These potential assets do not take into consideration the fact that
efficiency is required not only in rising, landing, and remaining
stationary in the air, but also in actual flight. It must be evident
that if a certain amount of the motive force is used in maintaining the
machine off the ground, that amount of force is missing from the total
of horizontal driving power. Again, it is often assumed by advocates of
this form of flight that the rapidity of climb of the helicopter would
be far greater than that of the driven plane; this view overlooks the
fact that the maintenance of aerodynamic support would claim the greater
part of the engine-power; the rate of ascent would be governed by the
amount of power that could be developed surplus to that required for
maintenance.
This is best explained by actual figures: assuming that a propeller 15
ft. in diameter is used, almost 50 horse-power would be required to
get an upward lift of 1,000 pounds; this amount of horse-power would be
continually absorbed in maintaining the machine in the air at any given
level; for actual lift from one level to another at a speed of eleven
feet per second a further 20 horse-power would be required, which means
that 70 horse-power must be constantly provided for; this absorption
of power in the mere maintenance of aero-dynamic support is a permanent
drawback.
The attraction of the helicopter lies, probably, in the ease with which
flight is demonstrated by means of models constructed on this principle,
but one truism with regard to the principles of flight is that the
problems change remarkably, and often unexpectedly, with the size of
the machine constructed for experiment. Berriman, in a brief but very
interesting manual entitled Principles of Flight, assumed that 'there is
a significant dimension of which the effective area is an expression
of the second power, while the weight became an expression of the third
power. Then once again we have the two-thirds power law militating
against the successful construction of large helicopters, on the ground
that the essential weight increases disproportionately fast to the
effective area. From a consideration of the structural features of
propellers it is evident that this particular relationship does not
apply in practice, but it seems reasonable that some such governing
factor should exist as an explanation of the apparent failure of all
full-sized machines that have been constructed. Among models there is
nothing more strikingly successful than the toy helicopter, in which the
essential weight is so small compared with the effective area.'
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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