Ken Wallis Autogyro Pioneer Dies At 97

First time accepted submitter gb7djk writes "Wing Commander Ken Wallis the developer and promoter of small autogyros died peacefully today 4th September, aged 97, at his home in Norfolk. Ken is mainly remembered for 'Little Nellie', the tooled up autogyro that took on some helicopters in the James Bond film You Only Live Twice. He made the breakthrough discovery of the offset rotor head that made autogyros stable as well as many other aviation inventions. More info here and a video of him flying one of his creations (at the age of 95)."

A great man...

[PhantomHarlock]

...without which we would not have the Bruce Spence character in The Road Warrior!

Re:And this was before safety

[milkmage]

Yeager, Chuck

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chuck_Yeager [wikipedia.org]

On October 14, 2012 on the 65th anniversary of breaking the sound barrier, Yeager did it again in a McDonnell Douglas F-15 Eagle, out of Nellis Air Force Base at the age of 89

he's old and bold. how many 89 year olds break Mach? and he was a test pilot for 30 years after he retired officially.

"The Right Stuff" is right.

Re:Autogyros

[Anonymous Coward]

I can't find it, but I once saw a graph showing efficiency for autogyros, planes, and helicopters. Planes are tremendously more efficient than autogyros for distance. I can't remember exactly how helicopters faired--based on speed, distance, etc--but in any event autogyros can't hover so they're not replacements for helicopters.

Basically, autogyros don't really fit into modern commercial needs. All the super sophisticated models are hybrids, but that makes them complex, and thus their utility is debatable.

There are niches where autogyros make sense, but they're not commercially viable niches. Anybody working on a commercial autogyro is burning money.

Discovered?

[Forthan Red]

The article says he made the "discovery of the offset rotor head". Was it lying in a field somewhere, and he tripped over it? Perhaps it was discovered growing on a tree in the Amazon Jungle? Or maybe the author is shortchanging Mr. Wallis by failing to use the correct word, "invented". Sadly, his invention not only made him no money, since he could not profit from patenting it (as he was in the RAF at the time, and any patent would belong to the crown), it doesn't even bare his name.