@nezuminezuminezumi7266so you support the side who encouraged ethnic cleansing?
I watched one of these dropping mulch for post fire mitigation. It was alternating loads with a Huey. The K-max was literally doubling load size over the Huey. And at way lower altitude with more nimble delivery. Such an amazing task machine!
Lol. Who are the nine people that dislike this? You have a beef with a certain type of helicopter?
I'm not very fond of the fact that its going to be sent to the Chinese.
that's called free market
fucking NAZI tech
@@Kodamagnum24 get over yourself or do us all a favor and don't share your opinion on society, it's very backwards my friend
Kodamagnum24 why? Its not even a battle chopper. Its for fighting fires. You are a strange dude.
shipped to china for firefighting? in north east china
same north east china where harbin helicopter company is located
u know they just gonna reverse engineer it
They will try.
Trust me.. no one gonna by jumping to buy a chinese intermeshing helicopter 🙃
Sangyoon Kim, idk, that's what they used to say about Japanese cars.
Has to be perfect replica or its going to crash and burn.
@Skelotor Two I believe it's for the same reason. If you look at the early Japanese automotive industry, it was the copy of the European cars. The Kenmeri Skyline was a copy of an American muscle. Through it all, they had an international team and partnership like Ford and Mazda. Now you see partnerships such as Toyota with Jinbei and an assembly of an international team like Nio. It's the same curve for Korean cars. The reason for such perception is exposure.
Engineering marvel, but good Lord does it look horrid
Overwatch That's an opinion, based on an aesthetic standard that is completely arbitrary. It's actually more symmetrical than a conventional helicopter. I actually think it looks pretty cool. Kinda looks like a dragonfly flapping its wings.
I think it looks really cool, almost on par with the P-47 Thunderbolt in terms of so-ugly-its-pretty kind of thinking :D
True, but I guess it's shaped in such a way to let the pilot have better visibility.
Ace Nitro Probably works for Bell or Sikorsky. Sorry, Boeing or UTC.
Oh ...have you met my wife?
It's the quietest helicopter I've ever seen.
Do you hear with your eyes?
who said that ,,, was it you ,, i saw your ears move.... lol
Yes, it's noise footprint is quite low for an observer on the ground. However, in the cockpit it is very noisy. In the prominent bulge just over the top of the cockpit are blowers to cool engine and transmission oil. Those fans are incredibly noisy and after 8 or 9 hours you are a crazy man from the noise.
@@waynearrington6727 isn't that why one uses noise cancelling headphones?
@Jay M how do you hear a written statement
Suddenly everyone is a mechanical engineer in the comment section.
HerezCheez Maybe they are. I am. I don't think this kind of video is attracting mainly fashionistas.
@@brainmind4070 I am not a mechanic but I'd be happy if you considered me one.
Alex Hutchins And you would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for your meddling comment!
HerezCheez Suddenly some dumbass outta nowhere doesn’t like it when people talk about the topic of the video.
Im a mechanical design engineer, but working as a process engineer =P
We get these at the airfield I work out. Nothing else makes a sound like a K-Max, they are extremely cool.
Simple timeless design that works!....if they scale it up by 2 could probably approach Chinook's lifting capacity.....for a fraction of the cost!
Maybe, but the scale of project it would take to engineer such a scale-up would be massive. Almost all structural materials follow the same rule of thumb: When you double the size, you need to quadruple the strength (don't quote me on that BTW :P).
It would get a lot bigger though. Since it has to be at least the length of the rotor so the 2 sets of blades don't hit each other.
@@greeneggsandsam2014 You may be right, due to some square laws in physics and I don't remember the text book I used in college, like "University Physics" and it has a side story of scale and people of the Lilliput, all are fading in my memory. Trying some search on that story:
study.com/academy/answer/in-spite-of-gulliver-s-physical-strength-he-is-passive-towards-the-lilliputians-what-aspect-of-gulliver-s-travels-does-this-represent.html
And I just found about this now?!?!
me too
What about me? Haha
The engineering is astonishing.
