Fairey NOTAR Light Helicopter Project of 1943

How Anglo-centric Brit authors are. The Putnam Fairey does not speak of EO Tips "creating together" Fairey Avn.Co. and has 1945 arrival of Dr.Bennett to found F-Helis., bringing with him FB-1 (Fairey-Bennett 1) Gyrodyne (NOTAR). It was another 4 decades till Hughes/MDC sold a NOTAR. MRH Uttley, Westland & UK Heli. Industry, Cass,2001, has nothing on Tips. Tks for this link.


 
alertken said:
How Anglo-centric Brit authors are. The Putnam Fairey does not speak of EO Tips "creating together" Fairey Avn.Co. and has 1945 arrival of Dr.Bennett to found F-Helis., bringing with him FB-1 (Fairey-Bennett 1) Gyrodyne (NOTAR). It was another 4 decades till Hughes/MDC sold a NOTAR. MRH Uttley, Westland & UK Heli. Industry, Cass,2001, has nothing on Tips. Tks for this link.


Hi Alertkan,


may be that helicopter is little known,specially it was from 1943 ?.
 
Hesham, the NOTAR design is an excellent find. The website where you've found the image is just as excellent in a different way, because it is a tribute to the remarkable Ernest Oscar Tips and his equally remarkable work.

The NOTAR design probably was eclipsed by the deluge of other designs coming out in 1943, more suited to the needs of the time. Seeing how long it took for other people to come up with something similar, and judging by his other work, E.O. Tips deserves much more recognition for his efforts than he got.

I repeat: an excellent find, both this drawing and the site where you found this drawing. Thank you.
 
Thank you my dear Arjen,


and a small note,the Putnam books forgot many projects in all companies which it spoke
about them,so we can say,that's unknown design.
 
joncarrfarrelly said:
The Cierva W.9 was also a 'NOTAR' design of the same period.
Somehow I thought that was a much later design. Can't think why, now :-[
 
Am I the only one to find the use of the word NOTAR annoying in the context of a 1943 project?


Unless I'm mistaken, I don't believe the word was coined until the 1970s as a trademark name from McDonnell Douglas Helicopters.
 
Well, the abreviation "NOTAR" was coined by McDonnel Douglas in the '80s, and
quite probably it's legally protected and so should be used only for the appropriate
products of that manufacturer, or today for Boeings helis carrying this system.
Nevertheless, it just means "No tail rotor" and can be frequently found even in the
specialised press. But using it of course can be circumvented:
- "Fairey Light Helicopter Project of 1943 Without a Tail Rotor"
- "Fairey Tail-Rotor-Free Light Helicopter Project of 1943 "
- "Fairey Light Helicopter Project of 1943 with a kind of a puffer jet, instead of a tail rotor"
...
"To google" is even used when using Bing or other search engines and "tesa" is am synonym
for transparent adhesive tape, no matter who made it. And NOTAR just means today, that
the tail rotor is replaced by an engine driven blower. Sorry, MDD/Boeing !
 
Jemiba said:
"tesa" is am synonym for transparent adhesive tape, no matter who made it.


Interesting. That must be typically German I guess, because here in France, transparent adhesive tape is called "scotch", no matter who made it. Go figure... ::)
 
I don't see how calling this project a NOTAR is any different than calling the Wright Flyer a biplane canard. I don't think the Wrights used either word at the time, but those are the words we use today. Certain words become part of our vocabulary, despite copyrights and such.
 
Bill Walker said:
I don't see how calling this project a NOTAR is any different than calling the Wright Flyer a biplane canard. I don't think the Wrights used either word at the time, but those are the words we use today. Certain words become part of our vocabulary, despite copyrights and such.


Except that if they become part of our vocabulary they are no longer capitalized and get included in common dictionaries. "Biplane" and "canard" certainly are, "NOTAR" isn't. Besides both "biplane" and "canard" were already in use less than a decade after the Wrights first flew their Flyer.
 
"NOTAR" started its life as an abbreviation indicating, that it is a MDD design, I think, just as
a "Fenestron" principally can only be found on Eurocopter, sorry, "Airbus helicopter" types. All other
just have "shrouded tailrotors". At least, thats the intention of the inventors of such names, but as
already mentioned, common use of them often makes no distinction, if they look alike.
Brand names and abbreviations, too, often become synonyms for things and enter our vocabulary.
Most of our kids weren't wearing plastic laminated paper nappies, but "Pampers" !
 
joncarrfarrelly said:
The Cierva W.9 was also a 'NOTAR' design of the same period.

As my dear Jon expected,can we consider this design was also submitted to
Spec. E.16/43 ?.
 
I'm not sure, I've a feeling E.16/43 might have been written around/for the W.9.
But since Tips was design head of the new helicopter department at Fairey, it is possible this was tendered. I have no evidence either way but we probably shouldn't discount it as if Fairey was putting resources into establishing a helicopter division that early then they must have had some motivation to do so (perhaps even official sanction from MAP) to make it worthwhile and one means would be to secure Ministry funding on a research project. So I'll keep an open mind on this possibility.
 
I very much doubt that Fairey were in any position to tender full helicopter designs in 1943/44. The new department was certainly very active as they developed ideas on elements of helicopter power and control and they filed many patents, mostly in the names of Bennett, Forsyth and Chaplin but at least one with Tip's name on it. The drawing on the Belgian site looks like a patent illustration but I cannot locate it. The signature doesn't really look like Tips, but it is hard to tell.

The Putnam authors can indeed be Anglo-centric at times but I think in this case the website is also a little Belgo-centric in claiming Tips as a co-founder of Fairey Aviation. He certainly joined Fairey from Short when the new company was launched but calling him a co-founder is a bit much.
 
Hesham, the NOTAR design is an excellent find. The website where you've found the image is just as excellent in a different way, because it is a tribute to the remarkable Ernest Oscar Tips and his equally remarkable work.

The NOTAR design probably was eclipsed by the deluge of other designs coming out in 1943, more suited to the needs of the time. Seeing how long it took for other people to come up with something similar, and judging by his other work, E.O. Tips deserves much more recognition for his efforts than he got.

I repeat: an excellent find, both this drawing and the site where you found this drawing. Thank you.
Many early helicopters experimented with puffers to control yaw, but it was not until Hughes engineers started working on the concept that Coanda effect was introduced. On 17 December 1981, Hughes flew their OH-6A with NOTAR for the first time. Hughes' key innovation was adding Coanda effect to provide primary yaw push to supplement the puffer at the end of the tail boom. NOTAR blows cool fan air out of two slots on the right side of the tail boom to "blow" the entire cylindrical tail boom and make it lift/push to the right side. Those slots are supplemented by twin spoilers that prevent the tail boom from pushing in the wrong direction.
Similar spoilers have been added to more conventional helicopters (e.g. Sikorsky S-61) to prevent loss of yaw control in the hover. Tail boom spoilers are standard equipment on some newer helicopters (e.g. AW.139).
 

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