Helicopters, Autogyros, Tiltrotors, and More!

[pTrevTrevs]

For those of you who don't know, I live about half an hour away from Fort Rucker, Alabama, the largest helicopter base in the world (yeah, I told you where I live, hopefully nobody tries to blow up my house or something).

Anyway, this means I have lots of opportunities to get up close views of Army helicopters and the facilities used to train pilots. I have lots of stories about helicopters, and apparently, some people have found them interesting. This thread is for us rotary-wing lovers to discuss helicopters, autogyros, tiltrotors, and more. Tell your stories, post your pictures, ask questions, anything. The helicopter is an amazing invention, and I think it deserves some attention!

[Rath]

Seen any REALLY weird experimental copters fly out of there?

[Azimech]

I'm wondering when a coaxial helicopter will go into mass production in the US. I'm interested in the Sikorksy/Boeing Defiant but surely there must be a market for more coaxials.

http://www.janes.com/article/54127/boeing-sikorsky-defiant-next-gen-helicopter-approaches-design-review

[colmo]

I am, as far as I know, the first KSP player to fly a helicopter (Damned Aerospace, remember it?) to the KSC 2 - that was in 0.15, it was in a different location back then. It took about two hours, in the days when SAS essentially didn't work, and infiniglide made for a hairy landing.

The mission was originally to drop a Big Trak rover on the nearby hills. That done, I decided to keep going.

Screenshots:

https://goo.gl/photos/efZdLM1PFvMPkDyaA

Edited October 22, 2015 by colmo
Link to screenshots

[pTrevTrevs]

Seen any REALLY weird experimental copters fly out of there?

Unfortunately, no. Rucker is the Army's training base for helicopters, and a good deal of its aircraft are based there, but testing is done elsewhere, probably at Edwards AFB or Area 51. Even if they did test around here, they would do it a night, when people are less likely to to see something.

You probably remember how one of the Blackhawks in the Osama Bin-Laden raid crashed and the wreckage revealed it to be some kind of stealth helicopter. Well, we didn't know anything about it, even though my father actually works as a Blackhawk instructor pilot. We never saw any fly over before and we still haven't seen any fly over since.

I'm wondering when a coaxial helicopter will go into mass production in the US. I'm interested in the Sikorksy/Boeing Defiant but surely there must be a market for more coaxials.

http://www.janes.com/article/54127/boeing-sikorsky-defiant-next-gen-helicopter-approaches-design-review

Yeah, again, I'm just as much in the dark as you are. Sikorsky and Boeing seem to be working on this to sell to the army. And again, I've never seen any coaxial helicopters in flight, even though I know for a fact that the S-97 Raider has already made its first test flight.

Occasionally I see some Russian helicopters (Mi-17, I think), because the army bought some to train foreign students in. So that's cool, I guess.

[FlipNascar]

I think the issue with coaxials and production is cost. More complicated, and a helicopter is complicated enough from a maintenance point of view. It probably boils down to a huge increase in operating cost vs "traditional". And on the civil market, DOCs are hella important.

But don't forget that while not coaxial... There's the Kaman KMax with its intermeshing rotors - http://www.kaman.com/aerospace/aerosystems/air-vehicles-mro/products-services/k-max/

[LN400]

Some pretty cool (and plenty of dorky lookin) coaxial full sizers. Kamov have them as their speciality and their helis are being used for everything from crop spraying (Ka-26)

to carrier based operations like asw (Ka-25)

to all out attack, like the Ka-52

and the older Ka-50.

While they are more complex, they also have flight characteristics that are wanted in certain scenarios (exellent hovering abilities, good in asw and SAR), an overall stability single rotors lack while still being nimble, and the lack of a tail rotor makes for safer operations in crowded areas like a carrier deck. Still, they see very limited use outside Russia and some eastern European countries and the mentioned costs/complexity could very well be the reason for that. Interesting then that the teams behind new generation helis are lookng into coaxial design.

[pTrevTrevs]

Here's a cool video I watch every . It's a documentary about flight school made during the Vietnam era. Lots of things have changed since then (Fort Wolters isn't around anymore, and they don't let students do solo flights), but it's still a really interesting and informative video, really good if you have the time.

http://youtu.be/g7IX0lRRGCc

[Bill Phil]

That's pretty far south, I'm in Northern Alabama, near MSFC and Redstone Army Base. Or is it called something else?

Helicopters are great. Chinooks, H-1s, and even the 40s copters are all very interesting.

Does the Osprey count?

[Vanamonde]

Never been in one, but I find them fascinating. Here's a terrific book about a guy who learns to fly them so he can be a military pilot in Vietnam. All kinds of cool technical information, plus combat stories.

[pTrevTrevs]

That's pretty far south, I'm in Northern Alabama, near MSFC and Redstone Army Base. Or is it called something else?

Helicopters are great. Chinooks, H-1s, and even the 40s copters are all very interesting.

Does the Osprey count?

Pretty far South indeed. You haven't felt pain until you've lived through a South Alabama summer. You haven't felt suffering until you've been in a South Alabama marching band in the summer.

The Osprey is technically a tiltrotor, but since I included that in the title of the thread, we can talk about them as well.

Next time I go to the Army Aviation Museum on the base, I'll make sure to take some pictures and share them here.

[Rath]

I think that the us is working on a 4 rotor super heavy lift helicopter. Like you know the dual roter ones that have the big beam in the middle to mount roters combined with the really long ones that have a rotor in each end.

[JetJaguar]

Cool, I'm actually an engineer for the Navy supporting training systems for several programs, and two of our biggest users are H-60 and MV-22. I've never been to Rucker as it's Army, but I imagine the schoolhouse there is similar to the one we have in Jacksonville.

[Pixel of Life]

A great website that explains the aerodynamics of helicopters rotary wing aircraft:

http://www.copters.com/helo_aero.html#concepts

Edited October 23, 2015 by CaptainKorhonen

[pTrevTrevs]

This is a helicopter I designed in Autodesk Inventor and made with the 3D printer in my engineering class last year. Both the main and tail rotor can spin freely.