Why Helicopter Pilots are Different

[wazzer]

Thought you all might like this, if you know a few full size helicopter pilots then you will know how true it is.!!

Why Helicopter Pilots are Different

"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes.
An airplane by its nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetant pilot it will fly.

A helicopter does not want to fly.

It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying: Immediately and disasterously.

There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter.

This is why a helicopter pilot is so different from an airplane pilot, and why in general airplane pilots are open, clear eyed bouyant extroverts
and helicopter pilots are brooding introspective anticipators of trouble.

They know that if somthing bad has not happened it is about to."

Harry Reasoner, Feb 16, 1971

[Mack]

Do you think model flyers can be put in the same catagory as real pilots?
This would explain alot.

[Raptorite]

I heard a similar description of model helis some time ago, it was that a model heli is made up of a thousand moving parts all trying to fly in different dirrections at the same time, the job of the pilot is keeping it all in the same general airspace !!

Cheers,

Pete.

[Stuart]

I like the quote, years of wisdom......I'd love to take the part

A helicopter does not want to fly.

As part of a slogan but add on.....

Its made to fly

[JaseGill]

I was lucky enough in a past life to fly the real thing and yeah its a well known passage that.

Generally its true but with a few modern addons helicopters are getting easier to fly and can almost be as stable hands off as fixed wing.

The thing you have to remember is that with fixed wing stability is a function of the wing speed (two big relatively flat slabs passing through the air at between 100 and 600 knots will keep you pretty stable in roll and pitch, add to that a huge great fin and stability is a given in yaw), given that both (or all 4) wings are going in the same direction at the same speed stability is easy to build in (although try telling that to modern fixed wing aircraft designers who build stability out to give better turn performance and use a computer to augment the stability, F16, Raptor, JSF, Typhoon, Su-27, MIG 29).

Helicopters though are getting there, I remember the first time someone turned of auto stabilisation in a Gazelle I was flying and it became twitchy as hell so even older helicopters have some help built in.

Anyone who has flown a vanilla off the shelf machine would be surprised as hell if they hovered over 60ft swells in the North Sea over a pitching rolling deck and turned on Sea Kings auto hover to find all they have to do is maintain lateral position as the helicopter climbs and descends automatically with the swell to hold height, Loadies get battered and ****ed off when its not there Same goes for Merlins, helicopter design has come so far that stability can be built in so much better with head stabiliser systems, FADEC'ed engines and fly by wire, they even have a decent compesation for variable lift between proceeding and receeding blades built in... No more leaning on the pole to stop rolling

The old adage of "Planes are for those who cant fly Helicopters" is true as far as Im concerned (I would say that), but I still have a difficult time of convincing the guys I went through basic with who got streamed fast jet and then Harrier of the fact. Of course its a given with the Tornado/Jaguar/Truckers - Even the Harrier guys agree on that

Maybe it should be changed to "Planes are for those who cant hack Hovering" :twisted:

Cheers,

Jase.

[CaLviNx]

Different

Hi

Thanks for making it clear why heli pilots are diff.

I thought it was just because my ears stick out............

:lol:

[kiwipilot]

Sums it up nicely wazzer.