Mar 212020
Dating from late 1965-early 1966, the Ryan “Disk Rotor” was pretty much what it sound like. A helicopter had three rotor blade for vertical takeoff and hovering; as the aircraft gained speed with the use of a pusher prop, the rotors would stop rotating and would fold within a large diameter thin central disk. the disk would serve as an aerodynamic fairing, reducing drag at high speed. The aircraft, for which I’ve spent about 30 years searchign for data on, was apparently meant to be a counter insurgency plane along the lines of the OV-10.
Well, it certainly looks like an OV-10, just with the engine relocated to drive the rotor.