No approaching from the side with rotors turning i presume..🤔
I have seen several of these in actual use, they have big letters on the side, "APPROACH FROM FRONT"
i think its for tall people... lol dont think rotor goes so low anyway.. and you have this "approach from front" sign in this video too
aka "the passenger mower"
The 2:11 "unmanned drone version" developed for military use ... painted a nice dull uniform gray, no obvious safety signage, lol.
The intermeshing blades!!!! Scary and beautiful at the same time.
I feel like saying I want one for Christmas 🤣
Brilliant - explained the link at last between Fletner and Kaman that even the company did not offer. Thank you.
Company has never denied that.
The counter-rotating props provide for a smooth smooth ride!
what a beautiful machine
It's an astonishing machine, if you're used to looking at tail-rotor craft. I wonder why they aren't more widely used. I'm no engineer, but it seems a high lift to weight ratio would be useful for a lot more than cargo. One could equip a version with a roomy cabin, either for an owner who wants luxury in their vehicle--imagine Marine One with intermeshing rotors--or for seating many passengers. I could see a role for short hops in between cities or airports in some places.
One of the problems is that the tilted rotor discs come low to the ground, making it hard to safely approach the aircraft.
Holiday helicopter camper
@@Zothaqqua that's the issue I have noticed too
Anything that comes out today as a NEW IT APPEARS ITS 100 years old.... what a brightdark “FUTURE” we live in............
I got to see one of these at our local airport the other day and it had a very distinct sound.
!1:17 "immigrated to the us" bwhahahah more like "operation paperclip"
The narrator actually said "emigrated", not "immigrated". Two different words there.
TissuePaper what's the difference between these 2 words?
george emigrate is to LEAVE a country. Immigrate is to ENTER a country. So, he emigrated from Germany, and immigrated into the US.
History nerds: Except not cuz paperclip
Beautiful
One just flew over my house. What a weird sight. I thought it was my washing machine starting a spin cycle off balance.
Science at good work i love it.
Love these. Dual main rotary systems look amazing. KA-50 is still my fav as we can fly it in DCS.
Totally incredible it looks..great information on these rotors and the capabilities of it and other helicopters too..Awesome job on this video too..I do greatly appreciate it alot thank you so much for your videos too..
What a beauty!
I wish i could fly one of these some day...
maybe Kaman Aircraft can re-design the K-Max airframe body, fuselage to put the crew cabin up the top level atop of the passengers and cargo in the level below, with big clamshell doors at the front and the tricycle landing gear inverted so a front retractable passenger ramp can be added to a new fuselage design. a lot of helicopter lifting power there! ,- just a thought.
Glad to see they put the K-Max back into production, I never understood why they stopped in the first place.
The market was saturated, not many customers for a helicopter that only does one thing. There's a worldwide market of about two dozen units tops for something like this. Attrition had reduced the numbers to the point they could produce a few more to replace them but the market is still about two dozen sales give or take.
I love the design
Saw a demo at a local fly in last year. I think this has to be one of the quietest aircraft.
1:10 - I'm sold.
Is this more dangerous to get out of than a normal helicopter? Because of the blades spinning lower and closer to the floor? Do you have to wait for the blades to stop to exit the craft? Unlike a normal helicopter?
It’s amazing how much pilot skill is involved in keeping both rotors from hitting each other.
No piloting skills are required for keeping the rotors from hitting each other as they are connected and aligned internally with gears.
@@aerialkerala Without the skill of the pilots the rotors woud come in contact with each other. Very skilfull
@@eprn1n2 Please see this video and you'll get it: th-cam.com/video/Xz-twheuHxc/w-d-xo.html
@@aerialkerala Sorry Aerial. Just joking.
This was a very very informative video
I saw one for the first time today, what a cool bird!
'servos in each blade for simplicity'
Yeah the wiring and control for six servos through an axle and a 3part joint?
Pull the other one! Maintenance and inspection must be a nightmare
That jumped at me too, but I think they know what they doing, simplicity to the engineers of this craft is something different than to you and me. Maybe it is easier the way they did it and it helped them make more things easier at the cost the wiring being difficult (or maybe it even isn't that hard). I don't know enough about this vehicle so I will not be the judge of that.
