Talk:Helicopter

Uses?

There is much information here, but where are the uses and examples of uses? World Wars? Today? I find that very important but not easy to find.I would change it to a B class for not putting prime information first. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by TribalXxX (talk • contribs).

Article Rating

I just took a prelim look at this article. It is very under cited. It needs many more references and inline citations (just for beginners). I will look a little mor eindepth later. As of now, I feel that a B rating stands. -- Chrislk02 (Chris Kreider) 18:37, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Born2flie: Chris, thanks. I will put it on my To Do list. Hope others will also! --23:58, 8 January 2007 (UTC)

Japanese WWII Helicopter

The History Channel recently aired a show on Modern Marvels entiteled "Secret Japanese Aircraft of WWII", which lists information regarding Japanese helicopters including an attack on a US submarine. If there is evidence for this, we should update the page accordingly. Here is the info:

http://www.history.com/shows.do?action=detail&episodeId=205656 In the 1930s, Japanese designers created a range of warplanes, culminating in the legendary Ki-43 Oscar and the A6M Zero. As the war turned against Japan, designers created the rocket-powered Shusui, the Kikka jet fighter, and the experimental R2Y Keiun. We also disclose frantic preparations to assemble a secret airforce of jet and rocket planes to counter an anticipated US invasion in1945, and chronicle post-war aviation and the birth of the Japanese rocket program in the 1950s and '60s.

—The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.107.16.99 (talk) 22:08, 9 January 2007 (UTC).

IIRC, it was a licence-produced U.S. autogyro, not a helo. Trekphiler 01:19, 2 March 2007 (UTC)

Different Direction

Born2flie: I think this article attempts to explain things that belong in other articles. An article about helicopters should have a good enough overview of the History and then focus on Uses of helicopters, rather than how they work. That approach has already been attempted and ended up in a bunch of articles being split out. --23:43, 14 January 2007 (UTC)

I have created an example article with my perception of where this page should be going. It is located here. --Born2flie 01:07, 12 March 2007 (UTC)

Any opinions? --Born2flie 02:35, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Looks good, but I'd put the rotor section down under helicopter configuration. Akradecki 03:23, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

Done. --Born2flie 07:39, 17 March 2007 (UTC)

Song by Bloc Party

Someone should put a link to the song by bloc party at the top of the page, I would if I could work out how to. Ian 01:25, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

Try Helicopters in popular culture. --Born2flie 01:38, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

The song isn't about helicopters, it's just called helicopter. You have to put Helicopter (song) to get to the song's entry, and if you just put helicopter you might assume there isn't an entry for the song. Ian 21:53, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The song is listed on the Helicopter (disambiguation) page. I've linked to the DAB page in lieu of the song page, as there are other items listed there. - BillCJ 00:56, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Ah, very good. I'd forgotten about the dab page. Akradecki 01:02, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

d'Ascanio

The Italian Engineer Corradino d'Ascanio built in 1930 a successful coaxial helicopter, which flew under good control. His relatively large machine had two, two-bladed, counterrotating rotors. As de la Cierva, he provided the blades with hinges that allowed for flapping and a feathering capability to change blade pitch. Control was achieved by using auxiliary wings or servo-tabs on the trailing edges of the blades, a concept that was later adopted by others, including Bleeker and Kaman. D'Ascanio designed these servo-tabs so that they could be deflected cyclically by a system of cables and pulleys, thereby cyclically changing the lift on the blade as it swept around the rotor disk. For vertical flight, the tabs on all the blades moved collectively to increase the rotor thrust. Three small propellers mounted to the airframe were used for additional pitch, roll, and yaw control. This machine held modest FAI speed and altitude records for the time, including altitude (57 ft, 17.4 m), duration (8 minutes 45 seconds) and distance flown (3,589 ft, 1,078 m).

I previously removed the above entry regarding the Italian d'Ascanio because it didn't have a reference and the stated achievements conflicted with the referenced achievements of Oemichen. I have since found more references[1][2][3] that suggest that d'Ascanio did set recognized FAI records but I have yet to see a reference from FAI that corroborates this information and at the very least corrects the discrepancies. --Born2flie 17:56, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I'm looking at reentering this piece, rewritten, of course, into the article. Just looking for an accurate FAI reference. I'm also going to put in about Bréguet's Gyroplane Laboratoire. --Born2flie 16:07, 27 April 2007 (UTC)

First fully functional helicopter?

