Thinking - Slightly interesting TV helicopter factoid

When I watch helicopters shooting at people on TV, it doesn't look very real. Why dont they just hover and shoot?

Why do they keep flying past really fast and taking a few shots, then letting the escaping car escape?

It turns out there's a good reason!

Well at least I think there is, and let's face it, that's good enough for me.

There's this thing called autorotation, and it's a very fine thing indeed. It seems that when your helicopter's motor dies on you in flight, it's not just a case of "plummet to the ground and hope you land in a used marshmallow dump" or something.

It turns out there's actually something you can do.

Which is odd, and a little surprising. And also kind of pleasant if you are in a helicopter with no motor.

Helicopter blades can change the angle they sit at when they are doing their rotating thing. They can make it so they create more or less lift as required, and they can also tilt forward or backward to create thrust so you can actually go somewhere, and not just hover impressively.

Personally I think hovering is impressive enough, but it turns out other people like to derive useful function from their helicopters.

So using some sticks and pedals and things inside the helicopter, your pilot (hopefully) can make your helicopter go where they (or you if you own enough money) want it to.

But when it's falling out of the sky, it turns out they can set the blades in such a way as to make them spin a lot using the substantial breeze that they find blowing through their blades when they plummet to the ground.

As I understand it, it's a bit like strapping a ceiling fan to the front your bike and riding around the block.

The fan, despite being disconnected from any power supply, starts spinning a lot.

Now, it turns out "spinning a lot" is just the kind of thing that you want from a helicopter's blades when you dont have a motor any more.

So if your motor dies on you, as long as you have enough forward momentum, OR altitude, you dont just fall from the sky. Your skilled pilot can do the ceiling fan on a bike thing for a bit, get the blades up to pace, then just at the last minute, turn all that handy rotating blade motion into lift and actually land without everyone's blood falling out.

Way cool.

I mention that the requirement is either forward momentum, or altitude, because that's true.

I like to say true stuff where I can.

If you dont have enough forward momentum to keep the blades spinning, you can trade some altitude by falling out of the sky for a bit and pulling up. This translates into forward momentum. So you need some altitude to do a bit of a dive to get some forward momentum, or just have some forward momentum to start with.

So...

I'm guessing the reason the TV helicopters dont just hover fifty feet off the ground and shoot at Jimmy Bond a lot is because it's a really stupid thing to do.

Who knew?

120ThingsIn20Years thinks TV might have actually got it right.

Movie watcher and critic - Adventure in Iraq

SPOILER ALERT - THE FOLLOWING CONTAINS A PLOT SYNOPSIS OF A MOVIE
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Why read your kid's bedtime stories when you can pretend this happened to you. It's not as if they will ever watch the movie and catch you out.


I'm guessing it was made in the late 40's.

Adventure in Iraq

Set in what seems like early world war two, middle eastern desert country (that looks a bit like california with pine trees, eucalypts, walnut trees and so forth), three people in a light aircraft go down in Iraq and find themselves captured by a local tribe of devil worshippers.
The planes radio is busted.
The boss devil guy has an English butler and a two way radio.
The locals want to kill all three of our heroes, because the bosses three brothers are about to be hung by the allied forces.
One night they take the valves out of the stereo in the bosses lounge room, and stroll back to the plane where they replace the valves and call the pilots buddies in the airforce.
The pilot and the woman surrender and get recaptured and the other guy gets shot and killed. 
Just before dying he tells the boss devil worshipper guy that he didn't make the call. 
The boss is quite happy.
Just as the two remaining heroes are torn between getting hung, or marring the devil worshipper boss (on her part), and just getting hung (on his part), some pilots land in biplanes and say "let them go".
The boss says "no".
They get on the hand held radio in a room surrounded by the heavily armed boss's men,  and call in a bomb strike to a nearby ditch.
The boss still says no.
They call in another bomb run a bit closer.
The boss says "Ok ok!" and lets them both go.
They fly away to safety.
----------------------------The minute and a half worth of plot and dialogue really drags on for what feels ages, making time seem to grind to a halt. Given every minute alive is a good minute, this movie makes 60 of them seem like 160. If you watched this a few thousand times, it would feel like you were living for ever. 


Immortality for the price of broadband.
1.2 out of 10
Definitely worth a look.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PL5038C60BD2F64194&feature=player_detailpage&v=NCVTUBEekDI







At 120 things in 20 years, as a movie watcher and critic, I watch things like "Adventure in Iraq", so you don't have to.