The compound helicopter configuration and the

helicopter speed trap

Newman, Simon . Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology ; Bradford Vol. 69, Iss. 5, (1997): 407.

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ABSTRACT (ABSTRACT)
This article explains the origins of rotor aerodynamic limits for helicopters including retreating and advancing
blade limits. The compounding of a helicopter for higher forward speed is also examined.

FULL TEXT

Simon Newman: Lecturer in Helicopter Engineering in the Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics, University
of Southampton, Southampton, UK

Introduction

In the early evening of 11 August 1986, over the Somerset Levels, a Westland Lynx helicopter broke the world
speed record by attaining a speed of 249.1mph. This was a result of much research and development work, over a
number of years, to produce a helicopter main rotor blade capable of achieving such speeds. If this is compared
with the Curtiss R3C-1 which took the world speed record from France with a speed of 266.5mph in November
1923, the forward flight speed capabilities of the helicopter can be seen to be comparatively limited. Both fixed
wing and rotary wing air vehicles have to obey the same aerodynamic laws and in the case of the Curtiss, both are
powered by a rotating aerodynamic device: the airscrew for the Curtiss and the main rotor for the Lynx. So why is
the helicopter so limited in speed? To answer this question, a popular misunderstanding has to be cleared up. The
helicopter rotor has often been seen as an equivalent to a fixed wing propeller. The propeller flies along its axis of
rotation and, therefore, each blade will see, essentially, the same aerodynamic environment. There will be
perturbations caused by the influence of engine nacelles and the wing itself but the flow patterns are basically
axisymmetric over the propeller blades. If this notion is blindly extrapolated to the helicopter then the main rotor
has to operate with its shaft horizontal and the rotor blades flying in a vertical plane. There is, therefore, no means
of supporting the weight of the aircraft, since no wings are present, and the travel comfort of the passengers and
crew will be totally non-existent with them all piled in a heap around the front of the cockpit! Figure 1 shows the
difference.

The origins of the rotor aerodynamic limits

The helicopter must achieve a steady hovering flight condition under total control and with an efficient
performance. This is achieved with a large main rotor size where the blades are rotating in a horizontal plane. This
situation must then be transferred to forward flight with the existing propulsive device, namely the main rotor, and
in order to maintain a sensible airframe attitude, the main rotor blades must generate a forward force component
and translate in an essentially edgewise manner. If the aerodynamic situation of a particular rotor blade is
considered then a major problem occurs. Referring to Figure 2, the effect can be seen. It shows the situation for
two blade positions. These are when the blades are perpendicular to the flight direction. (The rotor rotates in an

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anticlockwise direction.) The lift on a rotor blade is generated by airflow over the blade which is therefore
determined by the speed of that airflow. The effect of rotation will give a uniform increase in airspeed over the
blades, from root to tip, which will be constant as the blade rotates. The airspeed of the entire aircraft, however, is
in a particular direction which will cause a changing influence on the rotating blade. The rotor disc naturally divides
into two halves split by the forward flight direction. On one half (the advancing side) the blades rotate forwards
and so the rotational speed and forward flight speeds add together. On the other half (the retreating side) the
airflow speeds subtract. The advancing side will therefore generate a higher lift force and so the rotor will generate
a rolling moment and controlled flight will be impossible. In addition, over the root end of the blades, the rotational
speed is less than the forward speed of the helicopter. This gives rise to a small circular region on the retreating
half of the rotor disc where the flow direction is backwards over the blade, i.e. from trailing edge to leading edge.
For obvious reasons this is known as the reverse flow region.

The above discussion makes the assumption that, like the airscrew propeller, the blades are rigidly fixed to the
rotor hub and shaft which enables the rolling moment to be transferred to the fuselage. This is the rub and the
problem was originally faced by pioneers of the autogyro aircraft. The solution adopted was to isolate the fuselage
from the rolling moment by attaching the rotor blades to the hub via a hinge mechanism which allows the blades
to move out of the plane of rotation. This motion is termed flapping and effectively cures the rolling moment
problem by preventing its transmission to the hub and fuselage.

'...While the flapping hinge prevents the blade lift variation in affecting the fuselage it also allows the rotor blades a
freedom to move under the influences of aerodynamic lift and the considerable centrifugal forces caused by the
rotation of the rotor...'

