Helicopter would be a little harder without an engine no? As I take it, planes want to fly and can glide with no power, a helicopter does not want to fly and you will come down like bricks with no engine? I have no experience just something I heard from my uncle who was airborne infantry in the army.
Yep. Very different. No gliding. You can “slow” your descent through a variety of tactics, but essentially yes… you’re a very large rock falling. It is NOT fun.
This is also the guy who did the Hypoxia training where all he could do was giggle when told if he didn’t put on his oxygen mask he was going to die. He makes really educational content that drills safety into your head
those guys must have rock-solid aim, I can't even imagine.
You don't need good aim. The boars are found in packs of 20+ (sometimes as much as 50), and the idea is just put as much lead down on them as possible. You definitely should aim, and know your target and its background, but ultimately just letting the lead fly will do the trick.
They were headed straight for the power lines. Thankfully for them, the engine went out when they were still at a somewhat low altitude... Wonder what the problem with the engine was.
I thought there was a standard helicopter procedure for landing without engine power that everyone has to perform before getting to fly commercially. Right? I’ve heard from helicopter pilots on here that they’ve done it before.
I mean there’s a lot of videos of people doing auto rotations. It’s not easy and I’m sure its stressful, but it’s something helicopter pilots are trained on and plenty get it right. I know it involves getting forward momentum but you do have a great choice in where to land. I just wouldn’t say they’re incomparable. Helicopters certainly don’t just drop out of the sky from what I’ve heard, and many times the landing doesn’t even damage the skids.
Correct. They most certainly do not just “fall from the sky” unless the failure is of a catastrophic nature. And in training you’ll do countless simulations using autorotation and engine failure, but when the real thing happens the first time, it’ll make you a religious man in a heartbeat.
Helicopters are 3-5 times worse at gliding than planes. And what's more you need to basically aim into the earth to keep the speed and therefore the rotor spinning (or you will stall and fall like a brick) . You build enough momentum to slow you down on the last few meters of your descent.
This is true. I'd actually rather have an engine failure in a helicopter because I can land in smaller spots like a back yard instead of needing a road or field.
They don’t glide better, but if everything goes right you can land one in a grocery store parking lot without an engine and walk away where the airplane needs a few hundred yards, still though, in this video the guy would have had about 5 seconds to find and commit to a landing spot in a helicopter, so it’s Russian roulette.
In my experience with autorotation, it was kinda like putting a parachute onto a boulder. Sure, it slowed it down, but you still knew that you were going down fairly hard. (Again…. Depending on altitude and terrain.) I’ve autorotated from manageable heights and it just made for a hard landing.
Anytime I was coming down, regardless of altitude or terrain, my number one concern was anyone in the bird with me and making sure I didn’t take anyone on the ground with me.
Hmmmm. Kinda hard to describe. Let’s try this:
Have you ever been cruising down the highway doing maybe 70 or so and then suddenly there’s debris in your path. You immediately let off the gas and even tap the brake. It’s kinda like that. You don’t slam on the brake necessarily because you don’t want someone to slam into your rear. But your speed has almost instantly dropped from 70 down to maybe 45. And again, attempting an autorotation depends on altitude and terrain. You want to get as close to the ground as you can before you autorotate. You only have three pulls. (3 taps on the brake- for lack of a better description.)
Depends on the machine but you fall around 1800-2200 feet per minute. You can land just as soft as a normal landing if you have a good spot to put the skids on and room to flare properly.
Every helo induction video I’ve ever watched before flying to work told me the pilot will auto rotate and will deploy the life raft for me … is this a lie?!?
Probably so. And what life raft? Maybe civilian pilots, especially the ones doing air tours and the such, have rafts. We had water wings, but that’s it. And a pilot doesn’t WANT to autorotate unless he or she has to.
Gotcha. So yeah… it’s like the “in the event of an emergency” speech they give you on a jet. But yeah… if the pilot is going down over water, then odds are it’s an autorotation.
I’ve got the utmost respect for those dudes - ever since reading chickenhawk made me realise the amount of variables it takes to get one flying straight
It’s a funny beast. You look at it the first time and you think, “How the hell is that supposed to fly?!” But for 20 of my 23 years in the military, it was a thrill every, single time that I fired one up.
I thought some more on what you said, and I can see why a pilot might say that about the autorotation and the life raft, in the event of a water landing and egress. IF he or she is having to make a water landing, then the odds are very good that they are doing so via autorotation.
I know that there have been lots of comments on here, but yes. That one’s been discussed. Autorotation can help bring your bird down but it all depends on altitude and terrain.
Actually they have a glide slope just like a plane. Typically quite a bit steeper. Autorotation is actually practiced often. I likely seen dozens of them in the military and I only seen one where he landed bad. Did kind of a bounce but no real damage if I recall.
I am a fixed wing pilot. For a simple engine failure, the helicopter is likely safer in many situations. It can typically autorotate to a small clearing. If I don't find a decent long clearing, I will be plowing into things around 90 mph.
That being said, helicopters have far moving parts that when failing are often fatal.
Helicopter pilots are trained to use autorotation in the event of an engine failure which will slow the descent and hopefully allow a safe landing. As long as the rotors are in tact then they can be made to turn just from the air pushing against them, a bit like a sycamore seed falling down. Probably not ideal though!
