The Genius of Cycloidal Propellers: Future of Flight?

Thanks for watching, it's been great to learn about a technology that is both mature and new in two different applications. Don't forget to get started in Onshape for FREE: onshape.pro/Ziroth%E2%80%8B - You won't regret giving it a try!

My parents owned a small passengership that was sailing on the rhine that had a VSP system from 1936. It was one of the very first production VSP in the world. It ran for 70 years before it finaly broke down and we could not get the parts anymore.

Thank you for mentioning the downsides of cycloidal rotor propellers as well

When I was a small boy back in the 1950s I was given a small, cheap plastic toy aircraft that had horizontal rotating wings. I don’t think it had any power, source you just threw it and it glided a bit with the wings autorotating . I'd forgotten all about this little toy of nearly 70 years ago until I saw this upload. Thanks for the memory!😊

Another minor benefit is that having a horizontal rotation axis makes it easier to balance torque with a variety of rotor configurations.

"I have to wonder if it offers any practical advantages" uhh yeah man, me too. That's why I watched the video. Little disappointed you didn't answer that question.

I’m glad there are still people with the vision to say ‘I know we have a system that works but I want to try a different approach’ this is what we need to advance. Also when you commented on the quieter operation you didn’t mention military applications, I would think they would be the bigger backer of this.

I've never wanted flying cars, or if I did, I grew out of it fast enough to not remember. I've worked in insurance investigations, and know all too well how people drive cars that stay on the ground. Flying car accidents will be next level... EDIT: People saying that helicopters and private planes are like flying cars, no. No they are not. A helo-pilot in Canada has to pass four exams, get a medical certificate, have 40 hours of ground training and 45 of flight training, just to get a license. requirements aren't much different to be a fixed-wing pilot. A driver's license doesn't require school. You have to pass a vision test, a test on knowledge of traffic laws/signs, and pass a road-test.

"Yeah, but, aside from Safety, Efficiency, and Operational Versatility... What has the Voith Schneider Propeller ever done for us!"

I love the idea for propulsion and steering on an airship. These mounted on a gymbal to transit from horizontal for lift and propulsion to vertical for steering and propulsion. Brilliant! The flying car is a stupid idea. It always has been. Most people can't drive on the ground; try texting and flying. Forget to put this on the charger and you aren't walking home or pushing it to the nearest charging station when the power cuts.

Ah hey its the video on Voith-Schneider mentioned in the comments of the previous propeller video! So cool to see someone covering cycloidal rotors and discussing the applications in both marine, airspace and renewables! With renewables, a future video topic may be wind turbine designs? Aside from the typical horizontal axis three blade wind turbines you find everywhere, there's a lot of companies trying to find new ways of doing things. There's a lot of work trying to make small-scale wind, but in large scale as well. Particularly in offshore floating wind a lot of unusual large scale designs have been proposed, since it is the an immature industry that needs cost reductions and radical thinking the most

I love onshape and refer many people to it as an experienced solid works user slash engineer. I also worked for Voith and yes the schneider propellar opened my eyes when we installed two on tug boats for navy in simons town south africa. I also got to play with the simulator . it was fun

One of the best information channals i know of without diving too deep into the topic.

I enjoy these ziroth explainers! Good science content with the boring stuff trimmed out. Excellent!

A difficulty I can see with a working VSP system for flight is there are more moving parts and greater scope for failure. It is one thing for a ship to fail, but quite another thing for an aircraft in the air.

Thanks for explaining this technology. I learned more than I ever knew about marine propulsion using cycloidal propellers. Love your sense of humor.

8:54 that dude has nerves of STEEL

I was inside Dr. Keletch's rotor ( probably spelt wrong) back in the 80's two weeks before he attempted a flight. Eye witnesses said it got off the ground about a foot before before the attempt was stopped. The design had a propeller at each end of an elongated egg shaped fuselage with T mounted horizontal blades at the end of each blade of the propellers.

I played around with this design decades ago, back when the materials for making a flying version of it were not available. I ended up making a desktop fan and stopped at that.

it's so cool to see this. I had a problem a while back and kept thinking of a design like this to solve it. It is nice to see that something like what I was thinking actually works