Fairey Rotodyne

This will bring the Fairey Rotodyne gyroplane into the game. It is available from 1957 to 1975 and can carry 23 passengers or 23 units of any cargo.

Various versions are available: the prototype that was flown and extensively tested from 1957 until the types cancellation in 1962, and multiple liveries of airlines that showed more than a passing interest in the type and might very well have ordered it, had it not been halted.

Included are :

• BEA (two variants) and its successor British Airways as obvious operators, 
• JAL (that showed some interest in the type for feeder flights between Tokyo City and Haneda airport),
• New York Airways (likewise, between JFK and probably the roof of the Pan Am Building). 

On the types history:

After World War 2, rotary wing aircraft were a rather new development. They were found to be very practical due to their vertical landing and takeoff capabilities, but what they lacked in is speed. Fairey went to work and designed a mixture between a helicopter and an aircraft to test the concept: the small Gyrodyne.  This model used a rotor driven by tip jets, therefore free of the torque issues normal helicopters have, and propelled by two air screws. As this showed the feasibility of the concept, the company went to work on a larger model, the Rotodyne. 

It used two Napier Eland turboprop engines for forward flight and, again, a tip jet driven rotor for vertical operations. For those tip jets, pressurised air was tapped from the Elands compressors, piped to the rotor blades tips, and then fed into a jet pipe. To increase power, it was possible to burn a little fuel in those nozzles. Capacity was intended to be 75 passengers or a corresponding amount of cargo, either in the cabin or underslung. 

Testing was rather successful and the changeover from vertical to forward flight and back was performed multiple times without any issue. The Rotodyne drew interest not only from civil airlines, but also from military operators, and was demonstrated on passenger-carrying flights between London, Brussels and Paris, each time cutting the travel time between the city centres by a significant amount. It was, therefore, a very promising type that many organisations could have put to good use. Even the US military showed interest in up to 200 examples, and a lot of orders from all over the world was hoped for.

But it received none. The Rotodyne had one large issue: it was horribly noisy. The tip jets made a ruckus that was considered unacceptable even back in the rather carefree 1950s. Running an extremely noisy machine like the Comet or a 707 on an airport far away from the city centre was one thing, but having those things land right in the heart of the city multiple times per hour was something else. Attempts to quieten the aircraft down failed, then along came the British government on its quest to rationalise the British aviation industry by merging various companies and saving on subsidies. First went the order book, then the funding, and that was the end of the programme.

Today, only some pictures and a short section of the prototypes fuselage are left from the Rotodyne.