WHY THE VERTICAL TAKEOFF AIRLINER FAILED:
THE ROTODYNE STORY
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In the late
1950’s, intercity air travel was on the rise. But while a trip from New York to
Boston by airplane might only take about an hour, you’d still need to get to
and from the airport. And in many congested cities, that was already taking
longer than the flight itself. As a solution,
helicopter airlines had begun to crop up in major cities, letting passengers
skip over traffic to connect airports with their city centers. But helicopters
were ultimately too inefficient to become a viable form of mass transport. The
Rotodyne was going to change all that. Taking off from downtown rooftops and
heliports, but flying faster, further, and more economically than any
helicopter, the Rotodyne would be the quickest way to move from one city centre
to the next.
The Rotodyne
might have looked like part helicopter, part plane, but it was actually
neither. Where a helicopter uses engine power to spin a rotor blade to force
air down and create lift, on a Rotodyne the large rotor wasn’t directly driven
by a motor. Instead it used a freely-spinning rotor called an autogyro. As air
passed naturally through the rotor blades during flight, it caused the rotor
spin around like a pinwheel to create lift. The Rotodyne still had wings and a
pair of turboprops much like an airplane. But in forward flight, the unpowered
spinning rotor lifted more than half the aircraft’s weight. To take off and
land vertically and hover, tip jets at the end of each rotor blade would be
used to spin up the Rotodyne’s rotor. Once in forward flight, the tip jets were
shut off and the rotor would once again spin freely.
When the
first Rotodyne prototype took to the skies, it could carry 40 passengers over
700km and reach speeds of over 300km/h, all while being able to land and take
off on a space not much larger than the aircraft itself. And after 350
successful test flights, the Rotodyne proved to be safe and capable. But
despite plans for an even larger more powerful version, a combination of noise concerns and lack of
government support for research and development ultimately led to cancellation
of the project.
Select
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