WI: Helicopters before Aircraft

Saphroneth

Banned
sorry for being snarky. Its just that i don't understand what the fuzz is all about and i feel like being ignored and misunderstood. I wasn't sure when the first operational helicopter was made but i knew it was either the 30's or the 40's so i mentioned them both. Big deal.

Why are we even discussing this anyway? Its not important to the scenario i made, i just wanted to turn the roles of the 2 around. Doesn't matter if its 30's or 40's for the scenario. Who cares about exact dates of certain inventions? Its a simple scenario.

If someone says: "This or that is invented earlier" they don't have to give specific details on the how and why, names of inventors that could have done it then, reference books and papers by university graduates right? Just try and imagine it, try and use your imagination on the darned scenario. that is all.
The problem here is that it's like asking for the motorbike to be invented before the bike. Or perhaps the tank before the car.

Helicopters require engines more powerful to get off the ground than regular aircraft do - specifically, they require a much improved power-to-weight ratio. Unless the helicopter appears ex nihilo in a flash of light, then at some point along the path to a workable helicopter someone's going to ask what else this engine can do - and since using wings for lift and a propeller for propulsion is more efficient than using the propeller for both lift and propulsion, then an aeroplane will be easier and quicker to produce than finishing the work on the helicopter.
And it'll be faster and carry more payload.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
There's an AH/SF concept called Steam Engine Time. The idea is that sometimes, an invention can come along where it's a quantum leap in possibility... but other times, a major invention comes along because it's the "time" for that invention. Suddenly there's a market, suddenly there's the materials to make it work, and then the constant tinkering along those lines gets results everywhere.

Steam engines are the go-to example because people kept tinkering for centuries. Heron of Alexander built a toy steam engine in Roman times - but, no market and no materials.

Steam engine after steam engine popped up, but it wasn't steam engine time. Then, suddenly, it was and the steam engine fairly leaped forwards from experimental toy to invaluable device - because people kept inventing it all that time, it's just that now there was the ability to produce something functional and a market willing to invest in it.


Aircraft are similar, there's some arguments over which country the first powered flight took place in because - all of a sudden - the power that could be developed from engines was enough to carry themselves and something else at speed, and the lift that could be generated from wings was enough to lift themselves and the engine and a pilot.
The technology became able to support what had been being invented constantly and failing.


Now, a helicopter requires an engine more powerful than that of an aircraft, and it is also a less intuitive idea - it's not "a gliding bird", it's something more mechanical.


So to get a helicopter before a regular aircraft basically requires plunging decades (at least forty years, counting how the very existence of aircraft sped up aircraft engine development) into Steam Engine Time, and then suddenly producing a fully functioning internal combustion engine. Before inventing the steam engine.
 
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I assume that somewhere in here also includes the technology for variable pitch of tail rotors? Not being snarky,:eek: ljust wondering.:confused: WERE THERE any practical helos before the VS-300?

A tail rotor is just a simple variable pitch propeller, and not even a particularly big one. Once you solved the problem of having a practical main rotor, the tail rotor is just an afterthought. In fact if Igor Sikorsky did anything revolutionary in his designs, it was that he realized that something as simple as a tail rotor could save you a second main rotor and all problems associated with it.

As for the second part, I think you are giving Sikorskiy too much of a credit. By the time he flew his famous VS300 ( 1939 to 1941) there had already flown in France, the Brequet-Dorand 'Gyroplane Laboratoire' with a set of two coaxial rotors and in Germany Focke-Angelis FA-61 with two separate rotors on outriggers. Also in Germany, Anton Flettner was making good progress with his design of a helicopter using two intermeshing rotors while in the US Bell aircraft was experimenting with its own helicopter, the Bell 30.

By the end of the war, Sikorskiy had delivers 29 units of its R4, the first operational helicopter. But Flettner was a close second with his Fl282 Kolibri (hummingbird) navy observation helicopter. (Some sources even suggest Flettner beat Sikorski to the order for the first production helicopter). Focke Angelis was running a pre-series of its Fa223 6-person transport helicopter. In America meanwhile Bell was developing its own model 30 research helicopter into the model 47.

