History
In Britain, Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett, Chief Engineer of the Cierva Autogiro Company, in 1936 conceived an intermediate type of rotorcraft, which he named "gyrodyne" and which was tendered to the British Government in response to an Air Ministry specification. In 1939, Bennett was issued a patent from the UK Patent Office, assigned to the Cierva Autogiro Company. On 23 August 1940, the Autogiro Company of America, licensees of the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd., filed a corresponding patent application in the United States. On 27 April 1943, Patent# 2,317,340 was issued, assigned to the Autogiro Company of America. The patents describe a gyrodyne as:
a rotary wing aircraft intermediate in type, hereinafter referred to as "gyrodyne", between a rotaplane (with the rotor free for autorotation and an upward total axial flow through the rotor disc), on the one hand, and a pure helicopter (with the rotor driven, and a downward total axial flow through the rotor disc), on the other hand, that is with a mean axial flow through the rotor disc substantially zero at high forward speed.
Bennett's concept described a shaft-driven rotor, with anti-torque and propulsion for translational flight provided by one or more propellers mounted on short or stub wings. With thrust being provided by the propellers at cruise speeds, power would be provided to the rotor only to overcome the profile drag of the rotor, operating in a more efficient manner than the freewheeling rotor of an autogyro in autorotation. Bennett described this flight regime of the gyrodyne as an "intermediate state", requiring power to be supplied to both the rotor and the propulsion system.
Read more about this topic: Gyrodyne
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