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Aviation History
1943
1943 - 0765.PDF
MARCH 25TH, 1943 F L-l G HT 305 From Helicopter to Qyroplane and Back to Helicopter : Earliest Envisaged Aircraft Type Becomes Latest : Lift Foreseen, but Stability and Control the Difficulty Illustrated by "Flight" photographs and sketches AVIATION history has been fuli of examples oforiginal ideas, good in themselves, being taken up,L and then, before reaching maturity, scrapped because unforeseen difficulties had been encountered and other alternatives, more easily developed, had been found. The history of the direct-lift, or helicopter, type of aircraft is a case in point. Leonardo da Vinci, who appears to have thought of almost everything mechanical, foresaw the broad general principles. If we pass on to relatively modern times it is found that among the earliest experimenters there were several who began by devoting their attention and inventive genius to the helicopter. Two names in particular which are famous to-day were originally linked with helicopter research. In Russia, Igor Sikorsky designed, calculated and experi- mented. In France it was Louis Breguet. Their calculations indicated that it should be possible to obtain the necessary lift from an airscrew revolving in a horizontal plane, and model experiments proved this contention, or rather confirmed the results obtained by the Chinese hundreds of years earlier, for probably our Allies in the East were actually the very first to send helicopter toys into the air. However, it was one thing to prove by calculation, and demonstrate by means of The first Autogiro to appear in thiscountry was Cierva's No. 6. It had an Avro 504 fuselage, and ailerons were usedfor lateral control. The first Cierva Autogiro had coaxial contra-rotating rotorsNote that the blades had lift bracing. THE recent announcement by Capt. Harold Balfour, Under- secretary of State for Air, that this country has placed orders for helicopters in America, has focussed attention on a type of air- craft which would have obvious advantages in connection with the anti-submarine war. Rotating-wing aircraft, that is the type with thin flexible blades rotating on a vertical axis, have long attracted designers. Gyro- planes, and more recently helicopters, have formed the subject of continuous experiments. These notes indicate the trend of pro- gress with gyroplanes and a later instalment will discuss more particularly the developments in helicopters. models, that a direct-lift ain raft could fly; it was quite another to design and fly a full-size, man-carrying machine. Petrol engines were, in those days, of low power and very heavy. A power ot 30 to 50 h.p. was quite common, and the weight might be as great as 7 or 8 lb. per horse-power, compared with the modern aircraft engine of 2,000 h.p. or more and a weight of 1 lb. per horse-power.. To add to the troubles of the early designers, even when they had schemed fhe mechanism they were still faced by the problems of control. And remember that in those days little was known about aerofoil sections, location of centre of pressure, stalling of sections, and a host of other subjects
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