https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller
Technology catches up with ideas. Sometime it takes a while.
There was a hydrogen peroxide-powered one person helicopter whose name translated “Grasshopper” from Latin or some such language. There were catalytic jets at the extreme ends of the propeller. It was sold by The Sharper Image about 25 years ago and cost something around $80,000.
It was my dream machine.
I told those young fools at Kitty Hawk and now I’m telling you: heavier than air flight is impossible. Lord Kelvin proved it. It’s settled science.
Way too many moving parts.
Just use a bigger rubber band.
I want one with blue pinstripes and a spoiler.
Just another 10 years worth of development and they’ll be ready to get FAA approval...
To the article’s “gas vs electric” point (gas has inadequate torque, electric weights to much for range), surely a compromise can be implemented: gas for bulk of power, electric for short burst torque.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voith_Schneider_Propeller
No, no, bad engineer!
That kind of prop is fine in viscous fluids at low-ish RPMs. At the kind of RPMs needed for flight in air, a ducted fan or other ‘normal’ prop configuration would be much more effective.
This would just be a squirrel cage blower without the ductwork.
(But agree, they are cool on tugboats, and Graf Zeppelin)
The next engineering evolution with impact potential similar to the cell phone...
Wow
Blade flutter has always been the downfall of the design. That is one reason carbon fiber’s rigidity may prove sufficient in this application.
No one has done much serious work with the Coanda effect recently. The back story is that Henry likely was the first jet jockey back in about 1928, when he crashed his prototype engine in a biplane.
He used a radial piston engine to drive a turbo-compressor supplying air to a cylindrical combustion chamber. An exhaust pipe exited this combustion chamber on each side of the fuselage. On a taxi test he lost focus on the aircraft velocity and position due to the fiery exhaust hugging the aircrafts flammable fabric skin—the test thus became a short flight to avoid a crash into a structure.
The extraordinary behavior of the exhaust gas flow diverted his focus from the engine development to flow dynamics, thus requiring another decade for development of a gas turbine engine.
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