Fri, Jul 30, 2010
Avimech Aircraft Introduces The Dragonfly
By Chris Batcheller
Imagine a helicopter that has no engine ... at least in the
traditional sense. As far-fetched as that sounds, Avimech Aircraft
is displaying their 'Dragonfly' Helicopter this week at AirVenture.
At first glance it looks like a bare bones single place helicopter.
Then you look at the rotor blade tips and realize their is
something different. The tips have small rocket nozzles on them! In
fact this helicopter has no engine! The tips are propelled by
the rotor rocket nozzles, eliminating the need for a gearbox and
conventional powerplant. The Dragonfly is lightweight at 220
lbs and can carry payloads of up to 800 lbs. So what powers the
tips? The Dragonfly has two tanks with H2O2 (Hydrogen
peroxide) an environmentally safe chemical that is commonly used to
clean printing presses and is available worldwide. The H2O2 reacts
with a catalyst in the rotor nozzles, causing a high pressure
reaction, that reaction powers the blades.
Fuel flow is reported to be about 11-12 gallons an hour. The
current price for H2O2 in the USA is around $3.85 per gallon. That
makes the Dragonfly's fuel costs less than $50 per hour. The
Dragonfly uses 70% concentration H2O2 which is not classified as a
hazardous material when being transported over the road.
Avimech Aircraft is marketing the Dragonfly as a ready to fly
helicopter. All parts installed on the dragonfly have full FAA
traceability and are fully tested, including thermo, Load stress,
X-ray and NDI-Non Destructive inspection. All are made by highly
qualified aircraft industry companies. All hardware is MIL-Specs,
and is manufactured within ISO parameters and intensive QMS-Quality
Management System.
The Dragonfly is being marketed to several applications
including Sport Flying, Crop Spraying, Surveillance, Border Patrol,
Law Enforcement and Search and Rescue. Check the air show schedule
because this unique helicopter is scheduled to give daily
demonstrations for the remainder of AirVenture.
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