GB1163853A - Rotary Wing Aircraft - Google Patents

Abstract

1,163,853. Rotary wing aircraft with aircushion undercarriage. VLM CORP. 11 July, 1967 [13 July, 1966; 16 June, 1967], No. 31799/67. Headings B7G, B7K and B7W. A rotary wing aircraft 10 (which may have a spherical fuselage) comprises aerofoils 16, 302 (which may be carried by wing members 70, 72) movable along annular tracks 12 and 14, 303 and 306 the outer tracks supporting the outer ends of the aerofoils which are driven by fluid pressure (e.g. by air jets from nozzles supplied from a compressor 56 via a reservoir 54 and pipes 26 or 32 and 40 or 42, impinging on a row of blades in the outer ring member 72). The exhaust air from these jets may pass out through jets 44 adjusted to prevent, or adjustable to control yaw motion. The ring members 70, 72, 328 may be supported in the tracks 12, 14, 303, 304 by air bearings. The horizontal motion of the aircraft 10 is controlled either by the tracks 12 and 14, Fig. 1, being held rigidly by pipes 26 and 32 in a plane tilted by jacks 20 and 21 or by blades 302, Fig. 17, being pivoted so that the planes containing them and the pipes 305 are free to cone, the blades having adjustable cyclic pitch change. Blade pitch control of the latter form, Figs. 19 and 21, comprises in the blade 302, a tube 350 having a cam slot 351 engaged by a follower 352 attached to a mass 353 slidable radially in the tube. The mass 353 is restrained from radially outward movement by a spring 354 in a cup 355 restrained by a cable 340. Rotor speed increase compresses the spring 354 increasing the collective pitch. The cable 340 passes through the blade to a ring 341 rotatable on an air bearing about a ring 342 which can be made eccentric of the aircraft by differential inflation of four balloons 348 causing cyclic pitch change. There may be a parachute in the top of the fuselage. The aircraft may have an air cushion undercarriage comprising a toroid 64, Fig. 3, containing a space below the fuselage 18 filled with air from the reservoir 54. The toroid 64 may be inflated to act as a buoyancy tank and may be assisted in this by a further inflated toroid (shown dotted).