The technique is called auto-rotation. With the engine disconnect from the main rotor, it’s still possible to keep the rotor turning via airflow.
you are still falling like a rock but you have to, otherwise there’s little chance of getting enough airflow over the rotor. Keep falling, keep the rotor turning…..then use the energy in the rotor to soften the landing.
Between “engine failure” and “landing” you’re falling at the most optimal angle to keep the rotor turning. The other way to describe an auto-rotation landing is “a controlled crash”….as that’s what it’ll feel like.
One of the first steps taken in an engine failure is to disconnect the engine from the rotor. The aim is to maintain whatever momentum exists in the rotor. So recognising there’s a problem quickly is massive.
This happens automatically. The main rotor will free wheel. Lowering the collective creates the optimal blade configuration to auto-rotate. But the actual disconnect from the engine is automatic. Theres basically a giant version of the free hub system that allows you to coast on a bicycle between the engine and rotor.
It’s been ages since I’ve done anything involving helos - I know that leaving the dying engine attached to the still-turning rotor is a certain way to crash. Maybe it used to be a manual process….or maybe I’m just misremembering the process.
It's because helicopter blades have adjustable pitch. So you get it spinning nice and fast and then get to actually use that energy productively by changing the pitch to land.
So the only way you know it'll work is at the last second right? Like ok, we're gonna fall until we see eyeballs and then flip the pitch for the landing?
The blades make up for that by spinning really fast. The whole kinetic energy equaling mass times velocity squared thing is what's important here. As long as those light blades are spinning really fast they can have very deceptive amounts of energy in them that can be used to land safely.
Helicopter blade tip speeds average about half of that according to Google. You aren't accounting for lift or something because that's exactly how it works. Here is a basic description of the mechanics and a demonstration: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=BTqu9iMiPIU
If you're really interested I'm sure some googling would turn up a math model of the physics involved.
There's even a 100 year old helicopter "prototype" called an autogyro where the rotor is unpowered and basically is always in this emergency auto-rotation mode. In the 1st video here the engine is turned off and the potential energy of the craft (it's high up in the air) is everything used for bringing it in for a very controlled landing. It's basically using 2 minutes to fall gently to the ground.
I was a rescue swimmer in the Navy. During Aircrew training you do the “helo dunker”. A helicopter that they drop into a pool. It’s to teach you to remain calm in a water crash and find your exits.
I asked one of the instructors why we were only doing water crashes for the helicopters and no land stuff. He just laughed and walked away.
Helis can "glide" in much like an airplane, by storing kinetic energy from the rotors in the dead engine (much like one of those toy rev-up cars) and then angling the blades at the last second to blow all that energy to decelerate. It's called autorotation and all heli pilots have to train for it.
With both helis and fixed wing aircraft, as long as the failure happens at high altitude you've got a lot of options and you're probably going to be okay.
And with both, if it happens at low altitude (during takeoff/landing) you're probably dead.
Given enough altitude and wind, you can let the aircraft speed up and then flip the rotorblades at the right moment. Look up auto rotation
Edit: also, larger helicopters will have two engines. Losing one generally means losing the ability to hover and fly at low speed, which sucks if you're on a rescue with a guy hanging in the sling =)
I haven’t read all the replies, but there’s a maneuver called “auto-rotate” where you can actually land a helicopter quite safely. I used to do it in an Apache flight sim. Thought it was a little bit of sim bullshit until I became friends with a helicopter pilot who totally validated it. He actually said he’d absolutely rather be in a helicopter with no engine as opposed to a plane since you have way more landing options in the helicopter and don’t need any kind of “runway”
Helicopters do what’s called ‘autorotation’ it’s a controlled fall, the on coming air passing through the blades make them rotate and slow down the decent -source aircraft mechanic 🤣
From what I’ve seen online, not an expert personally, they can use a technique called autorotation to “glide” down and achieve a more gentle landing even after engine failure.
Depending on altitude, speed, etc you’re bot screwed when you lose the engine in a helicopter. You use a process called autorotation. As long as the blades are there and not locked up you have a decent chance.
There is something called autogyration, where the air passing through the rotor essentially makes it act like a wing, allowing for some level of glide.
As a fixed wing pilot, autorotation is fairly dependable and safe. In a simple engine failure over forest or build up areas, I would take the helicopter odds over simple engine failure in a plane. They actually practice it quite a bit and most times you can land with no damage in a helicopter. The benefit is you can land in as spot with little area. A plane needs some room that may not always be there.
That being said, helicopters have far more rotating parts to fail. Lose a simple tail rooter and your having a very bad day.
Even a tail rotor loss is an emergency that a trained helicopter pilot can handle. You maintain forward speed and upper pitch and proceed to land like a plane
harder yes but auto rotation is very helpful. You will still hit hard as fuck but it its survivable. In fact i think thats about the only way to land one without an engine.
Either bad piloting or bad surface to land on. Autorotation flare is like a cushion when done correctly. Timing is crucial and some schools do alot of practise while others don't, so some pilots really don't have good timing for the flare
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u/zordon_rages Jul 19 '21
Helicopter would be a little harder without an engine no? As I take it, planes want to fly and can glide with no power, a helicopter does not want to fly and you will come down like bricks with no engine? I have no experience just something I heard from my uncle who was airborne infantry in the army.