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the description. This is a Rotodyne. And it might look like a helicopter and
an airplane mashed together, but it's neither. It's a lot more revolutionary.
Because when it debuted over 60 years ago, the Rotodyne was going to be a new
form of mass transport. The quickest way to move from one city center to the next.
Landing on downtown rooftops and heliports, but flying much faster, further
and more economically than any helicopter. And airlines were interested.
But then, as the Rotodyne looked set to revolutionize intercity transport, it just disappeared.
To understand why this machine was so revolutionary, consider that it doesn't
work like a helicopter. A helicopter uses engine power to spin a rotor blade, which
forces air down to create lift.Tilting the rotor is what allows the helicopter
to move in a given direction. That's the basic idea. But that's not how Rotodyne
works. On a Rotodyne, the large rotor isn't powered. It isn't even connected to
a motor. Instead, as air passes naturally through the rotor blades, it causes the
rotor to spin around like a pinwheel. And this creates lift. The Rotodyne still has
wings and a pair of turboprops, much like an airplane. But in forward flight, the
un-powered spinning rotor lifts more than half the aircraft's weight. With this
unique design, the Rotodyne flew faster than any helicopter of the era. And it
was far more efficient. And even though the rotor wasn't driven by a motor, the
Rotodyne could still hover and take off and land vertically just like any helicopter.
That's because at the end of each rotor blade were small tip jets. During
takeoff and landing, fuel and compressed air supplied by the turboprops would
ignite to spin up the rotor. Once in forward flight, the tip jets were shut
off and the rotor would once again spin freely. By 1959 the Rotodyne was
attracting worldwide interest. Because for one thing, it promised to
revolutionize the way we traveled between cities. In the 1950's and 60's,
intercity air travel was on the rise. But while a trip from New York to Boston by
airplane might only take about an hour, you'd also need to get to and from the
airport. And in many congested cities, that was beginning to take longer than
the flight itself. One solution was to use helicopters.
In April, the new helicopter service is due to open from the top of the Pan-Am building.
If the service does come about, you'll be taking off from the fourth highest building in New York.
59 storeys up. it's hoped that eventually the service will carry 5,000 passengers a day.
5,000 passengers who would otherwise be condemned to this.
By the 1960's helicopter airlines had cropped up in major American cities.
Letting passengers and skip the traffic by flying right over it. The problem was,
none of them were actually making money. Because helicopters were simply too
inefficient, operating anywhere from 20 to 30 cents per seat mile. And the only
way helicopter Airlines like New York Airways could even exist was through
government subsidies to offset operational costs. But the Rotodyne was
going to change all that, bringing costs down to as little as 4 cents per seat
mile, which would make helicopter airlines profitable. And the Rotodyne
wasn't just a better helicopter. With vastly improved speed and range, it would
be a new way to travel between cities, linking one city center to the next.
The concept behind the Rotodyne dates all the way back to the early 1920's, when
a pioneering Spanish inventor set out to build a safer plane. By adding an
un-powered freely spinning rotor, his planes could fly slowly without stalling,
making them inherently safer than airplanes. In fact, without any forward
motion, the planes would simply glide back to earth, slower than a parachute.
They were called autogyros. Over the years, they were used in military reconnaissance and
even to deliver mail. But by the 1940's, helicopter technology improved and autogyros
largely fell out of favor. But decades later, British aircraft
manufacturer Fairey aviation still saw enormous potential in the autogyro
concept. If the vertical takeoff and landing capability of a helicopter could
be combined with the speed and efficiency of an airplane, Fairey would
have something truly special on their hands. With the help of funding from the
British government, the first Rotodyne prototype took to the skies in 1957.
It could carry 40 passengers 700 kilometers and reach speeds of over 300 kilometers per hour.
All while being able to land and take off on a space not much larger than
the aircraft itself. And after 350 successful test flights, the Rotodyne
proved to be safe and capable. But of course, it all went to [expletive].
For one, the Rotodyne's tip jets made a lot of noise.
And that was going to be a problem right in the middle of a city. From the start,
there were doubts about whether the public would tolerate it. And noise is
often believed to be the reason why the Rotodyne failed. But that's not the whole
story. After proving their prototype, fairy moved on to develop a production
version. A larger more capable Rotodyne that could carry up to 75 passengers. And
it promised to be quieter. Ferry spent years developing noise suppressor
technology for the Rotodyne's tip jets. And while progress was slow, by 1960
the engineering team had reduced noise by over 15%. And airlines were interested,
with small orders coming in from around the world. Not bad for an entirely new
kind of transport. But to get the production version built, Fairey still
needed about £10 million more in funding from the British government. And it was
money they'd never get. Because at the start of the 1960's, Britain's aviation
industry was a mess. Too many aircraft builders were building too few planes
and relying heavily on government sponsored projects. The solution was to
force these companies, including Fairey Aviation to merge. And the Rotodyne got
caught in the shuffle, competing with a number of other helicopter projects.
progress was also slowed by difficulties sourcing more powerful engines. And the
need to reduce tip jet noise even further. When it became clear that the
Rotodyne wouldn't be delivered to Airlines on time, and the eventual cost
of each Rotodyne would have been too high,
one by one orders were cancelled. In 1962, the British government, facing economic
pressures, suddenly pulled funding for Rotodyne. And the half
helicopter, half plane, once promising to revolutionize intercity travel... just
disappeared. The working prototype and technical research were quickly
destroyed. Leaving only a few small pieces for museum display
The Rotodyne failed to change air travel and only a single prototype was ever
built. But not all ambitious leaps forward in engineering lead to such
failure. Take the DC-3. A machine that in its time, revolutionized air travel and
earned a legendary status in wartime. Over 16,000 DC-3 variants were built.
This remarkable plane took the skies just three decades after the Wright
brothers first flight. And yet, hundreds of DC-3's are still flying today. Learn
about this plane's incredible story on CuriosityStream. A streaming service
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