BLADE INDEXING OF A ROTARY WING AIRCRAFT

摘要

An aircraft is provided including an airframe, an extending tail, and a counter rotating, coaxial main rotor assembly including an upper rotor assembly with a plurality of blades rotating in a first plane and a lower rotor assembly with a plurality of blades rotating in a second plane, each of the blades having a root end, a midpoint, and a tip end. A translational thrust system positioned at the extending tail, the translational thrust system providing translational thrust to the airframe. The blades of the upper rotor assembly and the blades of the lower rotor assembly are indexed to improve tip end clearance between pairs of tip ends in the crossing plane as the tip ends move in respective first and second sinusoidal paths.