While the flapping hinge prevents the blade lift variation in affecting the fuselage it also allows the rotor blades a
freedom to move under the influences of aerodynamic lift and the considerable centrifugal forces caused by the
rotation of the rotor. As the rotor moves away from the hover into forward flight, the blades begin to move between
the advancing and retreating sides. The variation in blade lift will cause the blades to flap in a manner which gives
another difficulty. On the advancing side, the aerodynamic lift causes the lift to exceed the centrifugal effects and
the blade will accelerate upwards in flap. This will take a time to give a deflection and, like a resonant system, will
take close to 90[degrees] of rotation to give the maximum amplitude. In contrast, the reverse happens to the
blades on the retreating side which will accelerate downwards and experience a similar delay in achieving
maximum deflection downwards. Since the acceleration maxima are achieved when the blades are laterally placed,
the blade flapping extrema, with the 90[degrees] delay, will occur in a longitudinal sense and the rotor disc plane
will effectively tilt rearwards. Since the overall rotor thrust direction is perpendicular to the rotor disc plane this will
cause a rearward tilt of this thrust vector and the aircraft will pitch nose up and stop. The isolation of the rolling
moment has been achieved but with the accompanying problem of not being able to sustain forward flight.

So how can this problem be overcome? In order for the helicopter to move into forward flight and to maintain this
condition the rotor disc has to be forced to tilt forwards against its natural tendency to tilt rearwards. The only
option remaining is to adjust the blade lift so that it is reduced on the advancing side and increased on the
retreating side. The air velocity over the rotor blades experiences the exact opposite and so the only remaining
freedom must be invoked, namely the blade pitch angle. This quantity must be reduced on the advancing side and
increased on the retreating side to enable the rotor to remain in a forward tilting attitude. This is known as cyclic
pitch as it changes in a sinusoidal manner over the blade rotation around the azimuth. The helicopter pilot is,
therefore, given two controls for the main rotor. The first is the collective lever which adjusts the blade pitch to all
rotor blades simultaneously and acts as a rotor thrust control. The second control is the cyclic pitch stick which
adjusts the phasing of the changing blade pitch around the azimuth and therefore the orientation of the rotor disc

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and hence the direction of the rotor thrust vector.

'...The change can be seen very clearly where the lift potential is thrown away by the reduction in blade pitch, on
the advancing side, while the lift is required on the part of the rotor least able to supply it, namely the retreating
side...'

This now creates a contradiction where the ability of the rotor to generate thrust lies on the advancing side of the
disc while the effort in generating lift is now required from the retreating side. What does this do for the rotor
performance? Figure 3 shows contours of dynamic pressure of the air over the rotor blade across the entire rotor
disc. This figure shows the normal azimuthal angle convention of zero when the blade lies over the tail of the
helicopter and increases with the rotation of the rotor. Therefore the front of the rotor is at 180[degrees]. This is for
an untrimmed rotor, in other words without the application of cyclic pitch. The concentration of the contours over
the advancing side compared to the retreating side demonstrates the lift potential on the former. Figure 4 shows
the same contours only for the situation where sufficient cyclic pitch has been applied to trim the rotor into
forward flight. The change can be seen very clearly where the lift potential is thrown away by the reduction in blade
pitch, on the advancing side, while the lift is required on the part of the rotor least able to supply it, namely the
retreating side.

Retreating blade limit

If the aerodynamic conditions surrounding a particular rotor blade tip are considered then as the blade traverses
away from the tail direction the dynamic pressure increases to a maximum at 90[degrees] azimuth angle but the
blade pitch is low owing to the cyclic pitch. As it moves towards the nose of the aircraft the pitch angle begins to
rise and the dynamic pressure to fall. This continues into the retreating side of the disc reaching the extrema at
270[degrees] azimuth angle where the pitch is a maximum and the dynamic pressure is a minimum.

'...The maximum blade pitch angle will be limited by the characteristics of the aerofoil section and on the retreating
side of the disc the collective and cyclic pitch angles both add together to increase the blade pitch...'