Well, to have a mechanical linkage may not be much more complicated, but the whole assembly is made from many moving parts. Murphy's Law applies perfectly here, with a lot of moving, mechanical parts in the normal version, and only two parts in the servo version - the wire and the servo
so it does have a slip-ring not a swashplate? That might explain why they made drones out of this
@@dallatorretdu I don't believe it has a swash plate, because it would operate on the same cyclic+collective system as a single-rotor aircraft. I could be wrong though, I'm no aerospace engineer.
No, it has little flaps called servo tabs that move the blades. Its a way of getting aerodynamic (instead of hydraulic) boost. The tabs are still swahsplate controlled, not electro-mechanical servos in the blade. Still mechanically complex, but you get rid of hydraulic system.
This craft can maneuver backward's without having to dip it's nose to do so like regular helicopters have to. How neat! 😊
Impressive! I wonder how it rotates on itself since it doesn't have a tail rotor and keeps the two rotors at identical speed...
There are control surfaces on the rotor blades, like ailerons. Thanks for watching!
Very clever design, I love it.
Still trying to figure out how do the blades manage to not hit each other
They're driven by the same motor, so what is essentially 2 timing belts keeps their rotations the same, and as long as they're offset slightly, the belts/engine can keep them in their own individual spin, which does not intersect with the other blade.
The gearing keeps them synchronized. If they stopped being synchronized you'd have much bigger problems.
Its the similar mechanic how bullets dont hit the blades in world war 2 helicopter.
Just Me but when it turns one slows down
Really elegant machine, so little parts!
You gotta say: that shit is pretty nimble. It almost looked like a drone, floating around in such a controlled grace.
The perfect combination of thrust and anxiety
Escellent. Yet another great chopper produced in CT!
Nepal could use some drone version, to lift supplies to hill top village if road is washed out by landslides.
nepal is one of the poorest countries in the world but. good idea
@@seemeslegit3765 just because Nepal is poor doesn't mean the government can't afford to buy this. Or even the people. There are a lot of filthy rich people in Nepal too.
@@southpawlibranine3511 The rich people don't give a shit about the poor, and after all the earquakes there in the past the tourist industry is struggling. without a magic fairy conjuring up some money the can't afford it
@@seemeslegit3765 do you know all the Rich people personally. Stop generalising. And by the way the tourism industry last year had the most amount of visitors in the whole history of Nepal visit. Only two years after the quake. So stop making up crap without looking at the hard facts to suit your barely there argument. Iam fortunate enough to be a Nepali who comes from considerable wealth and my family has done a lot for the poor and so has countless other rich people. What have you done?
@@seemeslegit3765 there's is currently a total of five new luxury hotels being built in the capital city alone. Not to mention a 300 million dollar casino that opened in another city. I wouldnt consider that struggling to attract tourists. I guess the Hilton, Sheraton and other hoteliers are wasting their money. I know the owner of the Hilton personally.
I don't know it's strange or coincidence or what, after watching this video for few seconds, I was thinking about german engineering during ww2, and then there is mention of the German invention!
Woah!!! Amazing 🚁
What's the autorotation specs?
german invention - we nailed it again :)
WOOO IM HAVING ONE OF THESE LAND AT MY HIGHSCHOOL I LOVE LIVING NEAR KAMAN COMPOSITES
Fascinating
Amazing!!!
Kaman tested the Kmax at our squadron HSL-32 back in 1992 it was fun watching it fly at the time our squadron was flying the Kaman SH-2F Sea Sprite after the navy rejected the Kmax in1992 our Squadron was decommissioned shortly after that same year.
Awesome whirlybird. Cheers!
sincronia perfeita... dá até medo...parece que vão bater a qualquer momento!
-gears fail
-rotors annihilate each other
-can't autorotate to safety
-???
-Profit
Wow, you just summed up every aircraft ever
@@battleoid2411 i don't think you know what either autorotating or glidding is bud if this thing fails its a literal brick
Two issues with that. First, this helicopter has already done many autorotation trials without problem. Second, the specific failure you are thinking of is not really possible. It would be like your car's axle spontaneously snapping in half. That sort of thing doesn't happen unless maintenance is neglected to an extreme degree. Even then, it would be vastly more likely that something more delicate (like the engine or electronics) would fail first, not a simple mechanical linkage.
