Here is my updated take on Roy Clough's rotorwing plane. It takes plenty of power but is fun. A very different flying experience. It took me a couple of tries to get the line rake correct, and to loosen up the rotor bearing to account for flex in the wing spar--which is simply a piece of piano wire. If one wing binds up and the other does not, well, you got yourself a rodeo there, pardner....
I intended to put some DARPA graphics on it, but never got around to it. But it looked good that way on my sketchpad....
It is more fun if there is a slight breeze. Going upwind, you can crank in a bunch of UP and the plane slows down because it really isn't generating enough lift to get much higher than level. So the drag goes up even further and it starts to hover. It is partly hanging on the prop. It does not do well in stronger winds simply because it is so slow there is little line tension.
There are a couple of things to remember when flying it. First, it's going to have to taxi a good ways to get airborne. Whipping just loads up the spar and may induce sufficient bending to lock a blade, whereupon the thing rolls over into the pavement. (My flying "buddies" thought that was the single funniest #$%&! thing they had ever seen at the field....) Second, when the engine quits, it drops out of the sky nearly vertically. There is not much inertia in the rotors, and it does not have an autorotation characteristic.
Most people who see it find it oddly interesting. And it does have a certain whirring sound....
The Divot
Rotor span: 26"
Rotor chord: 3-3/4"