Rocket Rotor Helicopter

This neat machine doesn't have a conventional engine .... it has hydrogen peroxide rockets on the tips on the main rotor blades ....

looks old but it is very very interesting.
can you buy those today? if yes what would be the cost?

Swiss Copter in Europe just bought the rights for the design and are going to put it into production ... not sure how much but it couldn't be that bad there's not much to it!

down load the pdf here : www.swisscopter.com...

discovermagazine.com...

[edit on 21-2-2009 by jpvskyfreak]

There's an interesting fact about the rotor-tip propelled design. Look at the rear of the aircraft. What do you notice? Or, more accurately, what is not there to be noticed?

Answer: Tail rotor. When turning the shaft one way with a huge motor you get the same force trying to spin the whole helicopter the other way. That's what you need a tail rotor, to keep it straight. With the jets just acting on the rotor itself, there's no force spinning the helicopter, too. So you don't need a tail rotor, meaning fewer moving parts, and a generally safer and easier-to-maintain helicopter.

Also, I believe I saw one of these several years back for somewhere around $14,000 US pre-assembled.

reply to post by Darkpr0


In that video, the heli does have a tail rotor. it's positioned almost directly behind the driver. you can see it at about 1:10.

[edit on 21-2-2009 by Chonx]

Beat me to it,

Yep theres definastly a tail rotor just behind his head.

Even talks about it in the video.

[edit on 21/2/09 by cropmuncher]

Whoops. Apparently this one does have a tail rotor. My bad. Definitely.

I'll see if I can dig up the other one, but it's an old sucker. IIRC all it had was a circular metal plate which swiveled left and right for rudder control. As well, I believe it used propane jets rather than H2O2 jets. I'll do a little sleuth work and look into where that design came from.

Edit: Found. Here's a view of the jet engines and one of the helicopter itself.

And the one you're looking for here is the Kestrel.

Like he says in the video, though, the tail rotor is small because it doesn't have to compensate for torque like it would on a shaft-driver rotor system. It's likely there as a better alternative to the rudder system on the helis I showed above since the rudders need forward momentum to work well.

[edit on 2/21/2009 by Darkpr0]

you were both right and wrong about the tail rotor. do you need it to keep the thing from spinning out of control? no, but you would need one if you wanted to turn... it's not there to counteract the motor pushing against the rotor, but merely to turn the thing around.

Right about the tail rotor on this helicopter - it's used solely for directional control, not counter-torque.

Either way, I WANT ONE.

Does anyone know if this would be an ultralight class aircraft?