1967 Gyro-X Car To Be Restored

Zothecula writes "Back in 1967, California-based Gyro Transport Systems built a prototype vehicle known as the Gyro-X. The automobile had just two wheels, one in front and one in the back and, as the car's name implies, it utilized a built-in gyroscope to remain upright when not moving. Although its developers hoped to take the Gyro-X into production, the company went bankrupt, and the one-and-only specimen of the car became an orphan. For much of the past 40-plus years, that car has passed from owner to owner, its condition deteriorating along the way. Now, it's about to be restored to its former (weird) glory."

Comments

the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[Trepidity]

The gyro monorail has to be one of my favorite bits of almost-sci-fi technology. Real enough to be prototyped, but not quite practical enough to be deployed (yet).

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[Rockoon]

Seems to be a wasteful way to keep something that is in contact with the ground upright.

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[IndustrialComplex]

I see you've been downrated, but it is a very valid point. What problem does this solve without adding more?

I'm not too familiar with this car, and I haven't seen the details yet, so I'm asking here:

1. Is this gyro going to serve dual-purpose as a flywheel?
2. What is the overall benefit? Is this mainly to eliminate the drag from extra wheels and thus improve fuel economy?

I could certainly see how this thing would be really cool if you used it as a flywheel and took advantage of regenerative braking to suppliment it's spinning, but as usual, I'm always nervous about mechanical stores of energy. Chemical stores are dangerous too, but for the most part they can be protected/disabled in the event of an accident. With flywheels, that energy IS going to be released, and you never want it all at once.

Am I off-base here? Please correct me if I am.

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[MightyYar]

At the time (early 20th century), rail speeds were limited by a side-to-side oscillation that the single rail eliminated. It also automatically banked in turns, making sharper turns more comfortable for passengers. Both problems have since been mostly solved, without resorting to the need for "train"ing wheels. Sorry.

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[Yobgod Ababua]

Every extra point of contact adds significant rolling (or sliding) friction.
It's perfectly plausible that the energy cost of a ludicrous mechanism to minimize points of contact could end up more efficient than the straightforward solution of "more wheels".

That said, I'm skeptical of the big single flywheel working out well, since it seems like it would have a crazy effect on the handling (like old rotary biplanes, which could turn tighter in one direction because of the gyroscopic effect of the engine on the plane.)

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[Anonymous Coward]

Swiss Gyro Bus Not just prototyped but actually providing commercial service. Am jealous of my father who was lucky enough to ride them during business trips to Switzerland.

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[nukenerd]

If you want to think like an engineer, stop thinking about energy.

Don't know about the GP, but I am an engineer and what I am thinking is that your post is a load of tosh.

Re:the idea was prototyped for trains, too

[cusco]

You may need to explain to most readers that old rotary engines are not like the new ones. Originally the engine itself spun around and the crankshaft was stationary. The prop was bolted directly to the engine. Made for some interesting flying characteristics, IIRC the Fokker Triplane could turn to the left so fast that it could rip the top wing off.

It just don't make no sense

[drinkypoo]

Cars suck anyway. Instead of turning cars into motorcycles and making them less safe in the process (one flat tire on a four-wheeled vehicle is dramatically less serious than one flat tire on a two-wheeled vehicle; now consider the case of two flat tires!) we should take the rubber off of them and put them on rails.

If you use one hanging rail, then you don't even need any stabilization. Or if you use one ribbon-shaped rail, but then you still need more wheels to ride it (on the sides.)

Regardless, it's a cool restoration project, you just wouldn't catch me driving it daily. And that's the only kind of restoration project I'm interested in, not being filthy rich. My 1982 W126 300SD continues to improve.

Re:It just don't make no sense

[LateArthurDent]

1. How would it avoid flat tires?

You have more tires in the road with 4 wheels than one. The chances of at least one of them going flat is therefore higher, since you're covering more surface area with the road. There may be other factors, I'm not an expert in the field, and I wasn't even disagreeing with your premise that the car is more dangerous, it could very well be. I'm simply pointing out that your explanation is too simplistic and you need to know all the probabilities at hand before making that determination.

