I love the noise it makes and how it manages to look like a helicopter and biology inspired. And the wing folded dive to get to the spice harvester is just fantastic.
I love the noise it makes and how it manages to look like a helicopter and biology inspired. And the wing folded dive to get to the spice harvester is just fantastic.
Good point, maybe rotary seals weren’t up to the challenge of the extremely sandy conditions on dune so they needed to go with flexible bellows for protecting the internal mechanisms instead of gaskets. Or something.
Sealing a shaft is far easier than those flapping mechanisms and sand has been solved for many decades now. It never has to move lateral to the sealing surface, very unlike those flapping things. That is what makes it so easy.
The flap surfaces themselves have to move faster during the stroke than a continuously rotating blade, so they will also suffer from more damage due to abrasion.
I’m talking about something like this, it won’t need any gap between the surfaces. But obviously I’m not an ornithopter designer on dune.