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nine blade nonsense!


Abandoned Project

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Have no fear Aeronut! Here is a brief backstory...

During talks between AugustaWiffland and the Indian Airforce as to the sale of VVIP Merlins, they were asked if there was any plans for something bigger as the Mil Mi-26's weren't getting any younger and with the production line at Mil busy working on existing orders and the Mi-46 project currently stalled they were looking for an alternative. This got AugustaWiffland considering the chance to improve the external payload capacity if they reworked the engines, gearbox and rotor.

So after a couple of days RR were able to commit to the project with a new engine, the RR6K, built under licence by the japanese firm Istabitsa and with the designers working on weight distibution it was found that on paper the following figures were achieved;

Empty Weight : 12600kg

MTOW : 32560kg

And all inside the current footprint of a standard AW101! but with a slight loss of internal payload space due to internal strengthening of the whole structure....

So now I shall start feeding my merlin kit some serious steriods! :winkgrin:

Edited by dadofthree
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Hmm... it'll look the dog's proverbials, but I'd imagine that there'd be some serious vortex/wake issues, and probably blades operating in either disturbed air or no air at all. The big Mil may have 8 blades, but it also has a stonking big rotor. Even the CH-53E Super Stallion only has 6 blades. Chinooks only have 3 per end...

But then, it's a WHIF, so anything goes. :D

Edit: Big lol at Itsabitsa.

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Those are good points Rob and I'm sure Sikorsky overcame them when they decided to add an extra blade and a third engine to make the CH-53E Super Stallion out of the 6 blade/2 engine Sea Stallion. Having questioned AugustaWiffland on the subject they're happy with their solution of slowing the rotor speed down by 5rpm as they found the original speed created more vibration and noise than expected. Although this means a loss in lift the MTOW is still acceptable as they new achieving the same characteristics as a Mi-26 was never going to happen. At the end of the day they main goal has been to increase external payload.

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AugustaWiffliand are calling this the AW191 Kite (apparently there was a typo in admin!)

Wouldn't be the first time they've had a typo, afterall the EH 101 was meant to be the EHI 01. I'm surprised the typist kept their job long enough to make this second mistake.

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  • 8 months later...

Having spent some time working on the rotorhead this morning with the dimensions coming out at around 50-60mm before the blades went on I am calling this a Whif too far.........for now.

But the tail is going to be used for my AEW Peregrine 'happy accident '

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Please ignore my previous post. I feel I cant give up on this as the Whif machine is stuck in overdrive despite exploding the other day. Oh, and the tail will not be going on my AW161 Peregrine AEW. All I can say is that I'm in for the long haul with this so will be seeking a lot of advice as I build an almost scratch helicopter!

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Some progress shots from AugustaWiffland as the wreckage of the prototype Kite is being recycled to build the second prototype.

WP_001067.jpg -WP_001066.jpg -WP_001068.jpg -

Having salvaged the tail end it has been used to create a 30mm extension of the rear frame. Here the Peregrine fuselage is kindly modelling the tail extension.

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