Rotating Wing Enhanced Biplane Design Configuration
The other day I was talking to an engineer, Charles, about using a rotating wing concept to create a VTOL aircraft.
One of his many concepts was to put to rotating wings one forward and one aft to help lift the aircraft vertically.
The concept and design made perfect sense, and I'm sure it will work.
Nevertheless, the transitional phase of the flight might be a little tricky, but even that is overcome-able.
The only thing that concerns me with the design is if the engine goes out on either the forward or aft wing that rotates, more dangerous might be if you have one motor driving both rotating wings and the motor quits, you could be in for a problem.
Okay so, to overcome that engineering challenge so you don't crash and burn your prototype, it might make sense to put a wing, a regular aircraft wing below the rotating wing, and use that as part of the substructure to hold up the wing that rotates wing.
In essence the regular wing would assist the aircraft in forward flight, creating more stability, and also available in case of an engine out, or engine failure.
Some might say that that is over redundancy, and defeats the whole purpose of having a rotating airfoil in the first place.
Yes, I understand that argument, but I would submit to you that the rotating wing offers something that a regular wing can't.
Namely, the ability for very short takeoff and landing (STOL) or in the case above with two rotating primary lift airfoil (VTOL) which is something that a normal wing can't do, and if we use rotor blades, or a ducted fan, or even a jet engine with 90° trust vectoring, we have to give up so much more.
Are there any designs with wings that rotate in conjunction with regular wings? I think there are, but we don't see any flying around in the real world today, any of those prototypes are quite old, or even old patents.
Maybe it's time that we look into more of these designs, or came up with an even better one considering we have new lightweight materials to work with, and we've learned so much more over the years with such concepts.
One of the challenges with VTOL is safety during the transitional flight phase, and it does seem that such a dual design could work.
Would it work better than other designs? That's hard to say, and we won't know until we try it in the wind tunnel, build a few prototypes, make up a few mockup scale models, and see what we are working with.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
One of his many concepts was to put to rotating wings one forward and one aft to help lift the aircraft vertically.
The concept and design made perfect sense, and I'm sure it will work.
Nevertheless, the transitional phase of the flight might be a little tricky, but even that is overcome-able.
The only thing that concerns me with the design is if the engine goes out on either the forward or aft wing that rotates, more dangerous might be if you have one motor driving both rotating wings and the motor quits, you could be in for a problem.
Okay so, to overcome that engineering challenge so you don't crash and burn your prototype, it might make sense to put a wing, a regular aircraft wing below the rotating wing, and use that as part of the substructure to hold up the wing that rotates wing.
In essence the regular wing would assist the aircraft in forward flight, creating more stability, and also available in case of an engine out, or engine failure.
Some might say that that is over redundancy, and defeats the whole purpose of having a rotating airfoil in the first place.
Yes, I understand that argument, but I would submit to you that the rotating wing offers something that a regular wing can't.
Namely, the ability for very short takeoff and landing (STOL) or in the case above with two rotating primary lift airfoil (VTOL) which is something that a normal wing can't do, and if we use rotor blades, or a ducted fan, or even a jet engine with 90° trust vectoring, we have to give up so much more.
Are there any designs with wings that rotate in conjunction with regular wings? I think there are, but we don't see any flying around in the real world today, any of those prototypes are quite old, or even old patents.
Maybe it's time that we look into more of these designs, or came up with an even better one considering we have new lightweight materials to work with, and we've learned so much more over the years with such concepts.
One of the challenges with VTOL is safety during the transitional flight phase, and it does seem that such a dual design could work.
Would it work better than other designs? That's hard to say, and we won't know until we try it in the wind tunnel, build a few prototypes, make up a few mockup scale models, and see what we are working with.
Indeed I hope you will please consider all this and think on it.
