Fairey Rotodyne

The Fairey Rotodyne was a vertical take—off and landing transport aircraft

=History=

‘The Fairey Rotodyne is the aircraft for fast, economical travel offering the advantages of air transport to everyone, everywhere.’ So said the narrator of a promotional film made by the manufacturer, Fairey. There seemed to be good reason for confidence. The Rotodyne had claimed a world air—speed record, attracted orders from North America to Japan, and secured an agreement with the Kaman Aircraft Corporation for licensed production in the United States; which meant that an order from the US Army for as many as 200 might be a possibility for what was, at the time of its first flight in 1958, the largest transport helicopter in the world. Except she wasn't a helicopter. Not quite.

The Rotodyne was a unique hybrid. To take off and land vertically, jets on the tips of the rotor were powered by air bled from the two turboprop engines beneath the machine's short wings. After translating to forward flight, the jets were switched off and the rotor was feathered, with forward speed from the two engines. Lift was provided by both the wing and a freewheeling rotor. Unloading the rotor meant the Rotodyne could cruise much faster than contemporary helicopters. British European Airways had its eye on using the Rotodyne to provide a city centre to city centre service between European capitals. There was one important caveat, however. Fairey had to find a way to make its machine quieter.

From over 500 feet away, the banshee scream of the tip jets was louder than a pneumatic drill from less than 50 feet. If the sound of breathing is 10 decibels, then the shriek of the Rotodyne taking off and landing was much closer to 194 decibels, or the loudest sound possible. The trouble was, she was supposed to fly in and out of city centres.

While BEA wavered, the project team were confident they could reduce the noise to acceptable levels. In pursuit of that, over forty different noise suppressors were tested, but in February 1962 government funding was cut off, and by the end of the year the single Rotodyne prototype had been broken up for scrap.

She was a machine that seemed genuinely to be a whisker from changing the way the world flew. That it never happened was nothing at all to do with her remarkable qualities as a flying machine.