Genius!
flapcopter ... whirlycraft ... whirlybirds ... flaprotor ... morphcopters
Can we get an El Reg (or Lewis Page) Thesaurus?
I'll propose "spin-wing" as an additional term.
Sikorsky, US Army claim whisper-flapcopter test success
A wind-tunnel test programme aimed at producing new, hi-tech rotor blades for helicopters has finished. The trials, which used blades fitted with trailing-edge flaps like those seen on aeroplane wings, reportedly offer the prospect of much-enhanced copters in future – in particular, the long-heralded "whisper mode" for covert ( …
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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 13:02 GMT handle
At least there's a point to plod...
...unlike the private helicopters which daily disturb thousands unlucky enough to live under their flight paths. If they had to provide compensation for the nuisance they cause, they would soon be forced to be designed better. A simple attempt at silencing of their engines would be a good start - this you can hear long before blade noise when they fly over you.
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Wednesday 4th May 2011 09:13 GMT Peter Murphy
Darwin Awards - The Next Generation!
Oh, man. I'd hate these personal helicopters fall into the hands of chavs, hoons and other assorted ne'er do-wells. Given that a lot of these people are into proving masculinity in a big way, I think we'd have some "interesting" accidents on our hands. What if they decide to try out "chicken"? Or even something scarier, like overlapping blades?
(It's possible to do it - there's a scene from "Chickenhawk" where two helicopter pilots overlapped ONCE for the hell of it and survived. Note that they were both trained to a high standard by the US Army, and their day job involved flying GIs to VC-infested "hot zones". I wouldn't trust your average junior delinquent to pull the same trick off.)
At least we wouldn't have to worry about those road fatality crosses. It's hard to stick one up on top of an 18 kV electricity pylon.
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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 13:02 GMT SkippyBing
This one
especially as the Osprey doesn't really have standard engines, props or wings. For starters the engines are cross connected via a shaft running through the wing which also has to accomodate their swivelling.
The Props meanwhile are non-standard in that apart from folding they also have to do most of the clever stuff a helicopter's have to in terms of flapping, feathering and dragging to give the pilot some way of controlling it in the hover.
The X2 meanwhile is basically a co-axial helicopter with a pusher prop, not simple but actually fairly standard levels of complexity for a helicopter.
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Tuesday 3rd May 2011 13:02 GMT Rich 11
Osprey
IIRC, the Osprey has a cross-linkage to provide power to the other prop if one engine fails (or is shot out). Also the wings and engines can be rotated and/or folded up so it can be stored and moved more easily. All in all, it's a pretty complicated bit of engineering, yet co-axial rotors have been used successfully in helicopters for decades (Hoodlum, Werewolf, et al).
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Wednesday 4th May 2011 08:39 GMT Msan
Birds of prey - of the avian kind - have an edge
of fine feathers at the back of their wings to silence their swoop of death - you ever notice how you never know a territorial magpie is about until the fucker is on top of you and half a second from spilling blood? - then you notice that the F22 Raptor has a very similar profile to a bird with wings extended.
Curious stuff how a particular strand of contemporary aircraft design ends up with shapes that visually appear to be aerodynamically similar to natural forms?
I know you guys chose the stories, but it's my mums' dying wish for Lewis to write a story on the implications of the Indians scratching the F35 from their jet competition and Gates starting a defence review with a strong focus on the F35. Not having a crack or trolling - just generally curious and interested
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
