31–40 of 95 posts
> On the helicopter, there’s a little bolt on top, and if you unscrew that, you take the cotter pin out, we all die.” I imagine that's hard to do while in operation. Meanwhile, a heli has autorotation, which is quite convenient in various failure modes.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
There is precedence for a fixed-wing rotor-based VTOL aircraft with the Osprey, at least aerodynamically. Operationally, the Osprey was a bit of a disaster. But I agree that flight (and ESPECIALLY manned flight) needs extensive experience in aerospace engineering.
Osprey is more of a true biaxial helicopter first, and a convertoplane second. V22 have 2 lateral DOF in which it can move without moving COM relative to point of aerodynamic force, and without changing its aerodynamic cross-section, so you don't get positive feedback to change of orientation in wind gusts. This thing cannot do that as far as a glancing look can tell. I am not an aeronautic engineer, just a motoglide…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RN6vGxyMcVU
This definitely isn't shooting for mach 1.8, so the X-29 isn't an analogue, but there are interesting points about aerodynamics in that video nonetheless.
[I've been an engineer working on this vehicle for the past 2 years.] Hi HN! It's great to see lots of interest. One big reason we went public with the project is to help with recruiting, as we're starting to scale up our hiring for lots of positions, including testing, manufacturing, and every sort of engineering that you can think of. The team is super strong technically, and is full of people with interesting back…
Every time I see a multirotor carrying people, I think of the many times while building them at the beginning of the drone renaissance that I saw 4/6/8 bladed multirotors have an AP failure, a blade break, a speed controller overheat, etc etc and it fell out of the sky, literally. These do not have a glideslope! Sure, a ballistic chute might prevent an onboard tragedy but I continue to wonder about what the flying ca…
That's likely one area where a helicopter would have a significant advantage.
I frequently wonder about the things we're waiting for batteries to grow into, this is one of those things that makes me think the future has a decent shot at being insane.
When a VTOL vehicle switches directions of the blades in the air, is there any sort of drop in altitude as it moves into the forward direction? Or is it a gradual type of thing as it starts angling forward? I could see any drop before it kicks in being startling for customers, especially if the motors are less powerful than a helicopter or jet. I noticed the video makes a cut from flying to the landing part, without…
May not be exactly the same, but I don't believe there's an appreciable drop on a tiltrotor like the V-22.
But questions:
How fast can it fly and for how long?
Article says "weighs about one-third of a Cessna". So less than 1000 lbs empty?
And, importantly, with those wings, does it "stall" normally, at 40 mph or so?
Asking as a former J-3 Cub pilot who'll assuredly never afford this.