L-R Ron Gellatly, John Dennis and David Masters
Fairy Gyrodyne
Fairey Aviation at WhiteWaltham test pilot signatures Gordon Slade,Peter Twiss,Roy Morris and John Dennis
John Dennis
joined the R.A.F.V.R. in 1938 and served with Nos. 3 and 139 Squadrons. In
1942 he joined the Autogiro Squadron at Halton, and in 1944, after taking the
No. 1 Helicopter School course at Andover, went to the Airborne Forces
Experimental Establishment at Beaulieu, Hants, for rotating-wing research
and development duty.
In 1945 he was posted to R.A.E., Farnborough, as a Service Pilot, and a
year later became a civil pilot there. More than 750 hours of his 3,000 hours'
flying at that time in 1949 had been on rotating-wing aircraft. On June 1st 1949 .F/L. John Norman Dennis was appointed rotating-wing test-pilot to the Fairey Aviation Company's Rotorcraft Division.
With the Jet
Gyrodyne, Faireys were first in the world to secure a complete and realistic
transition cycle in flight, the feat having been achieved on March 1 1955 by
John Dennis as test pilot.
The Jet
Gyrodyne, as the Fairey Gyrodyne was redesignated, was the subject of a
Ministry of Supply research contract. Its function was to continue testing the
tip-jet principle and develop procedures for the convertible helicopter, as
represented by the Rotodyne. While the Jet Gyrodyne retained the basic
appearance and engine of the earlier model, it had a two-bladed main rotor with
pressure burners at the tips in place of the conventional three-bladed rotor,
and at the end of the stub wings were two Fairey variable-pitch pusher
propellers. These were driven by the Leonides engine which no longer drove the
main rotor; instead, two Rolls-Royce Merlin compressors pumped air under
pressure to the rotor tips.
Tethered flights
at White Waltham were followed by the first free flight in January 1954, but a
full transition to horizontal from vertical flight was not achieved until March
1955. System proving continued and by September 1956, 190 transitions and 140
autorotative landings had been made.