The situation for the blade root is even more complex on the retreating side owing to the presence of the reverse
flow region. As it traverses this circular area on the retreating side of the disc the airflow actually reverses
direction from trailing edge to leading edge. As the forward speed of the helicopter increases in magnitude the
difference in dynamic pressure between the advancing and retreating sides of the disc becomes greater. The
cyclic pitch will increase in value as the rotor disc must tilt further forward to overcome the increasing drag of the
entire aircraft. The size of the reverse flow region increases, so more of the root end of the blade is immersed in
backward flow during the passage through this region of the disc. This description gives the basic explanation of
the rotor limits shown in Figure 5. If the rotor blade tip is again considered, as the forward speed increases the
amount of cyclic pitch must necessarily increase. The maximum blade pitch angle will be limited by the
characteristics of the aerofoil section and on the retreating side of the disc the collective and cyclic pitch angles
both add together to increase the blade pitch. Because of this, the amount of collective pitch which can be applied
without stalling the blade must be reduced to accompany the increase in cyclic pitch. The rotor thrust capability is
therefore reduced and this is shown in Figure 5 as the negatively sloping line.

Advancing blade limit

On the advancing side of the disc, however, the situation is entirely different. The air flow velocity over the blades
is increasing and so a high Mach number condition will be experienced. The collective and cyclic pitch angles

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subtract and so a low pitch angle will occur. However, at high Mach numbers the allowable aerofoil pitch angle
before stall occurs rapidly reduces, because of the presence of shock waves, and so the blade pitch, and rotor
thrust, will be limited. As the helicopter moves from the hover and accelerates into forward flight, the increasing
dynamic pressure over the blades in the advancing half of the disc will enable the rotor to generate additional
thrust, ignoring the retreating side for the moment. As the higher speeds are reached the Mach number problem
exerts its authority and the rotor thrust capability drops very sharply as shown in Figure 5. The helicopter rotor is
therefore boxed in between two types of limit. The retreating limit exists throughout the whole speed range until
the rapidly applied limit of the high Mach number advancing blade comes into play and effectively provides a brick
wall to the increase in forward speed. The helicopter is expected to fly efficiently in two different aerodynamic
regimes and the result is the basis for the helicopter being speed limited. It originates in the requirement of the
rotor to move in an edgewise sense which itself originates in the helicopter needing to hover and translate into
forward flight.

In order to try to alleviate the rotor thrust limits, rotor designers will find themselves trapped in a no win situation.
An increase in rotor rotational speed will ease the problem on the retreating side by increasing the dynamic
pressure. However, this drives the advancing side of the rotor disc further into the high Mach number problem and
the advancing blade limit will become more restrictive. Slowing the rotor speed will have the opposite effect by
easing the Mach number problems of the advancing side while exacerbating the difficulties found with the
retreating side. Additionally, this reduction in rotor speed will have the effect of increasing the extent of the reverse
flow region.

The compounding of a helicopter

Reference to Figure 5 shows that in order to increase the forward speed of the helicopter significantly, both
retreating and advancing blade limits must be eased. A possible solution to the retreating blade problem is to
offload the rotor by adding wings to the fuselage to support, in part, the weight of the aircraft. This is known as lift
compounding. The rotor thrust can be reduced but what must not be forgotten is the fact that the main rotor must
still supply the forward propulsive force. With the reduced thrust the forward disc tilt of the main rotor must be
increased. This will require an increase in cyclic pitch which is negating the benefits of a reduction in rotor thrust.
Lift compounding has its place but it can only provide a marginal increase in forward speed. If, however, the
propulsion is provided by an additional device, the forward disc tilt of the main rotor is not required and the
benefits of offloading the main rotor can be used to good effect. This is known as fully compounding. This
situation has been used on various research aircraft and a notable example is the Fairey Gyrodyne shown in Figure
6. Rather than a conventional tail rotor placed at the rear of the tail for torque control, a forward facing propeller
was used gaining the added benefit of forward propulsion. This aircraft itself held the world speed record for G
class aircraft of 124.3mph in June 1948. A more modern example is the Lockheed Cheyenne where a pusher
propeller was incorporated to the tail boom in synchronization with a conventional tail rotor.

It is the addition of both lift augmentation and propulsion to the helicopter which allows the helicopter designer to
contemplate high speed. Figure 7 shows a generic fully compounded helicopter.

The Fairey Rotodyne, as shown in Figure 8 was another type of compound helicopter configuration and was
particularly noteworthy because of its use of tip propulsion to drive the main rotor. This has the advantage of no
requirement for torque control except for yaw manoeuvres. The intended target was the civil market and auxiliary
wings (albeit small) were used for lift augmentation, but the incorporation of a different strategy was used for the
rotor. The rotor was allowed to operate naturally without the use of cyclic pitch. In other words the flapping hinges
caused the blades to flap and the rotor disc would tilt rearwards. Forward propulsion was provided by conventional

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airscrews to overcome the airframe drag and the effect of the rearward inclination of the main rotor thrust vector.
The Rotodyne would take off and hover as a conventional helicopter under the power of the tip drive. Any
manoeuvring torque for yaw was provided by differential thrust on the airscrews. These would work in unison
when forward propulsion was required. As the aircraft transferred to forward flight the rotor would tilt rearwards
and behave like an autogyro. The upflow through the rotor disc caused by the rearward tilt and the forward flight
speed powered the rotor, like a windmill, and the tip drive could be progressively removed.

