AEROPLANE DATABASE
16 IN-DEPTH PAGES
Development Flight Testing Technical Details Insights Cancellation
● Fairey’s vision of the city-to-city transport future
● Test pilot Ron Gellatly on flying the Rotodyne
● Killed off before its time, or an inevitable demise?
DEVELOPMENT FAIREY ROTODYNE
Fairey’s vision of the future
It was hailed as the world’s first true vertical take-off and landing airliner, a machine so advanced it was probably five years ahead of any comparable aircraft under development anywhere in the world. But although the Fairey Rotodyne was the most innovative British airliner since the de Havilland Comet and had the potential to revolutionise short-haul air travel, the sole prototype ended up on the scrapheap — literally — after the government got cold feet and withdrew funding.
At first the name ‘Rotodyne’ was a generic one which the Fairey Aviation Company applied to a new kind of helicopter it claimed to have invented. In January 1949 the company sent the Ministry of Supply a brochure outlining its ideas for an aircraft, “which we have termed a ‘Rotodyne’.” Fairey explained, “It is not a helicopter though it has all the characteristics of a helicopter.” In a covering letter, James Bennett,…
