A comparison of theory and experiment for coupled rotor-body stability of a hingeless rotor model in hover under simulated vacuum conditions

Abstract

Two cases were selected for correlation from an experiment that examined the aeromechanical stability of a small-scale model rotor that used tantalum rods instead of blades to simulate vacuum conditions. The first case involved body roll freedom only while the second case included body pitch and roll degrees of freedom together. Analyses from Hughes Helicopters and the U.S. Army Aeromechanics Laboratory were compared with the data and the correlations ranged from poor to good