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Misperceptions & helicopters--How to Fly Good #3 4/15/2013 6:59:16 AM
Gravity ain't just a good idea; it's the law. One of the more common questions I heard during my career as a commercial helicopter pilot was so lacking in subtlety it was almost comical: “Did you ever crash?” The unspoken subtext of that question was, of course you have, but how many times, and how many fatalities were involved? In other words, we know helicopters are dangerous, please fill in the details and affirm our misperception.
The truth is, dear readers, I never crashed. I take that back, I did crash once, but that was after I quit flying, whole other story, and here it is if your remotely interested. The misperception does, however, exist that helicopters are inherently unsafe machines, and no one in their right mind would board one unless they were forced to. Today’s post addresses that misperception in a lighthearted but, I hope, adequate way that explains first where the perception arose, and why it did in the first place. No popular belief becomes popular without some basis in actual fact, and the myth that helicopters are inherently dangerous is no exception. Here’s why I believe it persists, and how the myth may possibly be put to rest.
First I should mention the difference between airplanes, referred to as fixed-wing aircraft in my trade and helicopters, so called rotary-wing aircraft. An airplane is inherently stable. Take off in an airplane, level the sucker off, trim it up just right and it will fly itself a long time unless it is rudely interrupted by wind, turbulence or a purposely incompetent pilot. Take your hands off the control of an airplane and let go and very little happens. It will in fact fly itself. An airplane is inherently stable.
Take a helicopter into the air, let go of the controls and it will crash. Period. No discussion, no appeal to the aviation god, no excuses, crash, boom, down you go. It is perhaps the easiest way known to man, woman or beast that gravity ain’t just a good idea, it’s the law. A helicopter is inherently unstable.
Physicists discuss the properties of stability using arcane mathematical formulas and numerical ratios and all that complicated stuff no one but physicists themselves understand or care about. Here’s the way stability was explained to me in flight school, back when I could identify a helicopter seven out of ten times, and was, in fact, learning to fly them as a direct result of not getting simple physics in college, thus drafted, thus on to flight school blah, blah. Take a shiny rounded hubcap and your common, everyday marble. Steal one from your kids if kids still play marbles. Do they? I don’t know, I hope so. Place the hubcap on the table open side up, as if you’d pour the morning frosted flakes into it. Good. Now take the marble, place it at the upper edge of the bowl/hubcap and let go. The marble will take off, roll across the bottom center of the bowl, rise on the other side not quite as high as when it was dropped, run out of momentum, race to the bottom center again, rattle on and on and on, energy fading until it comes to rest in the exact center bottom of the bowl and stops. This is inherent stability. This is the airplane of our story.
Now take the same bowl and turn it over. (Wait till the frosted flakes are gone so you don’t make a mess.) Put it on the table convex side up. Place the marble at the center top, then let go. Unless gravity has been suspended at your house, as it was in the sixties for a time, the marble will take off and head for the nearest exit, racing as quickly as possible for the bottom, where it will skip off the table and be gone where your kid will demand you find it. No way, short of super glue or a soggy frosted flake for its adhesive will that marble stay atop that bowl. No way. This is inherent instability. This is the helicopter of our tale.
This is, I believe, also the genesis of the misperception that helicopters are dangerous. Too many people either misunderstand the pilot’s critical role at the controls, or they eat their frosted flakes in a rather unconventional manner. It also explains why many non-flyers, and most airplane pilots I should mention, believe that helicopter pilots have lost their marbles.
