Sikorsky Vs Flettner: The Single rotor Helicopter

Igor Sikorsky is commonly credited as creating the world's first Single main rotor helicopter, the VS-300 which first flew untethered in 1940 and was partly flown lashed to the ground in 1939.
Sikorsky used a vertically oriented anti torque rotor to stop his machine spinning out of control.
Sikorsky's first helicopter flight in 1940 employed no less than 4 rotors. A single main rotor and three rotors on the tail. The VS-300 had framework booms protruding from either side of the craft which each mounted a separate control rotor.
In fact a number of single main rotor helicopters preceeded this by many years, the first by Yurev had a modern configuration, and lift offs such as A.G. Von Baumhauver's 1925 flight of single main rotor and anti torque tail rotormachine, and the Russian TsAGI 1-EA which flew to 650 metres altitude in 1930. That machine had no collective control of the main rotor and relied on extreme skill of the pilot to balance and control it.
Here however is visual proof that Anton Flettner flew the first practical single rotor helicopter, the Fl-185 .
The film shown here was taken in 1936 and 1937, years before Sikorsky left the ground.
The craft is not an autogyro but takes off vertically and hovers. Unlike the VS-300, the German Fl-185 has gyro actuated anti torque rotors which means that the craft is stable in yaw regardless of changes in main blade torque. The pilot can then just over-ride the gyro if he wishes to yaw the craft but otherwise directional stability is automatic.
Modern model rc helicopters use the same system.
Flettner understood that anti torque vertical rotors were susceptible to damage and failure and progressed beyond the single rotor configuration to introduce the intermeshing synchropter design which became the worlds first production combat helicopter as the Fl 282.
Flettner had also investigated the tailboom and tail rotor configuration later employed by Sikorsky but engineering analysis had indicated such a configuration would waste a considerable percentage of engine power and would be a major area of mechanical failure and lead to fatalities unrelated to combat.
This correct prediction led to his adoption of the synchropter principle. All engine power is employed for lift in a synchropter and thus they have a substantially higher lift to engine power ratio than conventional tail boomers. Post war variants such as the Kaman Huskie have the best safety record of any military chopper. Kaman also field the Kmax heavy lift chopper in common use today.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• X3
• Eurocopter
• Aviation
• pioneer
• first
• space
• Hubschrauber
• German
• Helicopter
• Gyroplane
• Nazi
• Autogyro
• Flettner
• Fl-185
• Igor
• Sikorsky
• UFO
• electronics
• aircraft
• airplane
• airshow
• heli
• chopper
• vs300
• R4

[Grommo]

@Torpedoeight

NO, I have not changed the info in the video.

It is obvious you are trolling . Goodbye

[devja71]

i thought it was well known the germans had the 1st chopper. they virtually had the 1st everything. my granddad was a gunner in a lancaster, his friends where shot down over germany, the ones who made it back said lots of the germans where wonderful ppl. sounds surprising how they could say that, but i wasn't there and the truth is the truth

[screenRIOTer]

Although Sikorsky may not have "invented" the helicopter, what he did was bring together three elements that no one had before, thus developing the first "practical" helicopter. His design included a variable pitch rotor, a tail mounted counter torque rotor, and a single engine to power both. Other designs came before and after, and the merits of all can be argued, but it cannot be argued that Sikorsky ushered in the age of the Helicopter.

[Grommo]

@Torpedoeight NO, it is the FL 185 in the video.

You are confusing the body design with the FL265.

Sorry, but your contributions are not correct and you are making unsubstantiated troll statements.

Iknow that this design was supeceeded by later designs. That is not the point. It was first to fly and fly controllably.

You may as well try to argue that the Wright Bros were not the first to fly because the later Pitts special was more manoeuvrable.

[Torpedoeight]

@Grommo So you added the information after I told you about them? Says a few things about you, and why are you babbling about no correct lay out, making false claims about history, and going completely off in to the weeds about entirely unrelated helicopter designs entirely unrealted the discussion or the video. You need to learn to give credit where it is due and Sikorsky is where the credit belongs with this claim to a successful single rotor helicopter. That is all there is to it.

[Torpedoeight]

@ Flettners 282 dual rotor intermesher is a completely different design, and as I originally stated, it was this helicopter that gained Flettner his place in the history of helicopter aviation. The Flettner in this video was a failure. It didn't beat Sikorsky any more than all the previous other failed attempts at a workable helicoper with single main rotor system. That is what you can't seem to grasp.

[Torpedoeight]

@Grommo It's FL 285 in the video, and it is completely different, and in no way can be claimed as a successful helicopter design. The fact that you don't understand why the Flettner design didn't work says all any helicopter engineer needs to know. If you read my posts instead of getting worked up over them you might glimmer an understanding of why this is so.

[Torpedoeight]

@Grommo Ah, no sorry you don't understand the difference between a propeller and rotor, or a single blade from a single rotor either, and so you wrong. It is that simple.

[Torpedoeight]

@screenRIOTer Not to split hairs too much, but Sikorsky was only the first one to actually produce a working full size helicopter of what has today become the standard lay out. That being a single main rotor and a single anti-torque tail rotor. Suppposedly this lay out existed in 1912 with Russian inventor Boris N. Yuriev, though I've not looked at his design this is the accepted history apparently.