Planform Morphing Airframe Rotor Disc Control

davh12

Junior Member
Spent a couple of years trying to prove this platform concept. It was intended to be a design for a manned platform, but right now ...small scale testing. One patent and a hand full of crashes to date...almost satisfied. Two separate airframes inter-connected. Some have called it weight shifting, but it's not the typical "linear shift" of weight within a rigid static airframe. ...example...weight shifts aft/up during forwar flight. Any change in weight results in airframe in flight reconfiguration changes at equal moments/span of motion of both airframes and rotor disc orientation. Small scale sling load test hopefully this next week.

http://envisionrotorsystems.blogspot.com/2012/08/human-interface-rotor-systems-and.html

Outdoor flight:
http://envisionrotorsystems.blogspot.com/2012/08/outdoor-flight.html

Firts test flight when it did not crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fV_Uuo8J_DA

Airframe detail:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qs1OwlBSvsk

3 (2).JPG

Single mast HIR morphing airframe. A couple of crashes and several burnt out motors and mixer controllers. I'm rebuilding the single mast from the ground up.


5(2).JPG
 
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davh12

Junior Member
Been a while

Sorry I have not logged on. I'm stationed in Korea and getting helo parts shipped here is tricky. They have stores here, but some of the prices are less than desirable. I'm starting the larger coax of this design above. Will have a 15 to 18 rotor diameter, better motors, etc so that I can tweak the system a little better. I need better stability. Just minor tweaks. The gas powered version will have collective pitch. I'm in the preliminary sketches now. I do not want the collective pitch to look precarious as seen in some russian coax platforms. Sorry it's been so long. Being military is not conducive to a productive fabrication environment. More crashes and successes in the near future. Better quality vid clips as well.

Dave
 

davh12

Junior Member
Thanx..........crashed this one twice before I got most of the bugs worked out. This is 2nd proto of coax. I've had 3 protos of the single.........crashes too.
 

davh12

Junior Member
I've been stationed in Korea for the last 11 months..........no raw materials or tooling for fabrication that I could get started with and with the government shut down affecting those of us in the military, my wife and I have had to watch the budget in the event that the government decides not to pay the military.
The project is not dead, just on hold. I have changes that will be seen in the larger coaxial version as well as the single mast helo with a tail rotor. Both will be larger scale and I have rough sketches for a tandem version as well. Sorry for the long periods of time between posts.
Dave
 

davh12

Junior Member
You Tube or Google one deleted my videos when they "merged". There's apps I do not need and they messed everything up. Lost all my vids clips of the test flights. Once I get the motherboard repaired on my laptop, I have back up vid clips.
 

davh12

Junior Member
Ok...finally got my laptop up and going and was able to recover my vid clips.

First of all, the yaw issue was a two part problem: 1st I rushed and 2nd, in so doing I failed to trim the two electric motors. This is the 2nd prototype. It should have occurred to me to adjust the trim of the motors, but I kept adjusting the yaw paddle to the left to give it more yaw right authority....again...never rush.
 
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davh12

Junior Member
Details of the airframes moving within one another, but at equal moments/spans of movement. Clearly a larger UAS/UAV or even a manned platform with require collective pitch, but this is the start. Next pltform will have lateral manipulation as well and one motor with a gear box to powere the coax rotors.
In this vid, it still did not dawn on me to trim the motors and the loss of the yaw authority became progressively worse. There must be at least 2 points of attachment between the two airframes otherwise the helo will just hover and the other airframe will just swing like a clock pendulum with no control on the "X" axis forward/aft.
 
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davh12

Junior Member
In this clip it's the first outdoor flight...still have not clued in about trimming the motors as you can tell by the airframe fish taling attitude and my not paying attention and keeping the forward pitch toggle pushed forward allowing the helo to fly out of the camera frame too much. The next flight after this, I had a hard landing. Trim for motors was so bad...then it dawned on me, but when I turned to the camera to shut it off, I reached over, letting go of the throttle....foolish, and the helo hit the tennis court from 15 feet high. However, next week I will post the video of when I was preparing to fix the airframe and you will see what happens when there are not two points of attachment betweeen the 2 airframes with the weight equally distributed between the two. Pendulum effect.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi18yDiDviU
 

davh12

Junior Member
Earth Sciteach/xuzme720,
Thanks......I have not had the time to jump into this project with both feet given "time" and traveling. I should be leaving Korea in a month or two and after the transition out of the military, I hope to get things started back up.

The coax airframe functions the same as the single mast with a tail rotor outlined in the patent I have for this airframe. I opted to give coax a shot because I was so far in left field with this concept because it was not just "tilt mast" and there was less fuss with torque than what I had ran into with the 1st 3 prototypes (crashes) of the single mast. The next two steps are to go back to the single mast now that I've learned from the mistakes with the coax platform and the larger scale coaxial platform with a gimbal that will allow lateral manipulation as well, but also collective pitch. Something not seen in the manned platforms such as the Airscooter, Gen tech "GEN H4", or the Nolan Brothers pendulum coax. All of which are fixed pitch.
This pic below is the 1st coax proto type and the CG was too high. resulted in downward pitch and loss of control When I tried to correct it with aft toggle, the mast tilt was too much causing over correction, yaw slightly, downward pitch and subsequent failure

hir-2.jpg
 
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davh12

Junior Member
Back in the States.....retiring next year. I'm way behind on this platform. With the larger electric coax that flew ok, I'm having issues keeping the 2 separate motors trimmed, causes too much yaw. The larger platform will be gas powered or larger electric, given newer motors with less weight. However, I want to attempt "mast within a mast" and collective pitch, yet without double swash plates. Gearing will be gates pully to 3 right angle gearbox.

Back on the rough aluminum mock up for the single rotor. Same platform concept as the coax, but the single mast was the concept that I used to patent the system. Still 2 semi rigid airframes that move within one another. I've decided to go with a different Slide mech to control the airframes. Does the same as the other, but cuts weight.
 

davh12

Junior Member
Simple rough mock up frame for single mast. Clearly electric flying proto will be smaller. This larger mock up is just easier to work thru the issues on than small scale. Longitudinal lever from upper airframe will be the same, yet differnet tilt control mech. For practical purposes of testing spans of motion between airframes/points of binding, I opted for a simple spherical rod end/heim joint to use as a gimbal to join/manipuate both airframes in the mock up. Actual platform will have a more rigid gimbal. I've also decided that 3 points of attachment between the 2 airframes is better. Tweaking that on paper.

HIR 1.jpg HIR 2.jpg HIR 4.jpg