Futuristic Airframe

Hi!

Saw some of the responses to my query on tilt rotor aircraft. The Harrier is
not the same thing at all, from my perspective. The Harrier has a single,
though very powerful, Rolls Royce Pegasus engine. The airframe in UFO was
more like the OV-22 Osprey, but it had jet engines on some sort of wing
attachment. Why are there no jet engine helicopters?

Tom
_________________________________________________________________________
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at
http://profiles.msn.com.

"T. Hart" <[hidden email]> wrote:-
> .... Why are there no jet engine helicopters?

I read once about a helicopter with no ordinary motor but instead it had a
little jet engine on the end of each rotor blade.

"T. Hart" wrote:
> Hi!
>
> Saw some of the responses to my query on tilt rotor aircraft. The Harrier is
> not the same thing at all, from my perspective. The Harrier has a single,
> though very powerful, Rolls Royce Pegasus engine. The airframe in UFO was
> more like the OV-22 Osprey, but it had jet engines on some sort of wing
> attachment. Why are there no jet engine helicopters?
>
>

Modern helicopters are often powered by jet engines - eg the
American 'Huey' as used in Vietnam - of course the jet is used to
drive the rotor blades. I suppose that the centre of gravity has
to be under source of the 'lift' or it would be very unstable - I
suppose a helicopter with a jet engine mounted underneath, facing
downward would be liable to topple very easily. So I suppose you'd
need a minimum of three jet engines, each extended upward and away
from the cockpit. Then if one of them failed, the whole thing
would turn over (I suppose).

James

James Gibbon <[hidden email]> wrote:-
> Modern helicopters are often powered by jet engines - eg the American 'Huey'
> as used in Vietnam - of course the jet is used to drive the rotor blades.

Do you mean a jet engine that makes a jet blast, or do you mean a gas-turbine
engine that outputs its power down a drive shaft? There IS a difference.

"Anthony Appleyard" wrote:

> Do you mean a jet engine that makes a jet blast, or do you mean a
> gas-turbine engine that outputs its power down a drive shaft? There IS
> a difference.
>

Well, I have no idea what the difference is so I'll defer to you
on that .. but I understood that the blast from the jet drove a
'small propellor' of some kind, which in turn drove the rotors ..
at least that's what I had read somewhere.

(I suspect that we'll be getting our knuckles rapped for discussing
non-SHADO-specific hardware issues any minute now .. :)

<cough> I believe there was speculation a while ago that Straker's
car was driven by a gas turbine, based on the distinctive whining
engine noise ..

James