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     THE UNICORN GYRO COPTER

Development of the gyrocopter “UNICORN” started in 1987. First flight was in 1995.

Ground testing was conducted during 1993/94.

The original design goal was a gyro with a single blade rotor. At the time there was no rotor on the market suitable for conversion to single blade. This issue was dropped and the remaining main goal was to keep the gyro in the ultra light category. As it turned out, this goal was met while still retaining all the features of a heavier machine.

These features are:

Spring suspension on the main landing gear is achieved with a composite axle. Sufficient damping is provided with the core design.

More design details.

The design effort began is 1987 with safety as a prime consideration. Three safety issues were followed and implemented in the design.

The first one was the rotor shaft. the rotor shaft is held in the structure in a way that makes it impassible to separate while under load, even if the holding element is loosening. This means there is no “live or death nut”.

The second feature is the horizontal stabilizer. It never occurred to me to even consider a design without it. The stabilizer is located outside of the prop wash, because I believe it would be totally ineffective inside the prop wash unless the engine is not running. This factor was demonstrated during flight testing with the rudder function. The rudder is fully emerged in the prop wash, which is why it has a comparatively large vertical fin. When the gyro is banked without coordinated rudder, it keeps its heading while  sliding to the side. This behavior is also true for a horizontal surface in the prop wash.

Finally, the third safety feature is a thrust line through the vertical center of gravity. The solution chosen for this feature is certainly, even today, very controversial. After studying what has been done ducted fans, I came to the conclusion that it could be made to a workable solution.

For more information, see the section DUCTED FAN.

The first flight of this machine was in 1995. During the curse of five years, 20 hours flying time where accumulated, with the result of a fully debugged gyro copter, ready for a higher power propulsion system.

The engine installed for these tests was a 440 KAWASAKI with 40hp. This low power together with the low efficiency inherent in the fan configuration used, did not allow to do any flying beyond craw hops of up to 50ft above the runway. However it was totally sufficient to conduct the testing intented. The flight characteristics such as maneuverability and stability   are very good. The gyro was flown many times in wind of up to 20kt from up to 45deg cross without any problems.Take off speed at 450lb gross weight was 42MPH exactly as calculated and rotor RPM with DRAGON WINGS blades was 340RPM. The rotor was regularly pre rotated to 200RPM.

Future.

The next step is a larger engine and improved fan configuration. The engine will be a tuned up ROTAX 582 driving the fan direct.

Some analytical work has also began on a new high speed rotor, using the UNICORN as a test bed.

In April 2002 a test for an electric prerotator was conducted  with good success. The motor used was a motorcycle starter motor which I stripped of the reduction gear in order to reduce initial torque and increase the speed range. I appears that a pre rotation of higher than 150 RPM can be achieved within a time similar to a mechanical prerotator.

unicorn@aic-fl.com

[default] [GYRO] [DUCTED FAN] [PRAGMA] [WANKEL] [UNICORN PLACE]