Groen Brothers « Monsoon », a Hercules-based gyroplane

Hi Hesham,

It is a real but unbuilt design from Groen Brothers

http://www.groenbros.com/
 
What is with gyroplanes? It seems like such a no-brainer idea, but the projects and the companies that promote them seem to dry up and blow away. What is the inherant flaw?
 
I saw an artist's conception of a Groen design for a military gyroplane transport based on the Hercules in an edition of Janes All-the-World's Aircraft.
 
Kim Margosein said:
What is with gyroplanes? It seems like such a no-brainer idea, but the projects and the companies that promote them seem to dry up and blow away. What is the inherant flaw?
Click to expand...
Their inherent limitation is their inability to maintain a sustained hover because the rotor system is, in a pure autogyro, unpowered. VTOL takeoffs and landings are conducted with the rotor driven by inertia and constantly slowing so these operations must be completed very precisely. Mechanisms to drive the rotor were introduced but the result starts to get as complex as a helicopter and so erodes the type's main virtue: mechanical simplicity. They seem to have an advantage over fixed wing aircraft in STOL operations but introduce the complexity and speed limitations of a rotor.
 
Possibly fixed with electric motors to power the rotors in the hover/take off/landing only?
 
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taildragger said:
Their inherent limitation is their inability to maintain a sustained hover because the rotor system is, in a pure autogyro, unpowered. VTOL takeoffs and landings are conducted with the rotor driven by inertia and constantly slowing so these operations must be completed very precisely. Mechanisms to drive the rotor were introduced but the result starts to get as complex as a helicopter and so erodes the type's main virtue: mechanical simplicity. They seem to have an advantage over fixed wing aircraft in STOL operations but introduce the complexity and speed limitations of a rotor.
Click to expand...
The GBA designs used tip-jets similar to the Fairy Rotodyne.

thefutureofthings.com

Darpa’s Heliplane

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plans to demonstrate a 400mph gyrodyne, called Heliplane. Heliplane is an air vehicle that combines vertical take-off and landing (VTOL) and the low disk loading characteristics of a helicopter with the speed and efficiency characteristics of...
thefutureofthings.com thefutureofthings.com
 
They made mention of it in the article, and I can't imagine that here in the 21st century we're more accommodating of screaming aircraft in our cities. Then again, it is a DARPA project and intended for the military, so I'm sure carrier crews can just keep on wearing hearing protection and get on with it.

And it's not as if it's going to be a persistent noise throughout the flight, just takeoff and landing (if you want to go full VTOL).
 
Owl like feathering on the lee side of the props maybe?

Now to spin up that otherwise unpowered central rotor, a new type of RATO? For Iran hostage rescue situations.
 

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