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A Gyrodyne is a type of VTOL aircraft with a helicopter rotor-like system that is driven by its engine for takeoff and landing and also includes one or more conventional propellers to provide forward thrust during cruising flight. Lift during forward flight is provided by a combination of the rotor, like an autogyro, as well as conventional wings. Due to a number of issues, there is some confusion over the term "gyrodyne", and the terms compound helicopter and compound gyroplane are frequently used to describe the same design. The gyrodyne is one of a number of similar concepts which attempt to provide helicopter-like low-speed performance and conventional fixed-wing high-speeds, including tiltrotors and tiltwings. In response to a Royal Navy request for a helicopter, Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett designed the gyrodyne whilst serving as the chief engineer of the Cierva Autogiro Company. The gyrodyne was envisioned as an intermediate type of rotorcraft, its rotor operating parallel to the flightpath to minimize axial flow with one or more propellers providing propulsion. Bennett's patent covered a variety of designs, which has led to some of the terminology confusion - other issues including the trademarked Gyrodyne Company of America and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) classification of rotorcraft. In recent years, a related concept has been promoted under the name heliplane. Originally used to market gyroplanes built by two different companies, the term has been adopted to describe a Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) program to develop advances in rotorcraft technology with the goal of overcoming the current limitations of helicopters in both speed and payload. ==History== In Britain, Dr. James Allan Jamieson Bennett, Chief Engineer of the Cierva Autogiro Company, in 1936 conceived an intermediate type of rotorcraft, which he named "gyrodyne" and which was tendered to the British Government in response to an Air Ministry specification. In 1939, Bennett was issued a patent from the UK Patent Office, assigned to the Cierva Autogiro Company. On 23 August 1940 the Autogiro Company of America, licensees of the Cierva Autogiro Company, Ltd., filed a corresponding patent application in the United States. On 27 April 1943, US patent #2,317,340 was issued to the Autogiro Company of America. The patents describe a gyrodyne as: Bennett's concept described a shaft-driven rotor, with anti-torque and propulsion for translational flight provided by one or more propellers mounted on stub wings. With thrust being provided by the propellers at cruise speeds, power would be provided to the rotor only to overcome the profile drag of the rotor, operating in a more efficient manner than the freewheeling rotor of an autogyro in autorotation. Bennett described this flight regime of the gyrodyne as an "intermediate state", requiring power to be supplied to both the rotor and the propulsion system. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア(Wikipedia)』 ■ウィキペディアで「Gyrodyne」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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