Westland Aircraft Limited

Frederick John Perry

Geoffrey Malcolm Byham

Martin Vincent Lowson

David Leonard Hawkings

A helicopter rotor blade is disclosed having a root end for attachment to a rotor head, a tip end defining the end of the blade fartherest from the root end with a central portion of aerofoil section extending between and attached to the root end and the tip end to define a rotor radius wherein an outboard region of the central portion has a negative basic pitching moment coefficient of absolute value not less than 0.02 and an inboard region having a basic pitching moment coefficient more positive than that of the outboard region.

Helicopter rotor blade

A helicopter rotor blade includes a rearwardly swept tip portion having a leading edge of aerofoil profile located forward of the leading edge of a central portion of the blade, and blended with a sharp tip edge of higher sweep magnitude than the leading edge and extending rearwardly to an extreme tip of the blade. A rearwardly swept trailing edge extends from a junction with the trailing edge of the central portion to the extreme tip so that the tip portion has a chord dimension greater than that of the central portion of the blade. In operation, the rotor blade utilizes a stable vortex dominated flow field created over the tip portion to provide operational advantages in respect of both a retreating and an advancing blade.

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Corton Denham, United Kingdom

Frederick John Perry