AP 118 · No. 10 Section II · Aircraft Plate 128 / 252

Plate 128 of 252 · Second World War · Single-seat rotor kite

Hafner Rotachute III

Rotachute III (Mk IV tail), P-5, painted as P-5 (instructional serial 8381M), the fifth Hafner Rotachute and the only one surviving, built as a Mk III and given the Mk IV tailplane endplates in 1943, now hung in the Army Flying Museum at Middle Wallop: Raoul Hafner’s single-seat rotor kite for landing an airborne soldier instead of a parachute, a tubular steel frame with a seat, hanging control column, wooden skid and small footrest wheels under a free-turning two-bladed wooden rotor, with a fabric fairing running back to a rigid tailplane with endplates, shown level on its skid with the blades fore and aft: trainer yellow overall, a red, white and blue roundel and a black ‘P-5’ on both sides of the fairing, black-grey rotor blades with yellow tips and a black frame (shape from side-on museum photographs scaled to the published 10 ft length, the width judged from front-quarter photographs; the museum’s mannequin pilot is left out).

3D model

Turn it over

A procedural model built in Blender from published dimensions, drawings and photographs, painted as P-5 (instructional serial 8381M), the fifth Hafner Rotachute and the only one surviving, built as a Mk III and given the Mk IV tailplane endplates in 1943, now hung in the Army Flying Museum at Middle Wallop: Raoul Hafner’s single-seat rotor kite for landing an airborne soldier instead of a parachute, a tubular steel frame with a seat, hanging control column, wooden skid and small footrest wheels under a free-turning two-bladed wooden rotor, with a fabric fairing running back to a rigid tailplane with endplates, shown level on its skid with the blades fore and aft: trainer yellow overall, a red, white and blue roundel and a black ‘P-5’ on both sides of the fairing, black-grey rotor blades with yellow tips and a black frame (shape from side-on museum photographs scaled to the published 10 ft length, the width judged from front-quarter photographs; the museum’s mannequin pilot is left out). Drag to orbit, scroll or pinch to zoom · download .glb (283 KB)

Data plate

Specification

First flight, number built and top speed are for the whole family (Rotachute III, Rotabuggy, R.II Revoplane); engine, crew and dimensions are for the Rotachute III (Mk IV tail), P-5 modelled here.

History

The Rotachute

Raoul Hafner was an Austrian engineer who had built helicopters and autogyros in Vienna and moved to Britain in 1933 to carry on the work. In 1940 he proposed a new way of putting soldiers on a battlefield: instead of a parachute, each man would ride down under a small rotor, landing in a controlled glide with his weapon beside him rather than drifting and scattering. Silk for parachutes was also short. Hafner was briefly interned as an enemy alien that summer, then released to develop the idea at the Central Landing Establishment at RAF Ringway, near Manchester, the home of British airborne training.

The Rotachute was a rotor kite. A tubular steel frame carried a seat, a hanging control column, a skid and a two-bladed wooden rotor on a rubber-mounted hub; the pilot steered by tilting the rotor, and there was a fitting for a Bren gun. Behind him a fabric fairing ran back to the tail. The first was flown on 11 February 1942 at Ringway from a wheeled trolley towed by a Humber car, and it rolled over on landing. A longer tail and two wheels made the Mk II, and the Mk III of mid-1942 had a wooden tail covered in doped linen with a rigid tailplane. On 17 June 1942 a Mk III was towed up behind a Tiger Moth, released at 200 ft and flown down to a controlled landing, the first free flight; later flights were released as high as 3,900 ft. The Mk IV added endplates to the tailplane to steady it.

About eight were built, by F. Hills and Sons of Manchester and other firms, and most were brought up to Mk III and then Mk IV standard, but the army never called for them: gliders such as the Horsa could land a whole section of men together. Trials carried on until late 1943, by then at RAF Sherburn-in-Elmet, to help with Hafner’s next idea, the Rotabuggy, a Jeep with a rotor and a tail which was towed into the air behind a Whitley and reached about 70 mph before that too was dropped. Hafner went on to lead the Bristol Aeroplane Company’s helicopter department, where he designed the Sycamore and the Belvedere.

This airframe

P-5 at Middle Wallop

P-5The airframe modelled

P-5, the fifth Rotachute, is the only one left. Built as a Mk III, it was converted to Mk IV with tailplane endplates in 1943, and was later given the instructional serial 8381M. It now hangs from the roof of the Army Flying Museum at Middle Wallop in Hampshire, with a seated mannequin pilot, near the museum’s replica of the Rotabuggy. The model shows it as photographed there, in yellow overall with roundels and a black ‘P-5’ on both sides, black-grey rotor blades with yellow tips, a black steel frame and a wooden skid, without the mannequin. No three-view drawing of the Rotachute could be found, so the shape was taken from side-on museum photographs scaled to the published 10 ft length; those photographs show the rotor hub about 4 ft 7 in above the skid, a little less than the published 5 ft, and the model follows them. Its width was judged from front-quarter photographs. The Helicopter Museum at Weston-super-Mare holds a different Hafner machine, the 1930s R.II Revoplane helicopter.

See it at Army Flying Museum

Where to see one

In the gazetteer

The gazetteer records the Rotachute in 2 UK collections. The airframe modelled here is marked.

Every airframe and serial All 252 plates

Profiles and models are procedural interpretations built in Blender from published dimensions, three-view drawings and photographs of each airframe. Treat the museum aircraft as the reference.