The Fly Higher Tutorial III

Helicopters
Where are the wings?

Eurocopter EC13

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First:
Some History
Leonardo da Vinci designed the first helicopter style
aircraft which he called the Helical air screw.
Though drawn with instructions on how it would operate
it was never made or tested at the time. Modern day
physics suggests this would not fly.

You
should
have
heard of
Leonardo
da Vinci!
What else
is
he most
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Leonardo da Vinci
Some History
Was not only a pre-eminent scientist and
engineer in his time (late 15th Century)
A fantastic artist,
but also.
best known for
painting Mona Lisa

and the mural The

Last Supper
And a pioneering student of human
anatomy, illustrated by this famous
diagram: The Viruvian Man

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First Working Helicopters

Some History
In 1906, two French brothers,
Louis-Charles and Jacques
Brguet,
began
experimenting
with
wing
shapes for helicopters;
in
1907
they
successfully
demonstrated the potential for
rotary-winged
flight with It took 40 years more for
Gyroplane No 1.
man to perfect the design of
the helicopter. In 1944, Igor
Sikorsky, a Russian born
American, flew the first
mass produced Helicopter,
the Sikorsky R-4.
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First Working Helicopters

Some History
Early take off of a Sikorsky R-4b
helicopter.
Please watch video 1
take off of a Sikorsky R-4b helicopter
Source YouTube HeloSociety
Edition Fly Higher

Source Youtube HeloSociety

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Todays Helicopters
Todays helicopters come in many different sizes and can fulfil a
variety of roles. They also vary in how they operate and work
when in flight.
Boeing CH-47
Chinook

Robinson R22

Sikorsky CH-124 Sea King

In your groups try to think of

as many different roles for
helicopters as you can, and
why they are preferable to
aeroplanes in each case you
describe.

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Parts of a Helicopter
As a class or in
groups can you work
out what are each of
these parts of the
Helicopter?

8
1
1

Can you get all 11?

On your table you have
the diagram and a list of
the
names
of
the
technical parts to help.

6
7

10
4

52

3
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Parts of a Helicopter
Hopefully you matched the technical names to the
diagram as follows:
ANSWERS:
1) Fuselage. Just like
Pt1
on a plane we need
The Cabin
a main body to
house the people
and
attach
everything
else
2) Landing Skids. These replace the wheels
onto.on an aeroplane.
Can you explain why a helicopter does not need
wheels?
3) Cabin doors. Needed to get people in and out of the
aircraft. Helicopters dont fly as high as commercial
airplanes so the doors are generally much lighter than the
doors on an aeroplane. Again, can you explain why
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Parts of a Helicopter
ANSWERS: Pt2
Tail Section

4) Tail boom. This forms part

of the overall structure and
encases various parts of
the tail section.
5) Elevator. This is controlled
by the pilot and allows the
Helicopter to pitch up and
down.
6) Tail
fin.
Allows
the
Helicopter to yaw left and
right.
7) Tail rotor. This component
pushes the helicopter in
the opposing way to the
main rotor; Otherwise
(as a
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Parts of a Helicopter
8) Rotor. Shaped like aeroplane
wings, these spin around to
generate the required lift for
the aircraft.

ANSWERS: Pt3
Powerplant & Main
Rotor

9) Engine. This powers the

helicopter and comes in
varying types and sizes.
10) Transmission. This part
converts
the
horizontal
turning motion of the engine
into a vertical motion which
spins the main rotors.
11) Swash Plate. A complex
arrangement of connections

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Rotor blades:
How do we get into the air?
As we have seen previously, the Rotor blades spin around
and looked to be shaped like wings, but how does this get a
helicopter into the air?

Above is an end-view drawing and a picture of a

rotor blade. As you can see, these show that the
blade is shaped like an aerofoil or aeroplane wing.
An aerofoil generates lift by the means of a
pressure difference, exactly as it does on an
aeroplane.
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Rotor blades:
How do we get into the air?
Air

Each rotor blade has its top surface curved.

We get a large amount of air to flow over the blades by
spinning them.
The air is forced to flow much faster over the rotor blade than
under it.
This causes a lower pressure on the top than on the bottom.
This pressure difference results in a force LIFT, which pulls
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the helicopter upwards. The helicopter is effectively

Rotor blades, theres more!

How do we get into the air?
Now we know how our LIFT is generated, getting us into
the air, we must now be able to move around.
If we dont move our blades in any direction but simply
leave them spinning we would just continue going straight
up!

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Moving in the Air

But we also want to move left
or right, and tilt in a certain
direction.
How do we do
that?
Blade
s

The Hub

Swash
Plate

Metal Rods [that move

up and down tilting the
hub and blades]

This is where a part of the

Helicopter called the Swash
Plate comes in.
This comprises of a series of
metal rods which are located
where all the blades of the
rotor are connected together,
the Hub.
This Swash Plate tilts the
blades by pushing or pulling
at certain points, so altering
the pitch (angle) of the
blades individually as they
revolve around in the
air.
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Rotor blades: theres still

more!
If
we
want
backwards then
hub and blades
shall
move
backwards.

to
move
we tilt our
up and weBACKWARD
up
and
S

If we want to do the
opposite and move forward,
we tilt our hub and blades
forward and give ourselves
forward motion.
If
we
want
to
move
sideways we would tilt our
hub and blades left or right.

FORWARDS

LEFT

OR
RIGHT

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Knowing that the rotor

blades will tilt to move the
helicopter
in
various
directions, how does the
pilot control
them?
This
is
where
the
Helicopters
three main
controls come in:
The Cyclic
The Collective

How a helicopter is
controlled
COLLECTI
VE
CYCLI
C
PEDA
LS

Pedals
Pilots Chair

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The cyclic is shaped like

a
old-fashioned
hand
brake in a car and
controls the Swash plate
we looked at earlier.

How a helicopter is
controlled:
The Cyclic

With this control stick in

one
hand
the
pilot
controls the tilt angle of
the Swash plate and
therefore can decide in
what
direction
the
Helicopter flies.
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How a helicopter is
controlled:
The Collective
This is shaped like a
joystick from an old
computer and looks a lot
like the control stick
airplane pilots use.
With
this
Collective
controller in their left
hand
the
pilot
can
determine whether the
helicopter
climbs
or
descends.
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How a helicopter is
controlled:
The Pedals
Lastly there are two pedals where
the pilot must place each foot.
With these, the pilot can move the
tail rotor sideways so turning the
aircraft left or right whilst keeping
the fuselage level.
With
a
skilled
combination of these
three controls the pilot
can
take
the
Helicopter
almost
anywhere!

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Helicopters
You should
more than
follow this
helicopters.

now know
enough to
film about

Please watch video 2

Helicopters for beginners
Source YouTube CrazyHeliDude
Edition Fly Higher

Source Youtube CrazyHeliDude

Interested?
When you get home
have a look at
Helicopters for
beginners on
YouTube.
There is some
fascinating
stuff
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Consortium

Follow us on
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/groups/Fly-Higher-Project4737756
/flyhigherproject

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For further information

flyhigher@inovama
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