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Sail-choppers. Helicopters with huge blade-spans like Sailplanes

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Doggzilla

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jun 2, 2013
Messages
2,352
Location
Everywhere USA
So one of the greatest limitations on experimental choppers is the lack of power available, especially for acceptable costs. The larger the blades get in relation to the chopper, the more efficient they get... some small choppers like the R-22 are three or more times more efficient per HP, and have much more survivable rates of decent due to better rotor loading.

What Im interested to know, would be if a coaxial or Kaman like tandem rotor could be combined with very long rotors, which are much like sailplane wings... and move much more slowly. For control, I would use a combination of servo tabs to change angle, and split flaps to change the relative torque.

The goal would be to produce a chopper that is more survivable, descends at acceptable rates, and can provide reasonable performance with small engines. Any comments or ideas? Keep in mind that a man powered helicopter has succeeded before, so reasonable power rates and large wingspans shouldn't really be out of the question if engineered correctly.
 
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