dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted April 1, 2020 Report Share Posted April 1, 2020 The Fairey Rotodyne was designed as a compound helicopter using tip jets on the rotor blades and a pair of Napier Eland engines for normal flight. It was designed to operate from city centres and hence saving travel time to the main airports.However one of the biggest problems was the noise generated by the tip jets which was far too loud even for 1950s standards! There had been several companies interested in the idea and Fairey were already working on the much more refined Mk II when the UK government pulled the plug on the funding and killed the project. Ironically it's role became irrelevant many years later when inner city airports began to open, London City being one of the most well known on this side of the Atlantic, One of the pics shows the aircraft parked at that very airport! Thanks for viewing Link to post Share on other sites
phil white 274 Posted April 2, 2020 Report Share Posted April 2, 2020 I bet that was a beast to handle in real life. At least it looks to be. Pretty much a combination of helicopter and fixed wing. I guess it used the balance of the main engines to counter the effects of torque from the main rotor. Whats it like to fly in the simulator? 1 Link to post Share on other sites
dodgy-alan 1,587 Posted April 2, 2020 Author Report Share Posted April 2, 2020 4 hours ago, phil white said: I bet that was a beast to handle in real life. At least it looks to be. Pretty much a combination of helicopter and fixed wing. I guess it used the balance of the main engines to counter the effects of torque from the main rotor. Whats it like to fly in the simulator? Somewhat odd , It can do either a rolling take-off, or more commonly vertical . Once airborne it flies very similar to any other twin prop airliner. When in forward flight it acted like an autogyro so was an unpowered rotor. Only one was ever built so the sim designers had to do a lot of guesswork I guess , unless they were able to get access to the test notes from the guys at Farnborough etc. Basically it's a Twin with a bit of a twist. The remains of the original are in the Helicopter Museum at Weston Super Mare. Just one fuselage section and part of the rotor. The rest was scrapped. Link to post Share on other sites
phil white 274 Posted April 3, 2020 Report Share Posted April 3, 2020 Found this interesting video which blows my theory out of the window. The main rotor is not powered as the video explains. 1 Link to post Share on other sites
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