The Fairey Jet Gyrodyne is a British experimental

compound gyroplane A gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that needs to be driven by its engine only for takeoff and landing, and includes one or more conventional propeller or jet engines to provide thrust during cruising fligh ...

built by the

Fairey Aviation Company The Fairey Aviation Company Limited was a British aircraft manufacturer of the first half of the 20th century based in Hayes in Middlesex and Heaton Chapel and RAF Ringway in Cheshire that designed important military aircraft, including the ...

that incorporated

helicopter A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which Lift (force), lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning Helicopter rotor, rotors. This allows the helicopter to VTOL, take off and land vertically, to hover (helicopter), hover, and ...

gyrodyne A gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that needs to be driven by its engine only for takeoff and landing, and includes one or more conventional propeller or jet engines to provide thrust during cruising flig ...

and

autogyro An autogyro (from Greek and , "self-turning"), gyroscope, gyrocopter or gyroplane, is a class of rotorcraft that uses an unpowered rotor in free autorotation to develop lift. A gyroplane "means a rotorcraft whose rotors are not engine-d ...

characteristics. The Jet Gyrodyne was the subject of a

Ministry of Supply The Ministry of Supply (MoS) was a department of the UK government formed on 1 August 1939 by the Ministry of Supply Act 1939 ( 2 & 3 Geo. 6. c. 38) to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Ministe ...

(MoS) research contract to gather data for the follow-up design, the Rotodyne.

Design and development

The Jet Gyrodyne was a modification of the second prototype FB-1 Gyrodyne aircraft registered ''G-AJJP''. The Jet Gyrodyne was built specifically to develop the pressure-jet rotor drive system and operational procedures used on the later Rotodyne. The Jet Gyrodyne utilised the

fuselage The fuselage (; from the French language, French ''fuselé'' "spindle-shaped") is an aircraft's main body section. It holds Aircrew, crew, passengers, or cargo. In single-engine aircraft, it will usually contain an Aircraft engine, engine as wel ...

undercarriage Undercarriage is the part of a moving vehicle that is underneath the main body of the vehicle. The term originally applied to this part of a horse-drawn carriage, and usage has since broadened to include: *The landing gear of an aircraft. *The ch ...

and engine of the FB-1 Gyrodyne. The

Alvis Leonides The Alvis Leonides is a British air-cooled nine-cylinder radial aero engine first developed by Alvis Car and Engineering Company in 1936. Design and development Development of the nine-cylinder engine was led by Capt. George Thomas Smith-Clar ...

nine-cylinder

radial engine The radial engine is a reciprocating engine, reciprocating type internal combustion engine, internal combustion engine configuration in which the cylinder (engine), cylinders "radiate" outward from a central crankcase like the spokes of a wheel. ...

was situated in the middle of the fuselage and drove a pusher propeller at the tip of each stub wing and two

Rolls-Royce Merlin The Rolls-Royce Merlin is a British Coolant#Liquids, liquid-cooled V12 engine, V-12 Reciprocating engine, piston aero engine of 27-litre (1,650 cu in) Engine displacement, capacity. Rolls-Royce Limited, Rolls-Royce designed the engine an ...

engine

supercharger In an internal combustion engine, a supercharger compresses the intake gas, forcing more air into the engine in order to produce more power for a given displacement (engine), displacement. It is a form of forced induction that is mechanically ...

s. The original three-blade tilting hub rotor system was replaced by a two-blade

rotor ROTOR was an elaborate air defence radar system built by the British Government in the early 1950s to counter possible attack by Soviet bombers. To get it operational as quickly as possible, it was initially made up primarily of WWII-era syst ...

controlled with swashplate-actuated cyclic and collective pitch controls. An

empennage The empennage ( or ), also known as the tail or tail assembly, is a structure at the rear of an aircraft that provides stability during flight, in a way similar to the feathers on an arrow.Crane, Dale: ''Dictionary of Aeronautical Terms, third ed ...

provided the necessary stabilization about the pitch and yaw axes. For takeoff, landing, and low-speed flight, the rotor was driven by air delivered by the superchargers and burnt with fuel in blade-tip mounted pressure-jets. This zero-torque rotor drive did not require a compensating anti-torque system, though the collective pitch of the wingtip-mounted propellers was controlled by the

rudder A rudder is a primary control surface used to steer a ship, boat, submarine, hovercraft, airship, or other vehicle that moves through a fluid medium (usually air or water). On an airplane, the rudder is used primarily to counter adverse yaw ...

pedals to provide yaw control. As airspeed was gained, the rotor drive system was shut down, allowing the rotor to autorotate while the propellers provided the necessary thrust. For low-speed flight and landing, the rotor drive system was restarted to provide hovering capability.

Operational history

Tethered flights at White Waltham were followed by the first free flight in January 1954, but a full transition from helicopter to autogyro flight was not achieved until March 1955, piloted by John N. Dennis. System proving continued and by September 1956, 190 transitions and 140 autorotative landings had been completed. Development of inflight rotor drive restart procedure resulted in several power-off autorotational landings until the method was perfected. The Jet Gyrodyne was underpowered and could carry sufficient fuel for only 15 minutes of flight; on occasion external fuel tanks were carried to increase endurance. The Jet Gyrodyne was retired once ground testing of the Rotodyne rotor drive system commenced.

Aircraft on display

Although scheduled for scrapping in 1961, the Jet Gyrodyne (

serial number A serial number (SN) is a unique identifier used to ''uniquely'' identify an item, and is usually assigned incrementally or sequentially. Despite being called serial "numbers", they do not need to be strictly numerical and may contain letters ...

''XD759'' later ''XJ389'') survived and today is displayed at the Museum of Berkshire Aviation, on loan from the

RAF Museum The Royal Air Force Museum is a museum dedicated to the Royal Air Force in the United Kingdom. The museum is a non-departmental public body and is a registered charity. It has two public sites, Royal Air Force Museum London and Royal Air Fo ...

collection.

Specifications (Jet Gyrodyne)

References

Notes

Bibliography

* Charnov, Dr. Bruce H
"The Fairey Rotodyne: An Idea Whose Time Has Come – Again?"
(Based on Charnov, Dr. Bruce H. ''From Autogiro to Gyroplane: The Amazing Survival of an Aviation Technology''. Westport, Connecticut: Praeger Publishers, 2003. .) Retrieved: 18 May 2007. * Green, William and Gerald Pollinger. ''The Observer's Book of Aircraft'' 1958 edition. London: Fredrick Warne & Co. Ltd., 1958. * Taylor, H.A. ''Fairey Aircraft since 1915''. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press, 1974. . * Winchester, Jim, ed. "Fairey Rotodyne." ''Concept Aircraft'' (The Aviation Factfile). Rochester, Kent, UK: Grange Books plc, 2005. .

External links

Museum of Berkshire Aviation website
{{Gyrodyne 1950s British experimental aircraft Jet Gyrodyne Gyrodynes Tipjet-powered helicopters Single-engined twin-prop pusher aircraft Mid-wing aircraft Aircraft first flown in 1954