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Another Look at 1930's Cyclogyro Plane Design
trogador writes to mention that a group of researchers is taking another swing at the idea of a cyclogyro design for a UAV. Even though the cyclogyro design was invented in the 1930's there are no records of a successful flight. "Cyclogyros have the potential to be highly maneuverable flying robots due to their method of operation, making them potentially more suitable for complex tasks than helicopters and other micro air vehicles (MAVs) with less maneuverability. The biggest challenge in designing the cyclogyros is varying the angle of attack of the rotating wings. This ability would enable the plan to change altitude, hover, and fly in reverse. To achieve this quick angle variation, the researchers introduced an eccentric (rotational) point in addition to a rotational point connected to a motor."
Complicated and heavier than air like a helicopter?
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Drag = 3 wings
Lift = 1 wing
Transmission Mechanism = Very Heavy
Support Structure = Very Very Heavy
Pressure Center (Sustentation)= Shifts
Vibration = More than a helicopter
Nice Try!!!
I hate to pull rank here, but I have a bachelor's in physics and a PhD in climate physics, where I specialized in fluid mechanics. I'm not an aeronautical engineer, but I *have* heard of the Bernoulli effect before.
The bernoulli effect has a bit to do with explaining *how* the wing and air push on each other, but you can understand how a plane works without any fluid mechanics at all. Gravity is pulling the plane down. There must be a counteracting force holding it up. The air exerts this force on the wings. (How? You could mumble "bernoulli" at this point, but that's more detail than we need.) Newton's Third Law states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. The air pushes the plane up; the plane pushes the air down, with a force equal to the weight of the plane.
Airplanes *do* fly by pushing down on a bunch of air until they leave the ground. They just do it a little more subtly than a helicopter. Whether your book talks about them or not, Newton's laws always hold: if you still think I'm wrong, answer this question: "What pushes on the plane? Where is the equal and opposite reaction to that force?"
Wing vortexes and wake turbulence are often talked about as if they're minor inconveniences, little inaccuracies in the perfect equations for wing behavior, caused by little details like finite wing length and imperfect shape. Nothing could be further from the truth. If a wing passed through the air and left it completely undisturbed, as is usually drawn in popular science articles on aerodynamics, the wing would generate no lift. How could it? If no force has been exerted on the air, no force can be exerted on the plane, and the only force acting on it is gravity.