Some AutoGyro Kite links
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Main room:  Kites/Gyrokites  with link to public forum on gyrokites and flip wings.

 

 
Axial-flow Kites (AFK)


One such AFK is the Archimedes Screw Kite (ASK)
Hi Jim,    

Appreciate your construction methods.   Simi ... your business site.       In 1973 in Simi Valley, I flew a hang glider in the making of a Dial Soap TV commercial.         Kinetic kites come in a variety of movements.   An article I gave base to and am still growing:  Kite types is one resource:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kite_types  

Dan Parker is inventor of a open-center SpiralAirfoil™ and its water analogue SpirHydrofoil™.  I do not know how well you know Dan. Thanks for the introduction to you.   The Archimedes screw to drive fluids or to have fluids drive the screw is long-standing art. Yet there seems to be ever-fresh twists and turns occurring in the general spiral theme.

Kite tails of spinners is established art.  The use of the open-center SpiralAirfoil seems to be new art; and the SpiralAirfoil (SAF) has had contemporary appearance in fluids for spinning, for energy generation, and for art.   The open-center involves a more complex turbulence entrainment that is being explored for its uniqueness.   Boat propellers have closed centers, for example.   The closed-center Archimedes Screw Kite (ASK) is seemingly relatively new on the kite scene as a main-lifting body system rather than just a spinning tail or line laundry object. Having the main kite lifting body be the Archimedes screw is certainly attractive to many of us; Dan Parker's provisional patent has some claiming that may affect the ASK. 

My notice is fresh from the notice that Dave Santos (DaveS) has given to the ASK.    I would like to see a SAF-Kite be effective; that I have not seen yet; it might be up to me to build one; but someone else might build a SAF-Kite before I build.    Dan has been using SAF for air use in a wind-generation mode; and a SpiralHydrofoil (SHF) for electricity generation via water flows (set in stream and/or tugged by various means). SAF is good for artistic spinning line laundry and air art also.   Archimedes blade count is something to study; single, double, triple, or more; in first century B.C.E.: eight bladed described.    However,

The Roman engineer and architect Vitruvius gave a detailed

and informative description of the construction of an Archimedes

screw in his De Architectura, written in the first century

B.C. (See reference under Vitruvius.) Vitruvius’s description

contributed greatly to keeping the device well known throughout

the ages, and the particular screw he described will be

used throughout this paper as a test case.   From:  Source.

 

  

From wiki on propeller:
Ship propeller from 1843. Designed by C F Wahlgren based on one of John Ericsson propellers. It was fitted to the steam ship s/s Flygfisken built at the Motala dockyard.  

The shown 1843 propeller was a five-bladed screw on a wide core, but the core still had three blades and thus not fully open center.     Getting windwise axis rotary kites to fly is special. That is, the face of the kite fully spins; the whole kite facewise spinning and lifting is specially interesting. The appearance of kites in such family range from thin gyrocopter types to flatish propeller types to long barrel types as well as the so-called Archimedes Screw Kite (ASK).  

Makers and availability of the ASK? I am yet low on information on this question.   I have what you have: those 40 some photographs at some guys site.   Dave Santos might have more information. The construction needs care. Framing and flat pattern to get the final smooth screw effect takes careful layout. Choice of spine tube for rigidity at low mass will challenge.  Handedness is a choice: left or right. Number of blades, thread pitch, diameters, and material choice are variables.   I am interested in seeing some bring to the sky effective tiny to very large versions to bring experience for scaling and possible use in energy generation for tertiary loads. Link list, so far: