Rotodyne: The Incredible Aircraft That (Nearly) Revolutionized Air Travel 

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I have always been a fan of the Rotodyne. It is a shame it was not preserved in a museum.

Not the first time government has scrapped brilliant designs.

My father worked at Fairey as a clerk in the 1950's and always spoke highly of the Rotodyne. Thanks for bringing it back to my attention.

I remember making and painting an Airfix kit of the Fairey Rotodyne , in the early 60's , I was a fan!

Engineering Nerd Here. Three types of tip drive helicopters: compressed air squirted thru tip nozzles (Sud-Quest Djinn), fuel and compressed air ignited in an afterburner (Fairey Rotodyne), and ramjet tip engines (Hiller Hornet). Tip nozzles are very inefficient, the afterburner is more efficient but incredible noisy, and the Ramjet both inefficient and noisy. The helicopter blade tip velocity is, say, at .80 Mach. To produce thrust the tip drives exhaust velocity must exceed .80 Mach, say Mach 1.5 or more. This high velocity stream ripping the standing air creates noise, a lot of noise. While the racket can be meliorated, the result remains unacceptable. Another problem is the tip jet forces cause control issues. The physics just can’t be juggled to an acceptable outcome. So the compromise for vertical capability and speedy horizontal flight evolved into the Bell V22. Still the Rotodyne has a place in my heart. Cheers

I designed a new consumer based aircraft concept for the company that bought the rights to Rotodyne back in 2004. Very interesting project. But like so many re-imagining efforts, it died in fairly short order.

I have been facinated by this plane for decades, and would realy like to see it resurected in modern materials. I am shure that many of its problems could be solved now.

I work at white waltham, great history to the airfield. The heli museum has the only surviving parts of the rotordyne and I must go visit.

This absolutely needs to be revisited as a troop carrier etc. The problem with the v22 is that the transition phase between forward and vertical flight is called a rock phase.

Okanagan helicopters was Vancouver based. My dad worked for them for ages.

I wet myself when my Granny gave me the Airfix kit of that loud typically British wonder Luft....really enjoyed that.....Ta Chapski! ✌️

At the Museum of Berkshire Aviation is the Fairey Jet Gyrodyne (Prototype) Serial No. XJ389 c/n F9420. This helicopter is a conversion of Gyrodyne G-AJJP and first flew at White Waltham in its new configuration in January 1954. Initially allocated Serial XD759 it was changed to XJ389 due to duplication.

I was pleased to see a picture of my one-time Westland Flight Test colleague, David Gibbings. Although he did have a pilot's licence, he was actually employed as a Flight Test Observer. As I recall, our other colleagues Ron Gellatly and John Morton were the test pilots on the Rotordyne.

This is a very clever machine for super heavy transports and fire fighting in the woods!

* Auto-Gyros sometimes have a starter motor, which is active until stable lift is achieved.

My father was based at White Waltham in the late 1950's. When the Rotodyne was being tested it would sometimes fly over our house. The noise was incredibly. My mother was terrified that the vibratory noise would shake her ornaments off the mantle piece. The USA now use the Kestrel for purposes similar to the Rotodyne.

What Fairey should have done was take that fuselage and build a standard turboprop airplane version to compete with the Fokker 27. An airline could have BOTH with many of the same parts, saving tons of money and making the rotorcraft version financially viable. British aerospace companies had tons of great ideas in the '50's and '60's, but their business practices were what let them down. They had the engineers, but not the businessmen. This can easily be shown by how completely the American companies dominated commercial aviation starting with the advent of the 707. Great video!

The French built a tip-jet two seater called the Djiene (Genie), which saw production in the 50/60's i believe. Was quite effective, definitely this principle deserves revised attention.

With modern alloy & composite knowledge plus the leap in jet tech, a Rotodyne now would be an amazing vehicle

Thank you for using both metric and imperial measurements in the narration...👍

A tale of what happens when the bean counters win .

This video listed 3 types of rotary aircraft. Another type is the cyclogyro, with some companies currently designing and building cyclogyro aircraft and drones.

I was lucky enough to see this wonderful machine about three times, actually flying directly over my parents house, at Dyson Close, Windsor, Berkshire. It seems that our house, was in direct line, between Heathrow and White Waltham, Berkshire. A true beauty to behold!

I'm betting that a modern version of the Rotodyne would be amazing to fly, and a true beast in the air. Just think of what modern materials and engines could do for it. Here's hoping that it is resurrected in a modern form. I love the idea of the tip jets, although the noise would still be a major concern, I'm sure modern design techniques would be able to mitigate a large portion of the noise generated.

This is great! In an old Belgian comics series, Suske and Wiske, they often flew in a gyrodyne. The man writing and drawing this strip, Willy Vandersteen, included the modern things of the fifties!

One cutaway animation showing just how these worked-- the interplay between engines and tip-jets, would have been worth a thousand words.

What a machine!

What is that bizarre drawing at 17:20?! United in Blood!

One of my favourite aircraft. I've been to the Helicopter museum in Weston and seen what remains. Shame it was cancelled.

There was another interesting application for "tip jet" helicopters, which was developed between 1952 and 1957 by a combination of Sikorsky, Reaction Motors and the US Air Force, to be a "bolt on, go faster" type system which in theory could be applied to any existing helicopter design. This was known at the time as the "Rocket on Rotor" concept and was surprisingly simple, reliable and extremely effective. The basic idea was to install a hemispherical tank containing rocket grade hydrogen peroxide (minimum 80% concentration, aka high test peroxide) just above the main rotor hub, with feed tubes running down the inside of each rotor blade . A small catalytic peroxide monopropellant rocket engine would be mounted in each blade tip, providing between 35 and 50 pounds (approximately 16 to 23 kilograms) of force per blade. Control was surprisingly simple, only requiring a feed valve to switch the flow to each blade on or off, with no pumps required since the centrifugal force of the spinning rotor provided more than enough pressure to feed the peroxide to each rocket motor. The tanks used during testing held enough peroxide to power the tip rockets for about 6 minutes in total. This concept was tested during the development period mentioned above, and was a resounding success. It obviously would not be able to spin up a helicopter rotor from rest, but it was never intended to do that anyway. It was primarily designed to provide short term supplementary power, not as a replacement for the main engine. The tests demonstrated that even with a helicopter loaded to its maximum takeoff weight (not counting the additional weight of the peroxide tank and rockets), it would lift off and climb at double the normal rate. Plus the system could allow a helicopter fitted to take off and climb with 20% extra weight on board. Another bonus was that if the main engine failed in flight and there was still a few minutes worth of peroxide in the tank, engaging the blade-tip rockets would give the helicopter an extra 50% of autorotation time from any given altitude, which also gave a similar improvement of autorotation range, as well as giving the pilot greater control during autorotation. The original videos made in the 1950s can still be found if you search for "rocket on rotor" here on youtube. This is not where I first discovered the existence of this concept though - it is mentioned in the classic rocketry book "Ignition!", near the beginning of the chapter on monopropellants, of which hydrogen peroxide is a classic example. Below is the amusing way the author describes the "Rocket on Rotor" concept: "This was the ROR, or "Rocket on Rotor" concept, by which a very small - perhaps fifty pounds thrust - peroxide motor was mounted on the tip of each rotor blade of a helicopter. The propellant tank was to be in the hub of the rotor, and centrifugal force would take care of the feed pressure. The idea was to improve the performance of the chopper, particularly when it had to lift off in a hurry (that means when somebody is shooting at you). The work on this went on from 1952 to 1957, and was a spectacular success. I've seen an ROR helicopter operating, and when the pilot cut in his rockets the beast shot up into the air like a goosed archangel. The project was dropped, for some reason, which seems a shame. An ROR chopper would have been awfully helpful in Vietnam, where somebody usually is shooting at you."

FUNNY: I built a Revell model of the Fairey Rotodyne when I was a kid...... Thanks to Megaprojects for posting........

The Rotodyne has fascinated me since childhood. The V22B Ospray is one of a very expensive kind, but it is as far forward as we have got in load carrying, fast VTOL aircraft. I watched The 6th Day again the other night and it is a shame we never got anything like the "chopper-jet planes" CGI gave us in that movie.

I was drawn to the video by the “MAKING A COMEBACK?” statement in the poster, it is a bit disappointing to see that only the last minute of the video actually mentions something related to that …

Best video on this fascinating aircraft ever! :)

Awesome thanks

Why we can't have nice things. I'm old enough to remember when this project got canned although, as a child I did not understand much of the background I still remember the sense of Britain having given up on forward thinking designs in favour of me too engineering and its inevitable slide in aircraft engineering towards the mundane (briefly interrupted by Hawkers Jump Jet).

A big problem with this aircraft: It was SCREAMING loud! Tip jets used compressed air to ignite fuel at the tips and the roar from four of these tiny jets was incredible!

Excellent stuff bro

I think I remember seeing craft similar, or exactly, like this in Thunderbirds when I was a kid :)

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Remember building the model around 50 years ago

Awesome that Rotodyne is getting some airtime- another squandered British tech

I watched half of the video and still had to search on wikipedia to see what 'tip-jet' even was and what this video is about. Apparently, it's a design where blades have nozzles with air coming out of them. And because thrust is coming from the tips, somehow, it doesn't need rotor blade for stabilization.

Wow - compressed air jets in the rotor tips, propelling the rotors is a crazy design! First I've heard of it, though I am from across the pond.

Too many manufacturers have a vested interest in selling what they build to let this make a comeback. Specialised commercial transport for particular industries might make it viable in small numbers, but there wouldnt be enough demand to make it a viable competitor in markets dominated by products that are more profitable to the manufacturers than they are useful to the users.

Honestly, this made more sense than the V-22 does now.........

I recall reports that US Pan Am withdrew its interest as a city centre to airport hopper in favour of Boeing Vertol twin rotor helicopters that promised to be cheaper, and this series of helicopters went on to great commercial success.

To be honest, I'm surprised they're not more popular especially in the rural regions of canada and other such countries where haul roads are questionable or non existant. Being able to takeoff and land like a helicopter but having more passenger/payloads would make it easier on remote villages to resupply.

The wake turbulence this thing would generate would be absolutely ludicrous. I cannot imagine it operating at a normal airport. Black Hawks have flipped airplanes arriving 2 miles behind.

When l was at school in Marsh Lane ,Stanmore l saw a Rotodyne fly over the playing field, very noisy!

I saw this at Farnborough in 1959(?) and confirm that it was remarkably loud, an absolute plus from a little boy's point of view. In context, noise was a feature of many of the new turbojet and contraprop aircraft on display at Farnborough in those days and it sounded like the future.

What is needed is propeller blades that can morph such that after liftoff, they stop spinning, lock in place, morph from helicopter blades where they then function as additional wings substantially increasing lift. Jet engines would be used as primary forward propulsion. This would allow vertical capabilities or, used as a traditional aircraft needing a runway, with substantially greater weight capacity. This could yield a high-performance aircraft and/or a highly-redundant ultra-safe aircraft with multiple means to function in the event of an emergency.

Sooo glad you made a video on this. The Rotodyne is marvellous with so many advantages. Surely the noise issue can be solved with todays technology. Maybe using ion wind technology instead??

I'm 73 and retired from the airlines. The Rotodyne is a much needed aircraft in today's market place.

Woo Weston-super-Mare finally a reason to go

I remember writing a bullcrap entry about a combat version of one of these on Wikipedia, the dragonfly I think, got a laugh out of it but only stayed up for maybe a hour. Wish I knew how to navigate way back machines just to enjoy the cringe again. I think an interesting thing about these is that the noise complaints could be reduced, but most of that tech is still somewhat classified , Gordon Murray did speak about it a bit, though, because he was able to get his hands on some sort of basic version, which is in the T.50 and part of why that car doesn't make any fan noise, despite being a bit of a fan car. Although need to be fair absolutely no clue if or how that tech scales up, but you can see him comment on it in some of his videos related to the t.50 and even see it's slightly jagged shaped fan that according to him comes from stealth development.

Well it’s def making a comeback in 1/72!!! 😮

It would be an excellent addition to your page if you would add some of the US Navy's future and upcoming Frigates, Submarines etc... as well as some other countries Naval future and current projects. Nevertheless, I have been a follower of your contents for quite some time now. More Power! 👍

This aircraft looked so Soviet, I'm shocked the manufacturers name wasn't Faireykov.

The 240 km/h cruise speed was supposed to be an advantage over helicopters. Ironically, the helicopter shown approaching a tall building (the Pan Am building in Manhattan) at 10:26 is a Vertol Model 107 (tandem-rotor helicopter, military designation CH-46 Sea Knight) which has a cruise speed of 265 km/h. The Rotodyne failed because it didn't work well enough to justify building and operating it, compared to helicopters of the same era.

Reminds me of the story of TSR-2

This would be interesting as a bush fire water bomber

The phrase "ground breaking aircraft" leaves generates an umwanted image in the mind. :-)

Wouldn't modern high speed rail do the job of short/medium range intercity travel much more efficiently?

These days we can cure the remaining issues with Rotodyne, that is the tip jets with simpler systems and electrification. We can load or unload the main rotor in flight, and we can use the stub wings to remove the problems with retreating blade stall. As such configured as a compound helicopter there is reason to expect such a machine would have a V-Max closer to 300mph, it would be able to land and take off vertically, and would have the safety of being able to fly or land using autorotation of the main rotor.

As the video went on and you showed no images of it being in a museum. I just knew the ending was going to be bad with it scrapped.

Saw it at Farnborough incredibly noisy. noise has seen off the hovercraft as well great to see it though had the airfix kit.

I'm old enough to recall the Rotodyne.

12:00 90feet circumference? Thats quite small, did you mean diameter?

Someone should create a electric tip-jet chopper. maybe the size of a mini van, with 3 rotors

This was a missed opportunity and I hope that an aircraft manufacture revisits this concept and implements it successfully.

This would be easy now with micro jets on the rotor tips.

I remember seeing the Rotodyne back in 50’s. Also the Fairy Delta 2.

It was simple,the reason was noise from the rotor tip motors

I think the main problem with the Rotodyne was it just too far ahead of its time. Just think how this could be build now with modern materials. As for the noise issue put some speakers on on it and use noise cancelling, you know like on the earbuds. Oh and thanks to Simon and the basement team for another great video.

I think there were some issues with the Rotodyne/Gyrodyne. This compound gyroplane was expensive to build and expensive to maintain. There were 3 engines, 2 for moving in the air and 1 for take off and landing. The noise level was also an issue. Fuel consumption was another issue. How much did it consume compared to a plane of a similar size or a helicopter of similar size? Or even a smaller helicopter? Also, a coach, bus or tram or train-tram could have replaced it in many cases. It kind of makes sense that it didn't take off. It was a solution that was searching for a problem. Everything that it could have done could have been done by helicopters and jets. The Rotodyne was an interesting concept but....it didn't have that much use and there were other alternatives. As for flying taxis, it's not happening. You will need aircraft pilots for those. It's too expensive. They will also create far more problems.

The main problem with the Rotodyne is the noise. New propeller technology can reduce the noise and make Rotodyne popular.

I have always loved this aircraft. Never got to see it apart from on film, what a shame.

Nice video, remember seeing this in plane books as a kid but never saw any video , so these clips were most welcome. Shame it wasnt followed up, it could have been the "osprey" of its time.

Simon, I love your content, very interesting and SO MUCH OF IT. But, there is one thing I would BEG YOU to do: Please notch out that annoying room resonance at around 310hz on basically all of your videos. It's just one EQ band, please fact daddy, it is driving me insane.

It's the clutch that gets you in the end. Or at least it is with the ENTIRELY safe and reliable (if you arent a US Marine or Japanese civilian. oddly.) Osprey.

There may be viable use of the design for freight transportation in wide open spaces with limited air or ground competitors. I imagine places like Alaska, Montana, North and South Dakota as well as parts of many other states in the United States and great expanses of Canada. If the redesigns can address the noise issues the commercial applications may be expanded to serve more populated areas and include moving people. Studies based on advances in electric motors and energy storage can be an opportunity to find solutions to the noise problems.

Imagine.. a modern jet powered rotodyne using diverted power from the jet to a blown wing / tip jet similar to Harrier or Buccaneer.

I have a book dedicated to this aircraft.

I very much enjoy your presentation style. Informative, concise and your pleasant and clear voice is a joy to listen to. The format of your video is efficient, enjoyable and entertaining. Well done. I love it.

Well Airfix have recently reissued their model kit of it in their "vintage classics" series.....so it sort of has made a comeback

Can’t really make a comeback without the plans. The new designs are not based on auto gyro principles.

Been watching 20 min, when you going to address “the comeback”

I can see a future where giant quad drones will take people to and from designated landing pads.

Do you think if there was a modern Rododyne, that it would be safer than the Osprey? Pretty much the equivalent of it.

Rotodyne and hovercraft.....opportunity missed.

As a former helicopter mechanic i could tell by looking at that aircraft for 3 seconds that it wouldn't work. Any portion of a rotorblade that exceeds the speed of sound will tear itself apart. Modern helicopters are limited by this fact.

I was told that there was a problem with a tendency for the rotor tips to go supersonic. I have no way of verifying this but it seems plausible.

I would like to see that integrated with lighter than air technology for safer long distance transportation.

It's very strange to mention recent compound helicopters and not the very obvious Boeing Sikorsky SB-1 Defiant, which failed to win the US Army's Future Long-Range Assault Aircraft program (losing to the tilt-rotor Bell V-280 Valor).

Man that thing looks like danger all over it😂😂

Could you imagine what would be possible to build using a gps controlled massive airship.

Epic aircraft, tragic demise.

16:03 Damn 992 mps