Cycloidal Rotor Airplane: The Cycloplane

Cycloidal rotor propulsion is being used on new vertical takeoff and landing aircraft, but how about using a cyclorotor for forward flight instead of purely hovering? I strapped a few cyclorotors on a simple RC airplane design to put it to the test versus a regular propeller, and the results are explosive.

The cyclorotor isn’t really a new concept; it has been used for tugboat propulsion for quite some time. It works by pitching the blades around their rotation so that they each always have a positive angle of attack relative to their motion around the spinning axis. One potential advantage they offer while operating in air is that their ‘tip’ speed is much lower than a conventional propeller for the same thrust, so they can be much quieter. With the proper mechanical linkage and servos, their thrust vector can also be rotated almost instantly for increased maneuverability. Will cyclos ever replace regular propellers? Probably not. But that won’t stop me from continuing to explore them in future videos—so if you enjoyed, please consider leaving a like on this video and subscribing so you don’t miss more videos like this one.

00:00 Intro
00:29 How a Cyclorotor Makes Thrust
01:32 Designing a New Cyclorotor
02:35 Building the Cyclorotors
03:16 Thrust Stand Testing
05:40 Cycloplane Build and Flights
07:19 Cycloplane Explosion
08:06 Conclusions

#Cyclorotor #Cyclocopter #Drone

[Project-Air]

Haha, I've often sniffed an airplane to diagnose the problem. Great job as always Nick! Impressive project to pull off.

[andresmonagas]

This is a super interesting idea, I really do like how good projects from the early 1900´s can have a better research with today technologies

[michaelrechtin]

I love the style and pacing of this video. Solid designs and solid testing! Excited for more!

[spikekavalench]

Genius in engineering, I’m very impressed!

[thelement]

that is the next level. fusion of plane, heli, and drone.

[JudeSchauer]

It's great to see your progress! It looks like you had some amazing sustained flights. Much better than my little glide. 😂 I never realized that the one airfoil acts like a wing during forward flight, but that makes sense now. That and probably the higher airflow for the bottom rotor (the one with lots of helpful virtual camber) gives something like a 36% decrease in power consumption at higher speeds. I'll hopefully get my third attempt at a cycloplane flying in the coming months; It'll be interesting to see if it has the same general flight characteristics as yours (hopefully excluding the exploding rotor).

Good luck on future projects, I can't wait to see the cool things that you come up with.

[exterminater]

Because of the larger "rotor area/wing area" I feel like these could be more efficient, but because of the mechanical complexity will require more maintenance.

[henriquemoritz]

Great job comparing their performance! Cycloidal rotor will need a lot of optimization to reach a propeller performance. So for me it looks interesting as a concept, but is far from be worth due its complexity and inherent multiple failure modes.

[Mikewee]

I do not understand any of this but I admire your enthusiasm.

[dondywondy]

Great video! That 'unexpected result' has got to be one of the funniest ever!

[Torreiro]

It's amazing to see a man like you trying to make a revolution! God bless you! I really hope you can make it!

[ezonigs]

Very Nice. I don't have any practical knowledge of the cyclo rotor but I just learnt a lot from your video. Thank you very much.

[goran]

That method will increase the effect on a vertical wind power. Very interesting. Good work. Take care.

[tartansauce]

"Please work."
*giggles. Immediately clicks subscribe*

[alexandregrynagier]

Honestly, it could be something else than the blades themselves: it could be all of the stuff built around to control their angle of attack. Nice work anyway, that's a lovely dev, thank you for the video!

[gyrogearloose]

I like your jovial response to calamity and disaster Nicholas! And thanks for sharing this research.
I'll be checking out your link to Jude Schauer and coming back to see what else you have been doing. Subscribed!

[ltsky]

I particularly like the part where you make a small confetti cannon in the parking lot. Literally LOL'd

[peterryseck]

7:21 the BUILD UP. the SILENCE. I’m dead hahaha awesome work

[richyrich]

I Love This! I'm almost done with mine, I can't wait to show y'all!

[silversrtken]

Wider front wheels might have prevented that. But either way that first flight was successful even though the second one wasn't. Brilliant job