Autogyro Project. Status Report Oct. 03

(You can find the first project report here)


We had a project meeting on October 13, 2003 in Vasteras

Rotor Head
Nisse brought the prototype rotor head for the Bumble Bee (Sw. "Humlan"). The idea we have is to make a modified "mock-up" rotor head from this prototype with the necessary fuel line installations. I will ask my neighbour, who runs a professional workshop, if he can make the necessary modifications for us. As a second alternative, if this is not possible, we will ask Roland to do the work, even if this will mean some more travelling. (Roland could not attend at the meeting, because he was hunting moose. Moose hunting takes priority over ANYTHING in Sweden!)

Rockets
My proposed design of the rocket bodies and their installation on the rotor tips were scrutinized and discussed. Nisse and Helge who really have a deep understanding of aerodynamics and autogyro flight characteristics explained that the design needs to be modified. The installation must be "slimmer" to avoid unacceptable drag. After the meeting I have started sketching on a radial cylindrical rocket body, D = 35 mm L= 100 mm, with only the nozzle pointing in the tangential direction. A light hood made of aluminium plate ? with aerodynamic profile ? is mounted on the outside, as an extension of the rotor blade. I hope the specialist autogyro guys will like this design better, because it also solves one other problem: The centrifugal force forces the hydrogen peroxide to the periphery in a tangential rocket body and makes liquid distribution in the catalyst pack unsatisfactory. This will not be the case with the radial rocket body.


Alternative Design Solutions

At the meeting we came back to alterative design solutions:
- Should we further investigate the possibility with the tank placed above the rotor? If we found a spherical tank and covered it with a hood with aerodynamic profile, we might be able to handle the problems with drag forces.
- Should we place the rockets closer to the centre, instead of at the tips? This would solve the aerodynamic problems, but would make the rockets less powerful. Nisse showed us small piston motor driven propellers that he plans to install on his Bumble Bee in this position for prerotation.

Personally I feel that these alternatives are interesting and may become necessary to consider if our present main alternative design solution should fail. However, my opinion is that we should stick to the present main design idea until we are "stuck" - for two reasons:

- To keep up the tempo of the project.
- The full potential of the basic idea would be utilised with our present design. The alternatives are "compromises".


Rocket System Testing
We need to test the rocket system as soon as we have a complete final design. The only problem is that I am out of stock of high concentrated hydrogen peroxide! The reason is that I started to modify and expand my distillation system. It is still not operational and right now it's too cold in Sweden to start it up. I would prefer not to take up the distillation project again until next spring.

Fortunately Arnold Neracher, Switzerland, has helped us out of this dilemma! He has promised to supply high purity hydrogen peroxide with conc. 85 % to the project. If everything goes as planned we will have his peroxide here by the end of November.
Note April -04: This product was never delivered. I have my own production (in small scale) up and running again, since April -04


Back to Project Report No 1
Foreward to April -04 Project Report

This article was updated on November 30th, 2006