“ First fully functional helicopter was made by a Slovak inventor Ján Bahýľ in 1901, when he reached a height of 0.5 metre. In 1903 he reached 1.5 m, and on May 5, 1905 he reached 4 m and flew for over 1500 m with his petrol-engine helicopter. The last attempt was recorded by the International Airship Organisation.[4] ”

Svetovid inserted the preceding statements into the article as if it was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Props to the inventor, but he basically invented the precursor to the R/C helicopter. "First fully functional helicopter" implies a lot and I don't find such a claim established by the source, or any of the other strangely, similarly worded references online. Anyone with a hardcover reference have something on this? --Born2flie 09:01, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

So you reverted it to a state when there is information without any source at all? And I actually put a reference for Paul Cornu and updated the information. I reworded it.--Svetovid 23:24, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

I can find any number of sources that portray exactly what Paul Cornu did and what his machine was like, but all the sources for Ján Bahýľ come back with similarly worded dialogue. Nothing tells us anything about his "helicopter" with a petrol-engine that can seemingly "outperform" every true helicopter of that generation. How big was the wingspan? How much did it weigh? I can tell you this much, it didn't carry him. I can guarantee that much since it would take almost 15-20 more years to develop internal combustion engines with the power to lift a man. Show me a real reference that I can find in a book about helicopters that says that this man actually built the first fully functional helicopter and I will stop disputing it right now. I've pulled out D'Ascanio until we can better establish the claim to FAI records, and he has a legitimate claim to be mentioned in the history. We aren't talking about models, we're talking about full-sized, full-fledged man-carrying flying machines. --Born2flie 23:35, 3 May 2007 (UTC)

G.Apostolo regarding Breguet's Gyroplane No.1 flight in 1907, "But it was the first time a mechanical device had raised itself vertically from the ground with a man on board, using a rotary wing system, even if it could not be described as a free flight."

K.Munson regarding the same, "...the Gyroplane No.1...had to be steadied by a man stationed at the extremity of each of the four arms supporting the rotors. It cannot, therefore, take the credit for being the first helicopter to make a free flight, even though the ground helpers contributed nothing towards the lifting power of the rotors; but it was the first machine to raise itself, with a pilot, vertically off the ground by means of a rotating-wing system of lift."

It is also interesting that you edit Cornu's flight to be 0.3 m altitude when the reference you quoted says "about one foot (0.6 meter)" For the first flight, most sources do agree that only 0.3 meter/30 cm/0.30 meter was achieved, but later that day, almost 2 m was recorded. All with a man aboard the helicopter. How did Bahýľ know that his aircraft flew for 1500 m? He probably marked it off on the walk back from chasing after it. You also reworded the portion on Cornu to insinuate that the expert consensus (not the wikipedia editor consensus) was that Cornu didn't actually achieve what is known that he accomplished, namely the first manned free flight in a helicopter. --Born2flie 00:24, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

It wasn't a model. References in English are hard to find, I agree.--Svetovid 15:33, 4 May 2007 (UTC)

Spell check

I realize this is trivial, but is it actually "medevaced"? I've also seen "medivac" &, commonly, "medivacked", to avoid "med i vayced" (which "medevaced" suggests...). Consensus? Trekphiler 05:58, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

• It's a shortened form of medical evacuation. Medevac is defined on dictionary.com and Merriam-Webster with medivac as a variant. Either stick with medevac or spell out the phrase. -Fnlayson 06:35, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

Silent Helicopters?

I was just woundering if anybody has any information on silent helicopters or thier engines. I know that they are out there (ive even seen TV commercials for them), I just cant find any info on them.Gundam94 17:19, 21 May 2007 (UTC)

Are you talking about NOTAR? MD Helicopters has run some commercials in prime markets in the past. --Born2flie 22:47, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

• That does sound like an advertising thing. Really, how silent is "silent"? It's all relative. -Fnlayson 22:54, 25 May 2007 (UTC)

Noise is an issue with all helicopters, I'm pretty sure there are no truly 'silent' ones... The NOTAR system does greatly reduce noise, as does the fenestron system. For example, the RAH-66 Comanche is near silent until directly overhead. The majority of the noise comes from interaction between vortices caused by the tips of the rotor blades. Since in the fenestron the tail rotor is enclosed, and NOTAR has no tail rotor, the interaction is removed along with a large amount of the noise.

