Fairey Rotodyne
Fairey Aviation · United Kingdom · first flew 1957 · helicopter
Britain's magnificent might-have-been: a 40-seat compound gyroplane airliner meant to fly city-centre to city-centre, killed by noise and politics in 1962.
Recognition (WEFT)
| W — Wings | High-mounted, rotary |
|---|---|
| E — Engines | 2 × turboprop, wing-mounted |
| F — Fuselage | Boxy 40-seat airliner fuselage under the rotor |
| T — Tail | Twin fin |
WEFT is AircraftIQ's four-point recognition method — how it works.
Spot it by:
- Compound gyroplane: huge tip-jet rotor PLUS two wing turboprops
- Boxy 40-seat airliner fuselage under the rotor
- Twin-fin tail on a stub wing
A helicopter-sized rotor above an airliner body with turboprops on stub wings and twin fins — no other aircraft combined all three.
Specifications
- The Fairey Rotodyne has a length of 17.88 m (59 ft).
- It has a wingspan of 27.4 m (90 ft).
- Its maximum speed is 307 km/h (191 mph).
- Typical crew: 2 flight crew + 40 passengers.
Figures are for the representative variant described above; marks differ. See how AircraftIQ sources figures.
History
The Rotodyne flew in 1957 with a tip-jet-driven rotor for vertical flight and two Napier Eland turboprops for cruise, setting a convertiplane speed record of 307 km/h. The screaming tip jets, funding squabbles and the Westland merger ended it before production.
Variants
One prototype (XE521); a stretched Rotodyne Z for BEA was designed but never built.
Where you'll see it
Scrapped bar fragments preserved at The Helicopter Museum, Weston-super-Mare — a place of pilgrimage for what might have been.
Related aircraft
- Fairey Gannet AEW.3
- Fairey Gannet
- Fairey Fulmar
- Fairey Albacore
- Bell 204B
- Bell UH-1 Iroquois (Huey)
- Boeing Vertol 107
- Hughes TH-55A Osage
AircraftIQ — the aircraft field guide: 5,024 recognition guides, live overhead identification, works offline.