Development of the French Breguet-Dorand was ended by the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, so we van only guess what Breguet could have accomplished by 1945.

All this to say that although Sikorskya DID do a good job in developing the modern helicopter, he was barely alone and if an Alien Space Butterfly had flapped his wings on a different side of the mountain, we might now celebrate Louis Breguet or Anton Flettner as the true father of the helicopter and remember Sikorsky as that guy that mage a fortune building flying boats ant when then lost it all trying to build a practical helicopter.
 
A tail rotor is just a simple variable pitch propeller, and not even a particularly big one. Once you solved the problem of having a practical main rotor, the tail rotor is just an afterthought. In fact if Igor Sikorsky did anything revolutionary in his designs, it was that he realized that something as simple as a tail rotor could save you a second main rotor and all problems associated with it.

As for the second part, I think you are giving Sikorskiy too much of a credit. By the time he flew his famous VS300 (1939 to 1941) (1) there had already flown in France, the Brequet-Dorand 'Gyroplane Laboratoire' with a set of two coaxial rotors and in Germany Focke-Angelis FA-61 with two separate rotors on outriggers. Also in Germany, Anton Flettner was making good progress with his design of a helicopter using two intermeshing rotors while in the US Bell aircraft was experimenting with its own helicopter, the Bell 30.

By the end of the war, Sikorskiy had delivers 29 units of its R4, the first operational helicopter. But Flettner was a close second with his Fl282 Kolibri (hummingbird) navy observation helicopter. (Some sources even suggest Flettner beat Sikorski to the order for the first production helicopter). Focke Angelis was running a pre-series of its Fa223 6-person transport helicopter. In America meanwhile Bell was developing its own model 30 research helicopter into the model 47.

Development of the French Breguet-Dorand was ended by the Nazi invasion of France in 1940, so we van only guess what Breguet could have accomplished by 1945.

All this to say that although Sikorsky DID do a good job in developing the modern helicopter, he was barely alone and if an Alien Space Butterfly had flapped his wings on a different side of the mountain, we might now celebrate Louis Breguet or Anton Flettner as the true father of the helicopter and remember Sikorsky as that guy that mage a fortune building flying boats ant when then lost it all trying to build a practical helicopter.

EDIT 1: 1) In fairness it should be said that Sikorsky did not fly his first practical helicopter until 1940, not 1939.:eek:

Thank you for all that information. Solid research:cool: for which I am grateful.:) AISI however, Skippy the Alien Space Bat would essentially have had to do away with WWII to allow Breguet, Flettner, and for that matter Bell to become the big helicopter pioneers of human history. At least in the 1940s, which certainly had more demanding calls upon the aviation industry.

But even then, with a peaceful 1940s, its more likely that Sikorsky at the minimum becomes the Louis Bleriot or Glenn Curtis of helicopter developmental history. After all, twin-coaxial rotor aircraft represent a technological dead end until science reaches the point where aircraft like Chinooks and Ospreys become practical, and the latter itself is really a VTOL, not a helicopter.

Is there anything that reports on the maneuverability of Breguet's and Flettner's works?:confused:

Special Note: For purposes of full disclosure I should state that I grew up in Stratford, Connecticut (my hometown). In the shadow of Sikorsky Aircraft as it were. I saw Igor Sikorsky himself when he often officiated at the annual Barnum Festival parades in Bridgeport and participated in the Memorial Day Bridgeport Airport airshows. I was also there when after his death that airport was rechristened Sikorsky Memorial Airport.

So yes, I freely admit I am prejudiced:(:p;):eek::eek::eek::eek: when it comes to Old Igor.:cool: He is my hometown's greatest claim to fame. Unless you want to count Gustave Whitehead's 1901 "flight". And frankly, I DON'T.:mad: Document your work or else it doesn't count.:mad:

EDIT 2: Like pretty much everyone else, I credit the Wright Brothers for the dawn of aviation. Everything before them represented uncontrolled flight that would lead to the inevitable crash.

The so-called "Whitehead Flyer" replica created back in the 1970s used a modern day ultralight engine. Even Whitehead's proponents freely admit that they have no idea how Whitehead's engine worked, how it was designed, how heavy it was, or how much horse-power it could generate. Nor do they offer a plausible means by which Whitehead could avoid his own "inevitable crash".

