B370
OTHER:
Intermeshing Configuration - Quotations
Quotation by Mr. R. W. Prouty; from 'More Helicopter Aerodynamics', page 91:
"The Synchropter may be an Idea whose time has come and gone. On the other hand, it may have been ahead of its time and just the right configuration for some future helicopter requirement."
Quotations by the rotorcraft aerodynamist Wieslaw Stepniewski from 'Implications of the Low Tip Speed Design Philosophy':
Re parasitic drag; "The ABC/synchropter [Intermeshing] configuration offers the designer opportunities for a truly aerodynamically clean rotorcraft, with the cleanness level (expressed through the flat plate area loading) similar to those of the commercial fixed-wing transports of the same gross-weight class."
"At the same disk loading (interpreted as loading per disk of one rotor) relative induced drag of the ABC/synchropter [Intermeshing] configuration should be somewhat lower than that of the co-axial. However, at high cruise speeds, beginning at 200 knots, those gains will be small."
Quotation by Mr. B. J. Schramn; designer and manufacturer of the Scorpion, Rotorway and Helicycle
"A bit later a good engineer named Charlie Kaman developed a two-bladed rotor that intermeshed. He sold his ideas to the navy, but he really tried to exploit the commuter market. The reason I know for sure is that in about 1964 Mr. Kaman saw my work and asked me to join him in making the commuter helicopter a reality. I still don't understand why I turned him down."
Posting in rec.aviation.military by Mr. Paul Cantrell in 1993:
"I know the ABC is currently shelved, but I hope that it will started up again. I wonder whether intermeshing wouldn't work better - perhaps Sikorsky didn't want to have to deal with Kaman? I don't really know why they picked coaxial rather than intermeshing..."
Quotations by Mr. Glidden Doman:
"At a dinner meeting where Flettner and Sikorsky were both present, Sikorsky was taken aback by the technological advancements shown in the film of the intermeshing Flettner FL-282." ~ From a telephone conversation with Mr. Doman and subsequently supported in; Vertiflite Spring 2001, Letter to the editor, and Vertiflite Summer 2003, Article 'Anton Flettner: His Life for the Rotor, Pages 36 - 44.
"I committed office and shop space to him [Kurt Hohenemser - previously Anton Flettner's chief engineer] for the construction of a unique intermesher with no hinges. When the project did not go ahead I hired his top engineer and lost contact." ~ From; Vertiflite Spring 2001, Letter to the editor.
From a 2003 Article by Tom Lawrence, senior engineer at Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation and author of an upcoming book on the history of Sikorsky helicopters:
"However, the single greatest feature was Igor Sikorsky's faith in the benefits of the single rotor helicopter. Much derided at the time, the single-rotor configuration would come to dominate the worlds helicopters."
What an interesting statement. Those who "much derided" the single-rotor helicopter were not ignorant people. In fact, the most knowledgeable rotorcraft people at that time were in Germany. Two such people were Flettner and Focke, who built better helicopters then Igor, and built them 5 years earlier.
Perhaps, Igor's "faith" was a 'blind faith'. Perhaps, this fixation on the single-rotor helicopter is a primary reason why it has taken 60 years for lateral symmetrical rotorcraft to start reappearing in earnest.
Quotation by Kurt Hohenemser in the Forward to the book Helicopters of the Third Reich:
"Flettner asked my opinion about three helicopter configurations he had considered:
I analyzed the pilot's handling characteristics for the three types including pilot stick forces ... and found that those of the third configuration by far the superior"
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Last Revised: February 4, 2007