Will a heli fly with only 1 main blade.???

[Tim Procter]

I would have bet money the answer was no..


Check this out..WTF..

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9sv5FCn-eUM]YouTube - The single bladed Belt CP[/ame]

[Mart61]

Cool! That's a neat way of cutting down on blade costs eh?

[Sqwidge]

I like the canopy

[kamikaze]

You could fly any heli with one blade as long as th other grip was weighted to keep the head in balance. I'm sure the physics boffins on here could come up with the formula for the required weight. Only problem is that it would only generate approx half the lift.
I was told about a 700 that threw a blade but that didn't end well as the heli destroyed itself before it even hit the floor.

[unwind-protect]

As I understand it, the real problem (once you've sorted out the counterbalance) is that as lift is only generated at one 'point' at any instance, you end up with a lot of vibration.

[SRH990]

It was experimented with years ago with a weighted rod replacing the missing blade, same C of G and weight. Obviously not a blinding success as we're all still flying with two blades (most of the time )

[Steve]

The more blades you add, the less efficient the system becomes, so in theory a single bladed head should be more efficient, not less efficient than a two bladed equivalent.

Years ago, I remember reading magazine articles where chaps were trying to break world speed records with control line planes. They always used to use single bladed counter balanced props to maximise performance.

[shaun.e]

Its just not right!

[unwind-protect]

The more blades you add, the less efficient the system becomes, so in theory a single bladed head should be more efficient, not less efficient than a two bladed equivalent.

That's my understanding, too: the more blades you have, the more the blades end up flying in the wake of the preceding blades.

However, to generate a given amount of lift, the fewer blades, the faster you have to run them (for a given rotor diameter), which is less efficient. Perhaps it makes sense if you're after maximum speed, rather than power, as you're going to have to run the prop very fast anyway.

[Helimadlarry]

I would love to see how it does doing some 3D

[kamikaze]

Fully agree,thats why I said approx half. Efficiency falls as the number of blades increases until there are so many blades that a disc is formed and virtually no lift is generated at all

[adieuk]

i love the canopy ... now where did the mrs put that bottle