Aviation Historian 14
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N.Stroud - The Hot Seat
Kaman chief test pilot F. Andrew Foster prepares for tests of the SAVER flight rig. The white portions of the machine, plus the rotor blades and engine, are the seat in its deployed mode. The controls for the test vehicle differed from those of the final proposed version, which was to be fitted with a small side-mounted control stick.
After concluding that the concept was technically feasible as a result of windtunnel testing, the SAVER seat was attached to a steel frame for further testing under the supervision of the Naval Air Development Center (NADC). It is seen here with the final telescopic rotor, the hub of which, with a common flapping coning Delta 3 hinge offset by 3in.
The Kaman SAVER seat in its stowed position at the windtunnel at NASA's Ames Research Center. The rotor blades are coned upwards from the hub mounted on an A-frame, which hinges rearward to store the blades behind the seat.
The hub of final telescopic rotor, with a common flapping coning Delta 3 hinge offset by 3in.
The deployed SAVER seat during trials in the Ames 40ft x 80ft windtunnel.
The Kaman SAVER turbofan-powered autogyro was one of three projects developed for the American military’s AERCAB programme, and was the subject of a typically dynamic illustration by Fred L. Wolff to accompany an article on the concept in the September 1969 issue of Popular Mechanics.
Fairchild-Stratos Western’s Model 616 - the most literal interpretation of the specification for “an aircraft within an aircraft” - undergoing windtunnel tests at NASA’s Langley Research Center. The wing was stowed by folding once at the midpoint of the semispan and hingeing at the wing root to fold against the tailboom assembly.