EDIT3: So for my part, I am NOT a "Stratford Exceptionalist":p:D
 
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So yes, I freely admit I am prejudiced:(:p;):eek::eek::eek::eek: when it comes to Old Igor.:cool: He is my hometown's greatest claim to fame. Unless you want to count Gustave Whitehead's 1901 "flight". And frankly, I DON'T.:mad: Document your work or else it doesn't count.:mad:

ah, that explains how far the stick is in the ass...
 
It's doesn't matter, because this is basically impossible without ASB, aeroplanes can be gliders with engines (most of the early ones were), whereas helicopters need a big power-plant, they can't make do with a 12hp engine weighing as much as a man (which was more than a quarter the empty weight of the aircraft.
 
Ennobled
May I suggest that the aircraft industry needed to build a few hundred variable pitch propellers before they could build tail rotors?
Main rotors are even more complex, requiring collective pitch change for lift and even more complex cyclic pitch change to roll or move forward.
Basically helicopters built on a series of naval and airplane technologies before they became practical.
Helicopters never really became practical until constant-speed turbo-shaft engines were perfected during the 1950s.
 
It may just be me (and the folks who report this), but that seems to be an insult.

Please don't insult other members.

I think its more that as the OP, he came into this with his own set pf preconceived notions and considered any challenges to those notions to constitute insults to himself.:(:eek:

And for the record people (CalBear of course already knows this) I didn't report anything.:)
 
I think its more that as the OP, he came into this with his own set pf preconceived notions and considered any challenges to those notions to constitute insults to himself.:(:eek:

And for the record people (CalBear of course already knows this) I didn't report anything.:)

I apologize for the insult. I didn't mean it as a real insult anyway, but fine.

Abou the other thing: I was just expecting a more open minded view by people about my little scenario. Just some short, straight answers would have been enough.
 

Saphroneth

Banned
I apologize for the insult. I didn't mean it as a real insult anyway, but fine.

Abou the other thing: I was just expecting a more open minded view by people about my little scenario. Just some short, straight answers would have been enough.

You did get some short, straight answers. They were essentially informing you that this is so hard as to make it nigh impossible.
Sometimes one comes up with a scenario which can't happen plausibly. I've done it, and now you've done it too.

For this to actually be plausible, you need 1940s era aircraft engines without any actual aircraft - and there's no reason to do the kind of development that produces 1940s era aircraft engines without any aircraft to use them in!

In short, this would probably require entirely different laws of aerodynamics.
 
You did get some short, straight answers. They were essentially informing you that this is so hard as to make it nigh impossible.
Sometimes one comes up with a scenario which can't happen plausibly. I've done it, and now you've done it too.

For this to actually be plausible, you need 1940s era aircraft engines without any actual aircraft - and there's no reason to do the kind of development that produces 1940s era aircraft engines without any aircraft to use them in!

In short, this would probably require entirely different laws of aerodynamics.

As a comparison, imagine Sopwith Camels with British Rolls-Royce Merlin engines!:eek: The weight and thrust of that monster engine would probably tear that magnificent fighter apart.:eek:
 
Back to the original question

Suppose: Arnold the Terminator by some miscalculation of timespace-fluctuations lands in 1884 instead of 1984. He manages to kill Sarah Connors great-grandfather while on the boat from Ireland to New York and to further the robot cause starts to build a factory, patent some key elements and produces the first practical helicopters by 1903... So what will happen.

My guess: JP Morgan chase, Carnegie and some other steel barons want to have a piece of the cake and start to retro-engineer the helicopter technology. But because most of the key parts are protected by patents, they can not simply build another helicopter. Instead they focus on the engines and control technology and combine that with the new sport of kite-gliding madepopular by that German engineer Lilienthal. There'll be some setbacks but with Arnold's technology and Chase's money we will have the first Curtis Jenny flying by 1909, the first Piper Cub by 1915 and the first DC3 by 1920. And by 1929 we'll all be in the glorious crazy world of Crimson Skies...https://www.alternatehistory.com/discussion/showthread.php?t=333119
 
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