KINDS OF DIVERSE AIRCRAFT

Slide 21

HELICOPTERS

Helicopters are not as good in forward flight as a regular aircraft. It is considered a vertical take off
and landing. It makes use of what we call “autorotation”. The rotor is placed slightly diagonal in order
to overcome the drag.

Helicopters have a special feature: when the helicopter descends the air goes from bottom to top and
that makes the blade rotate, attracting air from above and pulling it downwards, making it difficult to
land. Every helicopter needs to certificate that they can autorotate.

Slide 22

Autogyro: you do not power the rotor-you power the propeller. Once the autogyro has enough
forward speed, the rotor starts autorotating, and generate thrust to overcome the wind. The rotor is
placed in a manner that the air will go from below to upwards. It cannot take off vertically and cannot
hover (stay horizontally on the air)

Gyrodyne: you have a propeller and a rotor and you power both of them. It can take off and land
vertically and it can hover (remain at a fixed point on air)

Helicopter: It has only a rotor, which is powered.

Combined aircraft: helicopter with a wing. Most combined aircrafts do not apply power to the rotor
during cruise. It works as a gyrodyne while take off and landing, but for forward flight the propeller
and the wings are used.

Convertible: it has a rotor/propeller and it can be tilt in order to place it as a rotor or as a propeller.

Slide 23

P/weight*V=FV/weight*V -> F/W [-] non dimensional parameter

How much power do I need to apply to carry their weight at a done speed?

You need to apply relatively low power to bring a jet aircraft to 500 v[kts]

Energetic efficiency of the transportation method:

Weight*V/Power=Weight*V/Thrust*V=-cruise-=Lift/Drag=Aerodynamic efficiency

The good point is that it can be applied to boats, helicopters… To any kind of transport bc it still is how
much weight can I carry at a certain speed with this power. An aircraft is comparable in efficiency to
a boat.
The Technology line (on the graph) represents the cost of moving something at a high speed. The
lower the line, the cheaper the cost of moving something, but it will be with a lower velocity.

Slide 27

The parameters seen on this chart are only applied for vertical flight. It shows the traction/power in
terms of the mass divided by the characteristic surface.

The helicopter is way more efficient than the convertible for vertical flight (the propeller is more
efficient for horizontal flight). Depending on the mission, if hovering or vertical flight is more important
then go for an helicopter.

Slide 28

Any aircraft has a flight envelope/flight domain. It tells at which altitude and with which thrust it can
flight. If I increase the altitude, the Vstall will be higher as the density will decrease. There’s a maximum
altitude that an aircraft can reach, related to thrust.