Copyright 2010 by Brandon Cope
Pitcairn PA-19 autogyro
Most early autogyros seated one or two men in open cockpits. The PA-19 of 1932 was quite different, capable of carrying up to five men in a fully enclosed cabin. It used wings for stability (a fully tilting rotor-head for control would come in a couple of years). Only four were built before financial problems of the era forced Pitcairn to cease production.
The PA-19 is an ideal aircraft for a small party in a Cliffhangers campaign and perhaps in a slightly weird WWII campaign.
The PA-19 had a crew of one and uses 14 gallons of aviation gas per hour at routine usage.
Subassemblies: Large Helicopter
chassis +3, Recon Wings +2, Rotors -1, three fixed wheels +0.
P&P:
310-kW HP aerial gasoline engine with 310-kW old prop and 102-gallon
standard fuel tank [Body]; 2,000-kW batteries.
Occ: 1 CS,
4 PS Cargo: 0.5 Body
Armor
Body/Wings: 2/2C
Rotor: 4/10
Wheels: 3/5
Equipment
Body: Medium radio receiver and
transmitter, navigation instruments, autopilot.
Statistics
|
Size: 26'x51'x15' |
Payload: 0.83 tons |
Lwt: 2.31 tons |
|
Volume: 264 |
Maint.: 78 hours |
Price: $6,600 |
HT: 12
HP: 270 Body,
60 Rotors, 25 each Wing, 7 each Wheel
|
aSpeed: 120 |
aAccel: 3 |
aDecel: 9 |
aMR: 2.25 |
aSR: 2 |
Stall: 34 mph |
|
Design Notes
Design speed was 116 mph. To better match
the historical performance of autogyros, rotor area was raised to the
1,5 power for for determining top speed and to the 1.75 power for
determining stall speed. Takeoff (246 yards) and landing (530 yards)
distances are also far longer than is proper for an autogyro. A
suggestion is to drop the takeoff run to 1/3 this and the landing run
to 1/10.
Like other autogyros, the stall speed works differently than from fixed-wing aircraft. Below 34 miles per hour, the rotors begin losing lift but, unlike lift from a wing, it is not lost suddenly; the autogyro would simply autorotate down as it lost forward speed and make a (relatively) safe landing.
Because the chassis was too small (but the next larger, the Huge Helicopter, was far too large), a Large Weapon subassembly was “added” to the chassis. It's stats (cost, weight and HP) were divided by two to better match the lighter chassis build. Subassembly HP were added to chassis HPs, as well as surface area added to chassis surface area. Armor is expensive, to better match the chassis,