Back to the future
Mr Peebles' Fanwing is more back to the future ("More-powerful Fanwing set to fly", Flight International, 23-29 November). I'm sure Chris Carpenter will send in a letter to point out the identical nature of Anton Flettner's Rotor Sail tested in the 1920s, using the Magnus Effect to produce thrust. Right down to the top and bottom plates to minimise end effects.
Flettner also developed a propeller using the same principle (each blade was a cylindrical rotor), claiming a 59% thrust increase over a conventional two-bladed propeller.
There was also Ray Thompson, who in the early 1930s demonstrated a very similar design to that of Mr Peebles. The rotor was embedded in the wing towards the trailing edge, partly exposed to the upper and lower air flow. The boundary layer would be re-energised on the upper surface where it would normally detach and pressure was increased by the rotor below the wing.
With a large vertical flap aft of the rotor, one could use that system to obtain high short take-off and landing performance, perhaps tiltrotor-like vertical take-off and landing performance, with conventional aircraft forward flight performance.
In the same edition, James Scott writes: "Is that all 60 years progress has been able to come up with?" Indeed. It is clear that we have stagnated in many fundamental ways. Merely adding electronics is not fundamental progress, just tinkering.
The future is to be found back in the forgotten science of the mid-20th century. Men like Burnelli and Coanda. We must remember them.
William Tahil
Research Director, Meridian International Research, Martainville, France
Recycled idea
I was amused by your report "Dutch seek funds to spark flying motorcycle" (Flight International, 9-15 November).
They must have been watching the film Dick Smart, Special Agent 2.007, a film made in 1966 in which "Dick Smart" had a special motor scooter, a streamlined Vespa 2000 that as well as being suitable for the road could be ridden under water and, after the touch of a button brought the unfolding of a pair of rotor blades, could be flown as an autogyro.
I did much flying with my Type WA-116 prototype, G-AART, in Brazil, riding out a local storm, the Ventana, with a waterspout joining sea and sky about 100m to port. (The authorities at Rio de Janeiro's Santos Dumont airport insist no aircraft can survive the "Ventana".)
The flying motor scooter of 1966 could be for real. The Vespa 2000, bearing the tail markings of G-AART is on display at the Piaggio Museum, Italy, in the Vespa Collection.
I also note that it is planned to use the Renesis rotary engine from a Mazda RX-6 sports car for this Dutch flying motor cycle. It happens that I first flew a Wankel twin-rotor Norton engine in a WA-116 in 1986. It certainly showed some promise. I also flew a twin-engined Autogyro; all part of a UK Ministry of Defence contract, day and night, in all weathers.
The flying motorcycle is possible, and the ground mobility of my versions have been proven in military exercises, but I suspect there may be more bureaucratic than aerodynamic problems to be overcome.
Kenneth Wallis
Reymerston Hall, Norfolk, UK
Up in the clouds
Steve Woodbridge's letter about sedated passengers (Flight International, 9-15 November) reminds me of a tongue-in-cheek article written many years ago by Sir Miles ThomasÊfor a Christmas edition of Flight International. I seem to recall that in it, the former chairman of BOAC suggested that sedated passengers could be loaded like sides of beef into (obviously high-density) airliners and gently restored to consciousness on arrival at their destination.
Brian Walters
Ringwood, Hampshire, UK
Paper chase
All of this talk of paperless cockpits leads me to think that if they are anything like my "paperless" office, the flightdeck bulkhead will need to be moved aft.
R Mudge
Munich, Germany
Source: Flight International