'...In 1958, the Rotodyne achievedflight speeds of 191mph but thenoise from the tip jets proved its downfall...'

In 1958, the Rotodyne achieved flight speeds of 191mph but the noise from the tip jets proved its downfall.
However, it demonstrated the possibilities of high speed VTOL transport.

High forward speed

If substantial increases in forward flight speed are to be contemplated for the helicopter, additional features are
necessary. The high Mach number problem of the advancing blade requires that the rotational speed of the rotor
be reduced. This exacerbates the difficulties of the retreating blades and, in particular, the increase in the size of
the reverse flow region. To support the weight of the aircraft this region of the disc must be able to provide lift. The
rotor blade cannot be reversed physically but the use of blowing through a tangential slot can effectively turn the
blade aerodynamically. The concept is shown in Figure 9. This blowing must be properly sequenced to occur over
the appropriate section of the blade for the correct amount of azimuthal travel. This is possible but requires a
substantial refinement of the technology to make it a reality.

A student group project was undertaken at Southampton to design such a rotorcraft. It had to be capable of 300
knots and carry a payload of 30 passengers. The layout of the aircraft is shown in Figure 10 and was based on the
Rotodyne concept. Notable features are that the rotor supports the entire aircraft weight and a sequential blowing
system was used to overcome the problem of the reverse flow region. The rotor was powered by an internal
transmission so a tail rotor was required. This was provided by a ducted fan which could be rotated in azimuth to
double as a forward propulsion unit. At the higher speeds the main rotor requires slowing, to avoid high Mach
number effects, but the fan speed needs to be maintained to supply the increasing propulsive force. It was
considered very important to keep both rotors mechanically linked, to enable power off landings to be
accomplished, so a variable ratio transmission system was developed. As a concept it proved feasible but much
further development will be necessary.

Concluding remarks

This article has described different methods of achieving high speed flight with an airframe which takes off and
lands vertically and also provides an efficient hover performance. The basic problems of the rotor aerodynamics
have been outlined and how they limit the speed of the aircraft. The manner in which these problems drive the
design towards the compound helicopter have been discussed. They are not unique solutions since tilt rotor and
tilt wing configurations exist and have, indeed, flown.

To achieve such a high speed VTOL compound helicopter will require a considerable investment in time and
technology for the future. To get it right would make it, in the author's opinion, a major step forward for the rotary
wing air vehicle.

Illustration

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Caption: Figure 1; Lift and propulsion of fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft; Figure 2; The effect of forward flight
velocity on a helicopter main rotor; Figure 3; Contours of constant dynamic pressure - untrimmed rotor; Figure 4;
Contours of constant dynamic pressure - trimmed rotor; Figure 5; Forward flight speed trap; Figure 7; Compound
helicopter configuration; Figure 6; Fairey Gyrodyne (courtesy GKN Westland); Figure 9; The principle of forward
blowing to reverse an aerofoil aerodynamically; Figure 8; Fairey Rotodyne (courtesy GKN Westland); Figure 10;
University of Southampton compound helicopter design

DETAILS

Subject: Helicopters; Research; Design; Aerodynamics; Aircraft; Military helicopters

Classification: 8680: Transportation equipment industry; 5400: Research &development

Publication title: Aircraft Engineering and Aerospace Technology; Bradford

Volume: 69

Issue: 5

Pages: 407

Number of pages: 0

Publication year: 1997

Publication date: 1997

Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing Limited

Place of publication: Bradford

Country of publication: United Kingdom, Bradford

Publication subject: Aeronautics And Space Flight, Engineering

ISSN: 17488842

e-ISSN: 17584213

CODEN: AATEEB

Source type: Scholarly Journal

Language of publication: English

Document type: Feature

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1108/00022669710177363

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 ProQuest document ID: 213783009

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Copyright: Copyright MCB UP Limited (MCB) 1997

Last updated: 2022-11-13

Database: ABI/INFORM Collection

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