General History

Built in the 1950’s as a small trailer-able Artillery spotter with minimum maintenance, the “Hornet” utilized ramjet engines to power the rotor blades.  The ramjet engines have no moving parts and develop their thrust from the expansion of the burning fuel.

Since the engines cannot power themselves to start the rotor spinning, a hand-held two-horsepower drive unit is attached to the right side of the cockpit that gets the rotor's speed up to 150 rpm.  The pilot then turns on the igniters, which are small spark plugs in each engine, with a switch on the control stick.  At this point the fuel is slowly turned on and, hopefully the fuel ignites to begin the process of allowing the expansion of the gases to propel the engines to a faster speed.  Fuel comes from a 45-gallon tank located under the pilot and passenger seats.  It is pumped through the rotor mast to the rotor blades where the centrifugal force then drives the fuel out the blades to the ramjets.  When the rpm begins to increase, the starting unit is disengaged and, by the addition of more fuel the rotor rpm is brought up to its 550 rpm operating speed and then maintained there by a governor.

The “Hornet” was not designed to stay in the air very long and goes through the 45 gallons of fuel in about 25 minutes. The high fuel consumption was more than overcome by the simplicity of maintenance in the field. One drawback of operating the Hornet in combat conditions was that the engines are extremely loud, and they could be seen at night. It would not have gone un-noticed by an enemy! Another drawback was that, should the engines happen to quit, the drag of the engines on the rotor-tips made it difficult to maintain rotor speed to properly get down safely. Helicopters can safely 'auto-rotate' down by maintaining forward speed in a steep glide, which keeps up the blade inertia that can be used to safely land. Because of the additional drag on Hornet blades with the engines at the rotor tips, the blade angle must lowered to a negative angle to keep the blades spinning, effectively creating a VERY high decent rate. No pilot was ever successful to live from an auto-rotation started from above 100 feet!  After 17 aircraft were built, production was stopped.

Personal History

This Hornet was rebuilt and purchased from Jack Cannon.  It is the 13th of the 17 aircraft built and is currently the only flyable example. When it was delivered, Jack did a quick demonstration flight. It is a real show to watch the whole operation from starting it to hearing and watching it fly. 

The hover performance of the Hornet is not that great with 2 people on board.  Before Kermit got in, Jackburned some fuel off flying around while everyone watched in amazement. When the fuel got down to a certain level, Kermit climbed on board for a hover demonstration. The rpm was brought up to 550 rpm and Jack lifted the Hornet up to a safe 3' altitude whereupon the rpm immediately began to drop and the helicopter settled back down to the ground.  As there was no intercom Jack screamed to Kermit, “We're too heavy!  We have to burn off some more fuel!”  After regaining the rotor rpm Jack lifted the Hornet back up to a hover again, whereupon the rpm immediately dropped and down again they came. After a few more attempts, Kermit screamed, “If this is all we're going to do, why don't you let me do it?” Jack gave Kermit the controls and he lifted the Hornet up and the same thing happened. At least Kermit was getting the feel of his new toy while they burned off more fuel. With each attempt, the Hornet would stay in a hover slightly longer until, finally it was light enough to hold rpm and maintain the hover. It was at this point that the Hornet ran out of fuel, and they settled down for the last time. 

Because of complaints from the neighbors across the lake, over a mile and a half away, we have not flown it since then.

Kermit Comment

If it’ll burn, it’ll turn!  Just about any fuel that burned could be used for fuel such as gas, kerosene or Jack Daniels!