Thanks, Jonaboff_talk

00:02, 26 May 2007 (UTC)

Various edits

I restored the introduction from Equazcion's (Talk | contribs) edits. The introduction should encapsulate most of the pertinent facts of the article. Information can and should be repeated later and in more detail. I also fixed wikilinks to applicable articles. The article Aerial photography references both still and motion picture photography and is a more relevant and complete article for helicopters being used for photography. Law enforcement redirects to Police and briefly mentions police helicopters while Police aircraft discusses in more detail the use of helicopters for police work. "In fact" was used to link the explanation of the origins of the word helicopter directly to the sentence before it that describes how the helicopter derives its lift. I have edited that portion so the correlation should be a little clearer. --Born2flie 09:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• Etymology explanation is commonplace in any article that defines an original word. "In fact" makes it sound like we're presenting an interesting tidbit of information that is only notable because of its relation to the preceding sentence, when really the derivation of the word is something that is expected to be included in an encyclopedia article.
• I shortened the list of uses. I made the uses explanation more generalized for the intro. The full specific list isn't necessary there. I added a link to the uses section.
• Also redid my copy edits of that paragraph. You didn't give any reason for reverting those.

Equazcion 09:32, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Neither did you. It was your personal preference to edit it, and it was my personal preference to edit it back. Kind of childish of a reason, isn't it? There was no problem with how the middle paragraph was written. You can argue the use of "in fact" in the introduction, but the entymology is more completely covered within the article itself (See History). You've edited the introduction as if it was a part of the general article at large. That's okay, it is a common problem I've seen on the Wiki. On this one article I had believed that we could finally begin meeting WP:TPA, but I guess not. And that's why Wikipedia fails. --Born2flie 10:07, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

• It's not childish. It's copy editing. Wikipedians are expected to copy edit, for no reason other than to improve wording and grammar. I stated my reason as copy editing. Copy edits aren't expected to come with individual reasoning for each edit. But if you feel the need to revert every edit, it would be nice to hear the reason you felt that was necessary, after the time one might've spent doing something he thought was an improvment.
• Etymology is generally placed in the intro. Check other articles. Word origins are always placed there right in the beginning, no "in fact" necessary.
• I'm sorry you think wikipedia has failed just because someone felt that your wording needed changing. I feel that it's succeeded. There's really no need to get adversarial.
• I reinserted the distinction between aerial and motion picture photography. The aerial article only mentions motion pictures in two words - "motion pictures." And aerial photogrpahy refers to one particular type of photo taken from the air - the bird's eye view - and helicopters are used for much more than that.

Try to be a little flexible. Wikipedia articles are supposed to reflect the work of many, not one. I'm sorry I messed with your precious paragraph, but you really shouldn't go pasting your original paragraph right over all my edits. They couldn't all have been that bad. And to call it childish that I copy-edited your paragraph, well that's just... not right. I could call you childish for writing the paragraph to begin with then :) At least I compromised — I didn't replace the whole thing, just edited some parts, so some elements of the paragraph are yours, and some are mine. Let's share. K?

Equazcion 10:17, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Copyedit=your personal preference, since there was nothing wrong with how anything in the article was stated. There were no readability issues, you just preferred to see something written differently to suit your preference for how you felt it should be written. Again, childish isn't it? Oh, I know you won't accept that and will attempt to portray it as anything other than childish. It's okay, I can accept my reversion for what it was, copyeditting because I preferred the way that it was written before you edited it (i.e. childish). The fact that I had to revert your butchering to get to what was previously there is just a method to accomplish the goal. You can have the edits as you would like. I know the way Wikipedia works and we can either have an edit war and attempt to get support for our views, or I can choose not to waste time and energy and depart. Problem solved. --Born2flie 10:46, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Wow. What a nice person. Well all I'll say is that it isn't up to you to say whether or not anything is wrong, and furthermore just because I feel it can be improved doesn't mean that I've classified anything as being "wrong" per se. And this childish business... I mean, if my edits are childish, then by that logic your insistence on the article remaining exactly "as-is" is also childish. And I actually think it is. You're missing the point of Wikipedia. Articles are supposed to change, evolve, not remain stagnant. I won't hold this against you though because it sounds like you're just in need of a vacation or something. Good luck with that, enjoy your grumpy solitude.

Just wanted to add some clarification. "Copyedit=personal preference," that may be true. The same as the original version being your personal preference. Wikipedia articles, I suppose, then have to end up being a composite or everyones' personal preferences, a compromise. I edited certain parts of your paragraph, leaving some of it. You reverted the entire paragraph so that it was entirely your version again, according to your preference. Guess which one of us showed more willingness to compromise. You speak of childishness — a child is someone who insists on having everything their way, or else they stomp around angrily, calling people names.

You won't win any mature adult awards any time soon, sir. Equazcion 16:11, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Good job — I just fixed a couple of small things:

• Advantages, being a noun, "come from" somewhere. They aren't "due to" something. For example, "The glass statue is due to the glass blower," is incorrect. Adjectives are due to something - "It was wet due to the rain". You could use "due to" in this case if you change "advantages" to its adjective form, "advantageous" — "Helicopters are advantageous due to their ...."
• A hover is by definition over a fixed point on the ground.
• Things "land in" or "land on," not "land to."

