The next big advance in flight?

[unixronin]

radarrider pointed out this article about a guy who may just have come up with a quieter, safer, more efficient replacement for the majority of helicopter applications.  This could be The Next Big Thing in aviation.

Comments

[unixronin.livejournal.com]

OK, so they get out of advancing-blade compressibility, and the rotation's fast enough to minimize aerodynamic divergence on the rotor, but if you read carefully, they're trying to minimize the admission but they still have unsolved rotor stability problems due to retreating-blade aerodynamics at high µ.

[ehintz.livejournal.com]

I guess it's subject to interpretation... perhaps they are waffling, perhaps not-I'll certainly grant that they could be. Too bad they had the gear accident, they were going to do the attempt sometime around late Dec of '03 IIRC. I guess once they make the attempt we'll know...