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3/11/2016

aircraft design - How can a helicopter be designed without a tail rotor? - Aviation Stack Exchange
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How can a helicopter be designed without a tail rotor?


How will the main rotor torque be balanced if a helicopter doesn't have a tail rotor?
aircraft-design

aerodynamics

helicopter

edited Jan 1 '15 at 21:51

rbp
9,243

asked Sep 20 '14 at 13:38

seetharaman
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56

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The vertical stabilizer usually provides enough torque balance at cruise speed - it will keep you straight if
you lose the tail rotor in flight. Landing will be exciting, esp. if you have skids and not wheels. paul Sep 21
'14 at 5:35
@paul What if i use two rotors one below the other, rotating in opposite directions and without any vertical
stabilization and tail rotor. What then? will it fly?? seetharaman Sep 21 '14 at 16:04
@paul: Well, landing will probably have to be carried out on autorotation in which there is no net torque.
Jan Hudec Sep 21 '14 at 16:36

@JanHudec autorotation is for landing after the engine quits. If your tail rotor and your engine fail at the
same time you are probably going to have a messy ending. paul Sep 22 '14 at 0:11

@paul: Autorotation is also for landing if your tail rotor transmission fails because there is no torque.
Otherwise the torque makes the helicopter spin out of control very quickly once speed is reduced.
Jan Hudec Sep 24 '14 at 9:33

2 Answers

The torque in a helicopter is generated by the engine driving the main rotor in one direction, which
causes the fuselage to spin in the other direction. The tail rotor shaft is horizontally mounted and
hence creates it own 'lift' to provide anti-torque. The pitch of the tail rotor gives directional control.
Common ways to design a helicopter without a tail rotor:
Tandem rotors : Two main rotors mounted one in front of the other. The rotor discs spin in
opposite directions. All power from the engines is used for lift. Example: CH-47

Transverse rotors : Two main rotors mounted side-by-side. Example: V-22 Osprey

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aircraft design - How can a helicopter be designed without a tail rotor? - Aviation Stack Exchange

Co-axial rotors : Two rotor discs are mounted one on top of the other. The engine units power
both rotors. This structure requires a very complex swashplate mechanism. Example: Kamov
Ka-25

Intermeshing rotors : In this main rotor assembly, the two set rotor masts are installed at a
slight angle to each other, in a transversely symmetric manner, so that the rotor blades intermesh
without colliding with each other. Example: Kaman K-MAX

Tip jet : This is an interesting solution to the no-tail-rotor problem. Instead of driving the rotors
with a turboshaft engine, compressed air is sent through nozzles installed at the tips of rotor
blades. The engines effectively push against the air rather than the helicopter fuselage. The rotor
spins just like a Catherine wheel. Example: Hiller Hornet

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3/11/2016

aircraft design - How can a helicopter be designed without a tail rotor? - Aviation Stack Exchange

NOTAR : NOTAR - NO TAil Rotor uses a fan inside the boom to build a high volume of lowpressure air, which exits through two slots and creates a boundary layer flow of air along the
tailboom utilizing the Coand effect. The boundary layer changes the direction of airflow around
the tailboom, creating thrust opposite the motion imparted to the fuselage by the torque effect of
the main rotor. Example: MD-900

Refer to Wikipedia for more!


edited Jan 8 '15 at 19:08

answered Sep 20 '14 at 14:21

fooot
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Raj
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For unmanned vehicles, would it be practical to simply use vanes to limit the speed of rotation and then use
guidance electronics which can cope with it? supercat Sep 20 '14 at 19:38
Isn't the CH-47 Chinook also an example of intermeshing rotors? RedGrittyBrick Sep 20 '14 at 20:27
@RedGrittyBrick : If you notice closely, the Chinook has its rotor discs installed at slightly different heights!
Also, the intermeshing rotors concept has the rotor masts within the same housing. This is unlike in the
Chinook, where the rotor shafts are separated by a very wide distance. Raj Sep 20 '14 at 20:36
1

The point of the tipjet is that it's only the friction in the rotor bearing that would cause the body of the
helicopter to counter-rotate? And that's presumably negligible compared wind buffetting and the air
resistance of bodily rotating a helicopter so nothing much happens as long as you're not trying to hover for a
long time in still air. David Richerby Sep 21 '14 at 9:55

@Raj is entirely correct, these are all the current solutions to torque in helicopters. Each is something of a
compromise. The tail rotor is very common, but uses some 15% of the engine power just to keep the
helicopter straight. Tandem rotors like the CH-47 are great but give it a huge rotor area. Co-axial has a
smaller foot-print, but the rotor mechanism is extremely complex and hence prone to failure. Maxcelcat
Jan 9 '15 at 4:47

Another option to build a helicopter without a tail, is to use active flapping. Basically the idea is to
not counteract the torque of the main rotor, but use a rotor concept that does not generate a
torque.
At the Technical University Delft they applied this principle to build the Ornicopter (a mix of the
words helicopter and ornithopter), a tailless helicopter. Flight tests have been performed using
this prototype.
According to the university:
The Active Flapping
The active flapping of blades is the key for the Ornicopter concept. In this manner, the blade

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aircraft design - How can a helicopter be designed without a tail rotor? - Aviation Stack Exchange

can generate a propulsive force to rotate itself, and hence the shaft torque is not needed. This
results in a torque-less main rotor, i.e. the tail rotor can be eliminated.
More info here

answered Jul 17 '15 at 12:34

ROIMaison
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