GB1386335A - Rotary fluid moving propellor - Google Patents

Abstract

1386335 Rotary-wing aircraft A KLING 26 Sept 1972 [29 Sept 1971] 44427/72 Headings B7G and B7W [Also in Division F1] A rotary propeller A comprises radially outer and inner walls 2, 3, defining an annular, axially converging-diverging duct, and a plurality of blades 1 mounted between the walls, the walls and the blades forming an integral unit connected by stays 4 to a hub 5, and the blades being so arranged as to impart an axial thrust to a fluid upon rotation of the unit. The propeller is intended as a rotor for an aircraft but may be used in water or as an impeller in a blower or fan. The stays 4 may be flexible, and may be of greater length than the distance from the hub to the unit, so that the unit becomes axially displaced upon rotation. A helicopter may have a rotor of this kind, Fig. 2 (not shown), or may have two contra-rotating coaxial rotors (50), (51), Fig. 12 (not shown). The rotor may be used on an aircraft of the kind described in Specification 1,277,042, where it acts as the rotor of a Foucault gyroscope, the aircraft comprising a cabin 20 supported in a shell 10 on successively pivotally mounted rings 25, 27, the shell 10 being connected by struts 7<SP>1</SP> to a rotor 21 of the present invention, there being a similar rotor 60 outboard of and coplanar with the rotor 21. An engine 28 is mounted on the shell 28 and its shaft is connected to the rotor 60 through stays 11, so that when the engine is operated the rotors rotate in opposite senses with equal torques. The blades 21<SP>1</SP>, 60<SP>1</SP> of the rotors may have pivoted trailing edge flaps (41), Fig. 9 (not shown), or leading edge passages closed by flaps (41<SP>1</SP>), Fig. 10 (not shown), which are adjusted during rotation so that the rotational axis B of the rotor is caused to precess, to control the craft. The orientation of the cabin 20 about the axis B is controlled by a magnetic clutch 32 including a plate (61), Fig. 11 (not shown), connected to the ring 27 and able to be caused to rotate with either the shell 10 or with plate 37 connnected to the rotor 60 by stays 12. The craft may be an unmanned radio-controlled drone, Fig. 13 (not shown), and control of the blade flaps may be transmitted from the cabin to the rotors photo-electrically. Landing gear (112), Figs. 15 and 16 (not shown), may be connected to the craft by a ball-and-socket joint (110).