Everything about The Focke-wulf Fw 61 totally explained
The
Focke-Wulf Fw 61 was the first fully controllable
helicopter. It first flew in 1936. It is more properly known as the Fa 61 as it was a research aircraft of the
Focke Achgelis company.
Development
Through his work on the C.19 and
C.30 autogyros built by
Focke-Wulf under license from Cierva Autogiro, as well as the experience gained through development of the
Fw 186, Prof.
Heinrich Focke had come to the conclusion that the inadequacies and limited serviceability of autogyros could only be eliminated by a real helicopter. He and engineer
Gerd Achgelis started the design for this helicopter in 1932. A free-flying model, built in 1934, propelled by a small two-stroke engine brought the promise of success. Today, the model can be seen in the German museum in
Munich.
On
9 February 1935, Focke received an order for the building of a prototype, which was designated the FW 61, however Focke referred to it as the F 61. Roluf Lucht of the technical office of the RLM extended the order for a second aircraft on
19 December 1935. The airframe was based on that of a well-tried training aircraft, the
Focke-Wulf Fw 44 Stieglitz. A single,
radial engine drove twin rotors, set on outriggers to the left and right of the fuselage - the
counter-rotation of the two rotors solved the problem of
torque-reaction as also shown by
Louis Bréguet.
Only two aircraft were produced.
The first prototype, the V 1 D-EBVU, had its first free flight on
26 June 1936 with
Ewald Rohlfs at the controls. By spring 1937, the second prototype, V 2 D-EKRA, was completed and flown for its first flight.
10 May 1937 it accomplished its first autorotation landing with the engine turned off.
Operational history
In February 1938 it was demonstrated by
Hanna Reitsch indoors at the
Deutschlandhalle sports stadium in
Berlin,
Germany. It subsequently set several records for
altitude,
speed and flight
duration culminating, in June 1938, with an
altitude record of 3,427 m and a straight line flight record of 230 km.
Specifications (Fw 61)
Further Information
Get more info on 'Focke-wulf Fw 61'.
|
External Link Exchanges
Do you know how hard it is to get a link from a large encyclopaedia? Well we're different and will prove it. To get a link from us just add the following HTML to your site on a relevant page:
<a href="http://focke-wulf_fw_61.totallyexplained.com">Focke-Wulf Fw 61 Totally Explained</a>
Then simply click through this link from your web page. Our crawlers will verify your link, extract the title of your web page and instantly add a link back to it. If you like you can remove the words Totally Explained and embed the link in article text.
As long as your link remains in place, we'll keep our link to you right here. Please play fair - our crawlers are watching. Your site must be closely related to this one's topic. Any kind of spamming, dubious practises or removing the link will result in your link from us being dropped and, potentially, your whole site being banned. |
