I clicked on the link. If a helicoptor can carry “up to 30 troops” it is not small. I also noted it has two turbine engines. But let’s ignore the size issue.
While building an airframe without metal is possible these days, there are a couple sticking points on this project.
First, the engine. There have been some experimental car engines built of ceramics, but this thing has turbines and I don’t know if you can make one of those of ceramic or not. And if you could, I don’t know if it could generate the proper amount of power.
Second, the rotors and rotorhubs. Those items are subjected to immense forces as the rotorblades turn. I don’t know if we have composite materials up to the job. Every rotor I’ve seen has been metal, which is not only strong but can flex many times as well before fatigue sets in. Composites, although they can be made flexible, tend to fail catastrophically rather than gradually.
If you can solve those two major problems then, yes, you can build a rotorcraft without using metal.
There are some other folks who may be along later who can maybe give you a more definitive answer, like Sam Stone, Xema, and Berkut.
The rubberbands that come on bunches of broccoli are pretty stout, at least 75HP.
Even if you could develop an appropriate engine made entirely of ceramic or some hi-tech polymer, you would still need metal screws and bolts to hold all the other multitude of parts together.
We can’t forget the copper/aluminum for the wiring. (Unless fiber optics were used - can you produce light for the fiber optics without using metal?).
In fact, while we’re on wiring and electricals, any electric motor would have to be excluded as it has windings. Maybe hydraulics would suffice although even hydraulic hoses have metal woven into the hose for strength.
Weren’t the Bell 47 rotor blades made of wood? (At least, originally?) I’m pretty sure there are helicopters flying with composite blades nowadays; although they certainly use metal for the hub.
Yeah, I suppose there are composites that could be used for rotors. There are composite airplane propellors, but the forces on an airplane prop, although considerable, are vastly less than what a helicoptor rotor endures.
Screws and bolts? There are plenty of airframe designs using composites that rely on glue and epoxy to hold things together rather than metal fasteners.
If you’re talking strictly about leaving the ground and returning, there’s a LOT of electrical stuff you don’t need. Airspeed gauges and altimeters that don’t require electricity have been around for oh, at least 90 years… that sort is still standard in the airplanes I fly. Given the right airspace, you don’t need a radio (either communication or navigation), transponder, or a lot of other stuff… No battery, no lights… no flying at night or into busy airspace though, but you’re talking about can you not should you or how feasible…
I think the engine is going to be the biggest stumbling block here.
by the way, Johnny you weren’t on my list of people earlier because you didn’t need to be Summoned - any subject line with “helicoptor” in it will invoke your presence.
Care to eludicate for those of us who are not fans of same?
I mean, do you really need a 30-troop transport, or will a 2-seater do? Is this proof of concept, or mission specific? Do you want to land at ORD or LAX or JFK or in the middle of Montana in an empty field?
I believe it will be in connection with ‘Magneto’ - the arch-villain who is able to manipulate metal objects remotely buy means of powerful magnetic fields.
That was my first thought, too, but Magneto is master of magnetism, not metal. So you could use non-magnetic metals (At least when I was reading X-men regularly, the writers were savy enough to get this – but then, that was 20 years ago…)
My past X-men interest did lead me to chuckle inexplicably during ground school when the topic turned to how power is generated for the spark plugs in a typical GA piston engine… I kept thinking, not only did they minaturize and clone him, he is NOT going to be happy about this…
Couldn’t you just settle on avoiding Ni/Fe materials? I could be wrong, but I thought magnetic attraction of metals didn’t work to well on any of the other elements. I’m forgetting one - cobalt, or something.
Then again, if Magneto can pull off AC fields instead of just DC fields, he could send massive currents through any conductor in your craft and have fun that way.
Can Magneto do AC fields? If he could throw around GHz radiation, I think we would have seen it.
Can’t he cause problems for non-ferrous metals too; inducing currents in them and causing them to heat up and/or turning them into electromagnets that he can manipulate?
Heating up I can see, but I can’t see how he could move a single non-ferrous conductor. I suppose he could sling-shot one conductor off of other conductors by instantaneously causing currents to arrise in all of them. But all of this requires Magneto to be doing complex physics in his head, under pressure. Also, even with multiple conductors in the system, I don’t think its possible to only create a non-zero force in one of the bodies, so Magneto would have a lot of unintended consequences. Imagine a building crumbling just so he could toss an aluminum bodied car across the parking lot (it’s a deisel with a ceramic engine, okay?).
Maybe he can have some sort of machine-assisted mutant powers like Prof. X. to do the physics for him.
On preview: Yes, Broomstick, I am a dork.
I just thought that the need for the non-matallic helli-chopter was an open subject as well.
Constructing an airframe, rotors and controls solely from composites and ceramics seems formidable, but perhaps not impossible. If you actually try to do this, expect to spend huge amounts of money and endanger the lives of many test pilots as you sort out problems like the rotor hub and its bearings and transmission.
A mostly composite/ceramic engine is perhaps feasible. But I think we can say that a spark-ignition engine is impossible without metal. That leaves a diesel or turbine engine that could use a starting system that stays on the ground.
Another big obstacle would be metal-less engine instrumentation.
And note that carbon fiber is weakly conductive, to the point that it will significantly attenuate the signal to an antenna. If this means that carbon fiber is not permitted, then the job becomes even tougher.
