I have to admit that I thought we did quite well in our four-year programme.
• The development of tip jets, albeit noisy in their raw form, providing power capable of taking a revolutionary aircraft through an effective flight envelope.
• An effective flight envelope, capable of allowing the aircraft to fly to Paris and also to achieve a world a speed record of 190.1 mph.
• Public demonstrations Farnborough and Paris.
• Design of an even larger production version well in hand.
• Basic research for effective silencing to an officially agreed level, albeit that according to the BBC the aircraft was deafening at 2 miles. That even though when the aircraft flew over on noise measurements you could hear a bird in the background. That said, I too would admit it was noisy, Fairey were still working to improve that.
All that is apparently a failure. I suppose we should have employed some media studies graduates, then we might have got it right.
More recently Eurocopter have flown the X3, the design of this drew heavily on the same technology that applied to the Rotodyne, except that they did not use tip jet drive. They achieved phenomenal forward speeds and deserve full credit for doing it.
I am supposed to have said that the government destroyed the data and the prototype.
What I really said was; ‘No one has ever actually owned up to this act of technological vandalism’
I also said: it may be that the decision not to proceed with the Rotodyne was correct on commercial grounds and as a technical advance, it was a case of ‘too much too soon’
I for one am proud of what we achieved with the rotor design, I didn’t realise it failed. I just wish the BBC would carry on doing what they clearly do best which is; publicly displaying grief to excess and concentrating on bad news.
By: TonyT - 14th February 2016 at 17:15
I often wondered why in a modern context they couldn’t simply bleed air off a modern high ratio bypass engine fan and use it instead of hot jets, after all you have to have a pipe work in place for fuel, so simply replacing that with cold air should be possible as well as quieter.
By: Slipstream - 14th February 2016 at 17:02
The idea hasn’t entirely gone away, neither have the problems it seems
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/01/11/darpa_heliplane_gyrocopter_autogyro_rotodyne_noise_snag/
By: TonyT - 14th February 2016 at 16:16
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y9633v6U0wo&lc=FGlDEY8dgqmUB5HHi322a0lOB8zQCqBa3__nkXcG2_Q
By: TonyT - 14th February 2016 at 16:11
They had apparently cracked the noise problems with the Rotordyne but it was cancelled before they could fit the new items. I do wonder if it had been developed would we have been using fast Chinook sized or larger Rotodynes by now with performance to surpass the Osprey.
By: J Boyle - 14th February 2016 at 15:48
I agree, there were a lot of exciting work going on then. Today’s aircraft are more refined (efficient, reliable, and with avionics unimaginable back then), but a 737 or A320 would have looked at home at Farnborough in 1960!
It w a s a pity about the Rotodyne being cancelled when most of the work was done and a few issues remained (where have we heard the before?).It’s probably an oversimplification but it is tempting to blame an environment where bureaucrats held too much power and couldn’t see beyond next year’s budget and were blind to potential commercial success.
The Japanese were keen on the design and in the U.S., Kaman had taken out a license and New York Airways had placed an order.
By: farnboroughrob - 14th February 2016 at 12:09
There is no doubt the Rotordyne ‘worked’ ,it flew for several years. However the noise problem probably would have been solved by a conventionally powered rotor but that would have been a massive redesign that there was no money for and Westland had no interest in the design. The Rotordyne was one of those brave new projects of the 1950’s that make the current aerospace industry look staid.
By: HP111 - 14th February 2016 at 10:34
Remember that the article is a piece of journalism intended to be in some way provocative. It also has a cleverly ambiguous headline: “not work”. Okay, “not work” in what way? Technically, commercially, environmentally, aesthetically, legally? Can anyone think of any more options?
It cetainly worked in at least one of those ways.
By: trekbuster - 14th February 2016 at 09:29
Having read what is presumably the article in question:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35521040
I am struggling to find the word “failure” in the article, indeed it is very positive about the achievements stated above and right at the top it is described as a “brave attempt” that was not progressed through
a combination of lack of funding and concerns over noise.
Which is factually correct.
The BBC in my view should be congratulated on showing a new generation of people who may not have heard of the Rotodyne what had been achieved. Any avaition content is welcome.
Perhaps the headline should have said “why did it not work as a commercial proposition at the time?” , but I guess that would be too long to fit the screen.
By: Arabella-Cox - 14th February 2016 at 09:11
Should the title not read “Why did the half-plane, half helicopter not work? …ASKS the BBC………….
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February 14, 2016 at 8:23 am