Posted on 06/26/2014 8:25:53 PM PDT by DemforBush
Neat video of a rather interesting (if ultimately unsuccessful) U.S. attack helicopter design from the early 1970s.
(Excerpt) Read more at youtube.com ...
It was an engineering challenge, to be sure.
I was a kid in about 1967 at Fort Rucker and remember seeing one of the prototypes of this aircraft there.
Even Cobras were advanced for the time, this thing was WAY out there.
Ping.
Seems pretty bad-as to me. Why didn’t we have a bunch of these?
The project was cancelled.
There’s one big problem with fast-flying choppers —it’s possible for the backwards rotational velocity of the rotar at certain points to feature backwards speed that effectively makes it “stand still” with respect to the ground below.
This means that lift on one side is strong, while on the other lateral half there is very little lift —this rolls the chopper strongly to the weak side.
To mitigate this the rotar on fast choppers must be spun much faster and the winglets play an important role in maintaining lift, much as we see with the Mi-24, which at certain speeds acts as 50% chopper and 50% airplane.
I’m guessing because the A-10 did the same job and did it cheaper, and more reliably. The tech in this chopper probably scared them into thinking it would turn into a tarmac queen.
Are you talking about retreating blade stall?
Helicopters are too vulnerable to ground attack. All those weapons become nearly useless when some yahoo manages to put a 20 cent bullet through the CPU.
project do get cancelled because of reasons other than the merits of the system being vended.
it could have been no more than the fact that the vendor team PM’s PE’s and PA’s involved with the program were
aholes.
It was cancelled. Too expensive or not?
yes.
How many hours on the ground for every flying hour, the more advanced the worst it probably gets.
Several of my projects over the years didn’t make it. You are absolutely right about merits of the system not being a priority at times. (politics)
Active Duty/Retiree ping.
That’s why we kept a couple of hangar queens back in the day, spare parts, lol. I can’t help but feeling we had an awesome platform sidelined over politics.
With it's stated 8000lb ordinance load, perhaps there wasn't anything left for crew armor.
A-10 has a titanium bathtub for pilot protection.
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