AIRCRAFT ROTOR OR PROPELLER HAVING BLADES WHICH FOLD WITH PITCH CONTROL MECHANISM CONTROLLING BLADE PITCH DURING NORMAL OPERATION AND DURING THE FOLDING AND UNFOLDING OPERATION

摘要

1,242,337. Convertiplane with propeller rotor folding in flight. UNITED AIRCRAFT CORP. 13 Feb., 1969 [20 March, 1968], No. 7805/69. Heading B7W. A convertiplane 10 is capable of operation as a helicopter with conventional cyclic and collective pitch control and as a propeller plane, Fig. 2 (not shown), and further the propeller mode may be converted to a fixed wing jet mode, Fig. 3 (not shown), by folding the propellers 20, 22 in flight, their pitch being changed by an independent pitch change arrangement 200, Fig. 4, so that they nest with respective nacelles 34, 36. Each blade 40 is carried in a corresponding sleeve 76 which has flanges 84 and 86 at the inboard end attached to a flange member 70 of the hub 50 by folding hinge pins 94 so that the blade and sleeve may be folded about axis 96. The blade and sleeve are normally held in position by lock pins 102, 104 which may be retracted from apertures 98, 100 by cranks 106; 108 to enable folding. The blade fold pitch change arrangement 200 includes a cam-follower 206, Fig. 5, attached to the blade spindle 72 and including a roller bearing member 208 which is received in a slot 210, Fig. 6, of a cam slotdefining member 212. During cyclic/collective pitch adjustment in flight, the cam follower roller 208 will move back and fore in a groove 222 of the slot 210. When the blades are to be folded in flight the convertiplane is first put into the propeller mode and then the rotor blades are put into fine pitch and stopped in the desired fold position with the help of a Vernier drive 232 and a brake 230, Fig. 5. Cam follower roller 208 at this point is at corner 226 of the slot 210. The slot pins 102, 104, Fig. 4, are then released and a blade folding motor 162, Fig. 5, is actuated to cause roller 208 to start moving along the portion 240 of slot 210. The conventional pitch change mechanism is then made ineffective and the roller runs along portion 240 of the groove thus keeping the blade feathered for the greater part of the folding and then turns into portion 244 which turns the blade into a suitable position to nest with the nacelle. It is preferable to have the pivot connection 144 between a pitch horn 150 and pitch control push rod 140 in alignment with the blade fold axis 96 when the blades are in their full feather position so that the conventional pitch control 131 does not interfere with blade fold pitch, arrangement 200 before the conventional control is inactivated. A construction having an articulated rotor which is capable of motion about both a lead-lag and a flapping axis is described with reference to Fig. 7 (not shown).