A low-speed investigatio was made in the Langley stability tunnel to determine the directional stability characteristics of tandem nonoverlap-type helicopter fuselages without rotors. The investigation consisted of a study of both bent and straight fuselages having either circular or essentially elliptical cross sections and with two vertical-tail sizes.

A matrix solution for the spanwise bending moments and deflections of a torsionally rigid rotor blade subjected to an arbitrary loading is presented. The method includes the cantilever, teetering, and hinged blades in hovering and in steady forward flight. The method is comparatively short, involves only standard matrix procedures, and does not require that the mode shapes or natural frequencies be known.