Fairey Rotodyne

The Fairey Rotodyne was a British compound gyroplane of the 1950s, designed and built by Fairey Aviation as a short-haul rotary-wing airliner able to carry roughly 40 to 50 passengers between major cities. It grew out of the Fairey Jet Gyrodyne and the British European Airways requirement for a Bealine-Bus. A four-bladed main rotor was turned by tip jets burning fuel mixed with compressed air bled from two wing-mounted Napier Eland turboprops. The rotor was driven for vertical take-off, landing and hovering, then autorotated in cruise while the engine power went to two propellers. A single prototype, XE521, first flew on 6 November 1957, flown by Ron Gellatly and John Morton, and on 5 January 1959 it set a world speed record in the convertiplane category at 190.9 mph. The programme was cancelled because no commercial orders came, partly from the high level of rotor tip jet noise, with politics also playing a part.