2. What do pilots base that on? and why would they be qualified to make such a determination? As far as I can tell the FAA disagrees considering the rules favoring many engined planes for commercial use.

Pilots base that on their training. It's part of what you study for your written private pilot's test. That said, in attempting to make my point, I will admit to oversimplifying the situation, and there are a lot more factors involved. If you're making an overseas flight, or are flying over a mountain range, the additional range given to you in case of engine failure is clearly going to make a twin-engine plane safer, because you're four times less likely to suffer a complete engine failure, and there's no place to land if you're only gliding. I don't know what FAA rules you were referring to in particular, but I assume they relate to those types of flights.

Re:It just don't make no sense

[drinkypoo]

I don't know if it's true a gyro car is less safe than a four-wheeled car, but I do want to point out that you're reasoning is flawed because you don't account for how much less likely it would be to get a flat tire in the first place.

Do tell, how much less likely is it to get a flat tire in the first place? Let's say it's half as likely, which is almost certainly wrong but it's something to start with. Now, let's consider the failure mode. It's dramatically worse, especially if you lose the front tire at speed. Is it twice as bad? Could be, since you can't meaningfully steer. You might not fall over.

For example, instinctively people think that two-engine airplanes are safer than single-engine ones, because the plane can still fly after one engine failure. Any pilot will tell you the opposite is true, however. All else being equal, a plane with two engines is twice as likely to have an engine failure, and a two-engine plane flying with one engine is less safe than a single-engine plane with its one engine working.

The comparison is well-intended but not congruent. A better comparison would be comparing a twin-engined plane to a quad-engined plane. I don't know if it's still true, but it was true that most twin-engine planes couldn't even cruise on two engines. However, most quad-engined planes can cruise on three engines, and that long has been true. Of course, engines are not tires and so there's never going to be better than false congruence here, anyway.

If a plane is built such that it has two engines and can cruise on one, then even though you've increased the rate of failure (you have not doubled it, due to maintenance and inspection regimes commonly employed with aircraft) you've decreased the rate of catastrophic failure, which is what I was on about in the first place. Having four wheels is good. When a motorcyclist hits a patch of sand that only covers half the road they go farther off their path than when a four-wheeled vehicle travels over it with two of its wheels. And when the drift covers the whole road, the car is inherently more stable as well, not least because today it will have yaw control and it will have four wheels to work with in order to make corrections.

Re:It just don't make no sense

[YrWrstNtmr]

2. What do pilots base that on? and why would they be qualified to make such a determination? As far as I can tell the FAA disagrees considering the rules favoring many engined planes for commercial use.

The standard saying is:
"I'd rather have an engine fail, rather than have the engine fail.

You can probably limp home on one. You can't limp home on none

Re:It just don't make no sense

[Existential Wombat]

I think they're pretty much guaranteed that their planes WILL make a landing 100% of the time. :)

Re:It just don't make no sense

[garyebickford]

It's been a couple of decades since I took flying lessons, but here goes: Engines tend to die at the worst possible moments, when they are under the most stress. This is during the takeoff phase, when you are still relatively close to the ground. In a twin-engine plane, when one of the engines dies, it has two effects - one is that the plane suddenly has both a terrific off-center thrust and an increase of drag from the stopped propeller, causing yaw (rotation on the vertical axis), and the other is that the loss of the balancing effect of counter-rotating engines and the yaw-induced loss of lift on the slower wing drastically increases the tendency to roll (rotation on the line-of-flight axis). All in all, the loss of performance is much more than just the loss of thrust.

So when one engine dies, the pilot has a couple of seconds to do the right thing, or else the plane suddenly flips and dives sidewise (like those videos of fighter planes peeling off for a run at the enemy ship) the 300-1000 feet to the ground - too enough altitude to recover. The 'right thing' is pretty complicated according to this. Some of it is counter-intuitive (so should be practiced during training). If you're fast, and lucky, you'll be able to go around and land.

