Airbus novelty breaks speed record: 420 km/h – The new structure has another advantage

airbus The Racer helicopter reaches a milestone by accelerating to its target speed of 407 km/h. Just two months after its first flight, the Racer surpasses its own target at an astonishing 420 km/h.

Helicopter speed problem

Traditional helicopters have speed limits due to the physical limitations of the upper rotor. This phenomenon is called rotating blade stall.

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If the rotor spins counterclockwise, the left blade moves backward and the right blade moves forward. As long as the helicopter is stationary relative to the wind, the blades will produce the same amount of lift.

When a helicopter takes off, the platforms on one side move upwind and the platforms on the other side move downwind. When the platforms move upwind, a larger air mass passes over them, creating more lift, and vice versa.

The harder you fly the helicopter, the greater this imbalance becomes. At a certain limit, the craft can no longer steer to keep it straight, and may drift into simple harmonic motion, turn around and plummet to the ground. New Atlas.

Official The helicopter speed record comes from 1986, when a modified Westland Lynx flew at 400.87 km/h.

The Sikorsky X2 was unofficially flown at 463 km/h in 2010. Sikorsky solved the stall problem by installing two overlapping rotors that spin in different directions.

With this, Airbus’ new Racer breaks the speed record for single-rotor helicopters.

Airbus Racing

The Racer has a single rotor, but it’s still a far cry from a traditional helicopter. Instead of a typical tail rotor, it has large propellers at the end of the wings.

Propellers at the ends of the wings balance the rotors. At high speeds, the wings add enough lift to allow the car to slow down its upper rotors.

Besides speed, wings are also useful in terms of fuel consumption.

Because of its wing, the Racer is able to shut down one of its engines, which produces more than 2,500 horsepower, saving an estimated 15 to 30 percent in fuel.