I understand that progress in reducing the noise was made, but I think that was not enough to rescue the project.'Urban Legend' holds that Rotodynes' LOUD 'organ pipe' resonance was solved, but too late to prevent yet-another politically motivated project cancellation.
How true ??
Kaman actually had a licensing agreement in place and was advertising in trade publications.Kaman were also interested in licence producing it for the North American market.
My understanding is that the folding tips were kept straight in flight and only folded on the ground before slowing the rotor. If it weren't for the forward flight mode, the fins would be pointless.I imagine the reason for the outward bend to the vertical stabilizers has to do with the potential flexing of the rotor systems while in autorotative flight (forward flight for rotordynes).
Actually they fix the noise issue, only around 90 decibels by the time the program was canceled, not much higher then a regular helicopter and the flow and landed the "Y" in the middle of London and got zero complaints before the noise reduction messers, it wasn't noise that killed the rotodyne, it was the government not willing to spend 10,000,000 to finish the project despite haveing already spent 26,000,000 already (aka every British aero space project that was canceled between 1945 and 1970).ISTM that the whole tip jet idea was simply not a success. Not only loud, but an ear busting frequency. Offhand, does anyone know of any tip jet copters that went into service?
There are a lot of questionable statements in that, not least the usual 'it was the politics wot killed it'. The noise issue had not been fixed; there were proposals in place but yet to be proven, not least given that the production Rotodyne would have been powered by R-R Tynes producing nearly double the power of the Elands. That there were no complaints made after the small number of test flights in London is no indication at all that the noise would have proven acceptable for routine commercial flights. The total spend on the Rotodyne project prior to cancellation was announced as a bit over £13 million. The project, now a larger, heavier and completely redesigned aircraft, could have continued but neither R-R nor Fairey/Westland had sufficient confidence in the commercial viability of the project as it stood.Actually they fix the noise issue, only around 90 decibels by the time the program was canceled, not much higher then a regular helicopter and the flow and landed the "Y" in the middle of London and got zero complaints before the noise reduction messers, it was noise that killed the rotodyne, it was the government not willing to spend 10,000,000 to finish the project despite haveing already spent 26,000,000 already (aka every British aero space project that was canceled between 1945 and 1970).ISTM that the whole tip jet idea was simply not a success. Not only loud, but an ear busting frequency. Offhand, does anyone know of any tip jet copters that went into service?
Noise is a tricky beast. The Chinook produces a very low frequency beat from the rotors as the main noise, makes the windows and everything in the house shake as they pass over on their way to Odiham. Its loud, for sure, but not too disturbing. I guess, but have no personal experience, that the tip jets on the Rotodyne would have produced a shriek involving far higher frequencies on top of the rotor beat. Descriptions suggest that it was painful to hear. Our perception of noise and its disturbance is dominated by the frequency mix rather than the measured dB.As an aside/ is a Chinook noisier than a Rotodyne?
Chris
One of my fondest childhood memories is of lying in bed listening to Viscounts droning overhead after taking off from Gatwick on a summer's evening. To a kid's ears it was no din . sometimes we would go down to the end of the runway and wait for one to take off and one to land, plenty of time to eat an ice cream....... no doubt if Viscounts were still flying we'd be moaning about the din compared with modern turborprops with modern propellers.
Whenever I hear aircraft on old pre-90s television programmes it triggers sound memories of my childhood before the noise regs killed off the older airliners. A noisy turboprop used to fly over at 4am every morning when I was young. Probably a parcel/mail flight to/from the Low Countries. Alas plane tracking apps were a fantasy back in those days.One of my fondest childhood memories is of lying in bed listening to Viscounts droning overhead after taking off from Gatwick on a summer's evening. To a kid's ears it was no din . sometimes we would go down to the end of the runway and wait for one to take off and one to land, plenty of time to eat an ice cream....... no doubt if Viscounts were still flying we'd be moaning about the din compared with modern turborprops with modern propellers.
A book you might find helpfull.Hi all.Im brand new here and enjoying the site 100%.
So can anyone provide any info on Rotodyne projects please?? ??? ???
Remember seeing an article in an old Flight mag about a Naval Variant but have seen nothing since!!
Help please.