Equazcion 23:11, 16 July 2007 (UTC)

Actually, helicopters can land to a point, a location, an address, etc. just as they can take off from the same. They can even land at a location. Because they can hover, they don't have to land on a point, they can land to a hover, which they usually do before they land on an object. They can also hover over an area. Sometimes this is due to the skill of the pilot or sometimes it is according to the flight profile for the operation. Helicopters can hover from point A to point B. That is called hovering over a line. Technically, that would be a line segment, which is a series of points between two points on a plane (not an airplane, of course). A line also exists along the intersection of two planes, but two airplanes intersecting due to traveling on the same line is bad. But, it is specifically because the helicopter can hover over a point, as opposed to an area or a line, that it is used to accomplish many tasks that both the airplane and autogyro cannot perform. It is probably important to point that out to people.

Now, from the American Heritage Dictionary:

due to

prep. Because of.

Usage Note: Due to has been widely used for many years as a compound preposition like owing to, but some critics have insisted that due should be used only as an adjective. According to this view, it is incorrect to say The concert was canceled due to the rain, but acceptable to say The cancellation of the concert was due to the rain, where due continues to function as an adjective modifying cancellation. This seems a fine point, however, and since due to is widely used and understood, there seems little reason to avoid using it as a preposition.

Compare with, As an aircraft, the primary advantages of the helicopter are due to the wings... If you'll notice, I included all the appropriate elements of grammar required, even for those experts who argue how due to should and should not be used. You, however, make an argument that seems to be unreferenced and flouts even the expert consensus for the most conservative use. In fact, your recommended usage doesn't even appear to make the discussion. --Born2flie 08:16, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

• You're right about "due to". The use of "land to," however, you haven't adequately justified — you've said that a helicopter can land to a hover, but you haven't provided any evidence that this is correct usage. I did a google search for the phrase "land to a hover" and got zero results, and a search for "land to" in conjunction with either "hover" or "helicopter" yielded no such phrasing. But since you left that out of your most recent edit, and we shouldn't be ending a sentence with a preposition anyway, I suppose that's a moot point.

• Similarly, I searched for the phrase "hover over a line" with "helicopter", which yielded zero results, and then "hovering over a line," which yielded 3 results describing UFO sightings — none of which used the phrase in the manner you describe. So I've removed that from the sentence.

• I added "most" in front of "planes" in the phrases that describe things that planes can't do, because the truth is that some planes can take off and land vertically — VTOL planes like Harriers.

• I added to the phrase: "...due to its wings, which in this case are rotor blades..." because I found this statement to be confusing. When you say, "...[the] advantages are due to its wings, the rotor blades, ..." it sounds like "the rotor blades" is another item in a list of causes for the advantages. I think my addition clarifies the actual meaning.

Feel free to continue with all the adversarial comments and sarcasm. I've also never had to justify every single one of my copy edits before... other people just allow a gentle nonthreatening compromise to be reached. I think you're just insulted that I came and stomped on your turf. I don't think you really care that much about these words — you just don't want mine to be the ones settled on. There's nothing I can do about it but continue to deal with you while you "have fun" making things more difficult.

Equazcion 09:59, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I think you've over-complicated my response. I simply don't find your edits to be improvements over what existed prior to your arrival at this article. I know you don't feel that way, but I also find that you really aren't concerned with what anyone else thinks.

I will remove the most qualification from in front of airplanes because the fact is that harriers are not used in those areas, despite any perceived capability for the purely military machine to operate in the same capacity as a helicopter or any aircraft that might do a similar mission as the helicopter. As for the confusing statement regarding the rotor blades, it could only be confusing if you hadn't been reading the rest of the article up to that point, as if you had just picked an arbitrary spot to begin reading an article rather than beginning at the beginning. It has already been stated that the rotor blades are the "wings" (i.e. the etymology that you had previously contested its treatment) so to redundantly state that its wings "which in this case are rotor blades" is simply, well...redundant. Oh, did I already say that? The difference between our two phrasings, I wasn't introducing it as something new, but rather as a reminder. Still, I am more than able to simplify it.