What is the advantage over a regular car?

[jandrese]

I fail to see what advantages this vehicle has over a traditional automobile. It seems more like a science demonstration on wheels than a practical vehicle.

LIT Motors C-1

[Anonymous Coward]

San Francisco startup LIT Motors has its upcoming C-1, which is a 2-wheeled enclosed electric vehicle that likewise uses a gyroscopic flywheel to stay upright:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65GUZCxfMN0

Gyro-stabilized motorcycle

[necro81]

Lit Motors has developed an enclosed motorcycle that uses an active gyro assembly under the driver to keep the thing upright when at a standstill and during sudden accelerations (i.e., during an accident). The gyro mechanism can also be used to assist in cornering.

Re:Gyro-stabilized motorcycle

[OzPeter]

I think I'd prefer the Monotracer over the C1. One thing that I don't see with the C1 is what happens when you step out and turn the thing off. Those Gyros can't run indefinitely.

Re:Gyro-stabilized motorcycle

[OzPeter]

Answering my own post. I found this in the C-1 FAQ

The C-1 has “landing gear” which are deployed when parked to keep the vehicle upright.

The... gyroscope... has to be rebuilt from scratch

[fustakrakich]

But first they have to create the universe.

Re:Corvair-ize?

[Peter Simpson]

The VW had a less powerful engine than the Corvair. The Corvair was Chevrolet's attempt to benefit from the success of the Beetle. My next door neighbor still drives his. The engine cooling is better, the engine is a bit bigger, and it's a very neat ride!

Re:Flying car!

[OzPeter]

Die Messerschmitt für zee highways!

You mean one of these? Messerschmitt KR200

Re:The Ford Gyron: 1961

[IndustrialComplex]

Sadly, we are pretty much blocked from developing anything really innovative anymore. Not because it isn't possible, but because the regulations on passenger vehicles have basically made all vehicles the same from a mechanical/aerodynamic perspective. Not saying that a lot of those regulations aren't quite important, but the lack of an ability to get exemptions is a big problem. It's why so much of the design innovation actually goes into less than 4 wheel vehicles these days.

I mean, aside from badging and superfical body features (headlight shape, creases in metal, etc) there really isn't anything new done to cars from a form factor perspective.

I have an idea

[Hentes]

How about making the car smaller and lighter, so that we could use the angular momentum of the two wheels for stabilisation without need for separate gyros. We could call it the motorbike or something.

Re:I am not an engineer, so as I read it, it kind

[nukenerd]

made sense. Could you explain where the original poster made his/her mistake?

They said :

If you want to think like an engineer, stop thinking about energy. Think about power. Measure everything in power.

Power is the rate of transfer of energy. Think about one and you need to think about the other. Like income is a rate of transfer of wealth (to use a finance analogy as the GP did).

With a vehicle going along, power (measured in Watts - or horsepower in old units) is the main interest - because it determines the rate (ie speed) at which it can push through the air (and other) resistance and climb hills. In doing this it is drawing energy (measured in Joules) from its store which could be in fuel, in a flywheel, a battery, or (hybrid) combinations of these. The vehicle draws energy from this store at some rate expressible in Joules per second, which is Watts. Multiply this rate by some efficiency percentage (like 30% with an internal combustion engine), and that is the power getting to the wheels. The total energy in the store is of interest in determining the range of the vehicle

However, from the safety angle any energy store is a potential bomb or fireball, and you need to think about what will happen to it in a crash. In conventional cars the fuel tank is fairly well protected from impact; once broken it tends to catch fire. Designing a car with a flywheel would also need to consider a crash - for instance if it escaped from its casing it would shoot off like a random cannon ball. The potential damage of either fuel or a loose flywheel would be measurable by their energy content at the time. This was the point raised by the GGP.

The GP's analogy of a flywheel as a "connected mesh of weights" is a strange one and irrelevant to the point.