@@brianshannahan6983 theres a weird little gear at the base of every rotor, it sortof looks like a ratchet, this gear is extremly complex as it has to be able to grip the rotor in one direction but let it spin freely in the other. This gear breaks all the fucking time.
@@a1919akelbo Again, two problems with that. First, they specifically moved the controls to a servo-based system on the blades in order to make things mechanically simpler. Second, the helicopter and others like it are already in service and seem to do just fine safety wise. While that type of failure is theoretically possible, I'm inclined to think it's a non-issue.
So if one rotor fails it will destroy the other one
if one of your rotors fail on a regular helicopter you're just a F'd
Andrew Chan Rotors on a helicopter are really the last thing to fail. More common problems are things like gearing, engines, controls.
Keep in mind this is a utility helicopter. So it will be carrying twice the copter's weight. Those rotors habe to be able to stand up to the downforce they gotta pump out for that.
I wonder how auto rotation works on this thing.
It apparently autotates very well. In earlier intermeshing machines there were some directional control issues but these have largely been solved in the Kmax, I believe.
Cooper Hart Wrong The rotors will never hit one another. If you think about it if each rotor spins independently from eachother they will quickly go out of sync. Even a 0.0001% difference in speed one rotor will eventually catch up to the other after enough spins.
Its much more likely that the rotors spin together like connected gears so that one blade never meets the other.
if rotor fails on any helicopter you are going down anyway.
I'm no engineer but do that blades go from one gear? I'd assume it would be hell to keep those insync otherwise
correct, there is only one motor and the rotors are geared together.
I like this narrator
This looks safe, reliable and modern.
So, what is the benefit of a tail rotor? Isn’t that what causes most helicopter crashes. How come every helo doesn’t have this configuration or the double stacked version?
Due to its high lift to size ratio would this design work well if it was battery powered?
So beautiful!
Frank has another hidden talent
Oh my god that's fucking trippy
TWIN BLADE REPORTING!
I IDENTIFY AS AN ORANGE K-MAX HELICOPTER !
Kinda looks like a dragonfly flapping its wings.
Standing beside one you realise how much noise is generated by a tail rotor. These are very quiet!
Why did they stop production? It seems like a terrific design.
People are skeptical cos "weird" in their eyes, so not a lot of orders.
So soothing to watch from far away but definitely scary to fly in one.
I've heard these synchropter's are noticeably more quiet than traditional helicopters. Is that marginally true?
that's exciting
So why isn’t it more popular ??
Can't believe how close I live to Kaman and haven't known about them. Overshadowed by Sikorsky I guess.
Huey lifts 2000kg K Max lift 2700kg this was way more than his own weight.
incredible!
This is like the coolest shit ever
Random dude at the bar back in ww2 : Bet u can't make a helicopter with two blades spinning past each other
Anton Flettner : Hold my beer
Nice explanation!
Damn that is one sexy helicopter
Can someone explain hot the Heli turns? Usually is by differential thrust, but here if one of the blades spins faster it will collide against the other.
just like any other heli. by turning the rotorblades
"Commands pilot Frank Gallagher..."
.
He's out again
I hope they have find a solution for the servos failures.
Actually, because of the blade placement, this is actually called a synchropter
Superb innovation
When it started up I was like “Holy Shit” and wanted to 🏃🏿♂️💨 that shit did not look rite lol
Swanson likes IT
Why intermeshing blades instead of coaxial blades? What is the difference?
That is a good question.
Amazing
Don’t you forget to change the timing belt at regular intervals on this thing!
This thing has a timing belt? Isn't it operated by a turbine?
How do you stop turbulence from blowing one of the rotors off balance?
The rotors use a gearbox so this makes them physically impossible for them to hit each other.
I'm guessing this could actually be quite fast as you're not going to get unbalanced lift from retreating blade stall? That being said it looks like the rotors turn the wrong way for that.
You still have the issue of the advancing blade nearing the speed of sound
Holy shit watching that thing start up made me feel so damn uneasy. Lol.
When the video started I was like damn, its been long since Americans invented some good stuff... not suprised to find out they didn‘t.
And when a birdstrike or rotor failure causes the rotors to clash and there is no lift so no autorotation...?
A birdstrike wouldn't cause them to clash because they're geared together.