Fairey FB-1 Gyrodyne
The Fairey FB -1 was an experimental flight control moment gyro screwdrivers from the British manufacturer Fairey Aviation. "FB " stand here for " Fairey - Bennett". The control moment gyro used a single rotor for vertical takeoff and landing, as well as to propel a tractor propeller, which is mounted on the right-side stub wings also took over the torque compensation. The control moment gyro consists of gyratory ( revolving ) and aerodyne a name for aircraft heavier than air, as opposed to Aerostats.
History
In April 1946, Fairey announced a self-funded project an air wrench, which should be designed and constructed to a design by JAJ Bennett. The plans for this were created by Bennett as damaligem technical director of the Cierva Autogiro Company in the years from 1936 to 1939. Called the Cierva C.41 moment gyro design has been successfully submitted to the tender S.22/38 for a helicopter of the Royal Navy. With the beginning of World War II development was stopped, however, and even after the war's end, the project took the Weir Ltd. , As the owner of Cierva, not again. Bennett then moved in August 1945 to the newly formed Department of helicopter Fairey.
Fairey presented on April 3, 1946 before his " private venture " project, the constructed according to the requirements of Specification E.4/46 flight screwdriver. Fairey received the order of the Air Ministry to build two prototypes. The almost complete cell of the first prototype Fairey presented in September 1947 at the SBAC Show in Radlett ( Hertfordshire). The first flight took untethered on December 7, 1947 held at the White Waltham Airport, which until March 1948 joined a test with a slow increase in speeds. The machine received the aircraft registration G - AIKF and the temporary RAF serial number VX591. The second prototype (G- AJJP ) attempted operations in September 1948.
The first prototype took on June 28, 1948 set a world speed record attempt for the helicopter class G on a straight 3 -kilometer route. The record is held for a long time a Focke- Achgelis Fa 61 and was only a short time before broken by a Sikorsky R-5. The attempt of the control moment gyro along the railway line London - Reading was completed with an achieved average speed of 200 km / h successfully. Ten months later, in April 1949 had to prepare for a record attempt on the closed 100 - kilometer course be canceled due to the crash of the machine. In the accident, the pilot Foster H. Dixon and the observer Derek Garraway died.
At this point, the moment gyro had been enforced against competitors Westland / Sikorsky Dragonfly and Bristol Sycamore and had been selected for use with the British Army in Malaya. Because of the accident, however, delayed the development and the six machines ordered never came to delivery. Instead, the Army procured the Dragonfly and later the Sycamore.
During the investigation of the crash, the determined a stress fracture a bolt of flapping hinge as the cause, the second copy was grounding. After an extensive renovation and renamed Jet moment gyro, the aircraft flew for the first time in January 1954. The drive was different then significantly from that of the first prototype with a blade tip driving the rotor, as well as cyclic and collective pitch, which looked directly at each rotor blade. In addition, two pusher propellers were intended for propulsion generation now. Main task of the control moment gyro jet was the data collection for the evolving Fairey Rotodyne.
Construction
The control moment gyro had a compact, aerodynamically designed body. The drive for the rotor and propeller supplied a Alvis Leonides radial engine, which was fitted centrally in the hull and was forcibly cooled by a fan. The power distribution between the swash plate and provided with a tiltable rotor hub and a propulsion propeller could be varied. When you hover and at low forward speed of the majority of the power went to the propeller so that it could take over both the control about the yaw axis as well as propulsion. In level flight could be operated by the separate propeller propulsion with less Rotorblatteinstellwinkeln and a lower disk loading, which in turn allowed greater speeds compared to helicopters. As an indication of the complexity of the entire system, the statement may serve that almost 50 % of the weight on the drive and power transmission systems accounted for.
The aerodynamic fairing at the end of the left wing stub formed only the housing for a battery, which has been shifted for the sake of preservation focus there.