GB861407A - An aircraft of the rotating wing type - Google Patents

Abstract

861,407. Rotary wing aircraft. BLACKBURN GROUP Ltd., and BRADBURY, C. Aug. 11, 1959 [Feb. 12, 1959], No. 4948/59. Class 4. A rotary wing aircraft comprises a non- rotating structure including landing gear and pilots' accommodation and a vertical axle having an air intake housing at its upper end, and a structure rotatable on the axle and including a plurality of lifting blades and engines for feeding gases to propulsion nozzles on the blades. The Figures show a " flying crane ", the non-rotating structure comprising a fairing 4 and four undercarriage legs 1 (two shown) one of which supports a crew nacelle 6. A lifting cable 5 depends from winch mechanism not shown. The undercarriage supports a vertical axle 2 surmounted by a structure 7 with a forwardly facing air intake, feeding twelve engines 11 mounted on fuel or fuel and oil tanks 10, the engines and tanks being in a rotary structure 9 mounted by a bearing 8 on the axle 2. There are two engines for each of the six blades 13, each engine being connected by flexible ducting 16 to rigid ducting 17, to allow for pitch change movements of the blades. The engine exhaust gases discharge tangentially to the blade tip path through a cascade of vanes 18 desgined to act as nozzles. Each blade is mainly of steel, with a light alloy trailing edge. The engines may be gas turbines producing exhaust gases, or gas turbines, mono-propellant or bi-propellant liquid fuel turbines, or reciprocating engines driving compressors, or free-piston gas generators. The non-rotary structure is orientatable by servomotors on the rotary structure cooperating with a toothed ring on the non-rotary structure, the motors being accelerated or decelerated to rotate the non-rotary structure, The motors may be driven by gases from the engines 11.