In my edit history, I pointed out that the definition for "hover" does not imply that it is over a point, yet you've decided to edit that out again. You seemed to make such a big case about hovering being implied to be over a point, it is surprising that all the basic geometry stuff I threw out there for you just went over your head (point, line, area). Still, if you want to find out if a helicopter can hover in a straight line—which would be absolutely incredulous to any helicopter pilot that you would have to "verify" such a thing—you can google for "hover taxi", which usually involves a helicopter hovering over a painted line on the ground (generally straight, except for turns) called a taxiway centerline. You'll get approximately 636,000 results. I can even point you to the FAR/AIM which has guidelines for Air Traffic Controllers and Pilots as to just what entails hover taxi versus air taxi versus just taxi.

Let's see, you also edited out "are not able to take off or land" to "would not have access." Given the two, "able to take off and land" is much more descriptive and specific than "would not have access." Airplanes can fly to, around, and over most isolated and congested areas, they simply just aren't capable of taking off and landing there. So having access really isn't the issue that prevents the airplanes from operating in those areas, unless we're going to require the reader to do the mental gymnastics to extract your intended meaning of an area to land and take off from your stated "would not have access." Why, you could just simply say, are not able to take off or land. Oh, wait, that's what I already had written.

Finally, you also edited in your direct upwards motion bullshit again, which was previously perfectly vertical. Not to be facetious, but I don't write with the assumption that I'm writing for people who have to have everything spelled out for them. Lift, as a basic aerodynamic force, is defined as working in the up direction. My children even understand that lift works opposite of gravity, since they ask me to "lift" them "up" and they know that they fall "down". There is no reason that this article has to talk down to people by excessively and redundantly explaining things. What's more, if they need to know what lift means and which direction it works in, it is already wikilinked in the very first paragraph. --Born2flie 21:52, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

I didn't read most of this latest response, but the paragraph looks almost perfect now. Good job! I'm just proud to have been the one to make it happen ;) Equazcion 22:01, 17 July 2007 (UTC)

Ummmmm. No. 'Lift' is the force generated on the wing by its motion through the air. It can point downwards if the aircraft is upside down...WolfKeeper 04:27, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Good point. "Upward" could be added before lift, but I don't think that's necessary. The "hover in one area for extended periods" part implies a normal orientation to me. -Fnlayson 04:37, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

• Yeah that is a good point. Lift in this case isn't the general use form. In terms of aircraft, it can be pointed in any direction. My concern was more that it be clear that helicopters can take off in a purely upwards direction, but that seems apparent now with the added words, "without requiring the aircraft to move forward." Equazcion 05:43, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

An airplane that is capable of flying upside down without stalling generates lift in an upward direction, less efficiently than it would if it was right-side up, or else it would accelerate downwards. In regards to the helicopter, if it were to orient the rotor perpendicular to horizontal, there would be no lifting effect, although the rotor blades can be said to still be generating "lift" as a pressure differential created by an object moving through a fluid. The same can be said for a helicopter's inverted flight, there is no longer a force opposing weight, therefore the aircraft becomes an artificially accelerated "rock", with the rotor propelling it downwards rather than "lifting" it. The quality and benefits of its self-induced acceleration towards the ground will simply become an academic discussion of the accident investigation board in short order unless the pilot acts to return the rotor system to a "lifting" orientation and prevent it from being torn up as the aircraft accelerates to terminal velocity.

The benefits and advantages of helicopters are not because the rotor blades produce a force named "lift" no matter which direction the rotor is directed, they are because the rotor blades rotating through the air generate that force without requiring forward motion. The misunderstanding seems to be that rotor blades can generate "lift" if they are oriented the same as a propeller or any other direction, but it is the entire rotor that lifts the helicopter vertically and allows it to descend under powered control in the same vertical direction. The lift described by vertical flight and hovering is the basic aerodynamic force and not the "lift" force of each rotor blade which contributes to it. Just when does this commercially-rated helicopter pilot, with thousands of hours, qualify to describe what the benefits of a helicopter are and how they are achieved? --Born2flie 08:53, 18 July 2007 (UTC)

I trust your technical expertise, and you're probably the best person here to ask when we need to know how helicopters work. But this has to do with the best way to present the explanation to the lay person. It's more a writing issue than it is a helicopter issue.

If the concern is specifically to say that helicopters can take off in a perfectly upwards direction, and we've just shown that lift is not by definition necessarily in that perfectly upwards direction, then it wouldn't be unreasonable to add something like that in: such as "perfectly upwards" or "perfectly vertical." Lift being generated towards the ground is still lift, even if that wouldn't serve a purpose for helicopters. The same goes for a diagonal motion of up/forward, which the reader could think is what we mean, despite how smart your children are. Although as I said, I think the fact that you said the craft doesn't need to move forward is probably enough. Equazcion 11:54, 18 July 2007 (UTC)