43 Fun Facts About Helicopters

Which Vietnam War helicopter was nicknamed the Huey?

UH-1 Iroquois was first designated HU-1, hence Huey, a nickname so popular that its maker cast the word onto the pilot's foot pedals.

From which language does the word 'helicopter' come?

French hélicoptère was coined by Gustave de Ponton d'Amécourt in 1861 for his steam model, which failed to fly, yet the word went on to name real helicopters.

Which two Greek roots make up the word 'helicopter'?

Helix and pteron (spiral and wing) join as helico-pter, yet English speakers reanalyse it as heli- plus -copter, which gave words like heliport.

Which war film shows helicopters attacking a village to Wagner's 'Ride of the Valkyries'?

Apocalypse Now's surf-mad Lieutenant Colonel Kilgore leads the attack partly to seize a beach for surfing, with Wagner blaring from helicopter loudspeakers.

Which German helicopter, first flown in June 1936, is often called the first fully successful helicopter?

Focke-Wulf Fw 61 carried a propeller on its nose like an aeroplane, but the blades were cut short and only cooled the engine.

Which helicopter was the first to reach full-scale production, during the Second World War?

The R-4's prototype was flown 761 miles from Connecticut to Ohio for delivery to the Army.

Which 1939 Sikorsky design became the template for modern helicopters?

VS-300 was flown by Igor Sikorsky himself on its first flights in September 1939, tethered to the ground by cables.

Which American missile did the CIA supply to Afghan fighters to shoot down Soviet Hind helicopters?

Stinger missiles could lock onto the heat of the Hind's side-facing engine exhausts, and the Soviets fought heat-seeking missiles with flares and exhaust covers.

Which anti-torque system blows air along the tail boom to exploit the Coandă effect?

NOTAR, short for no tail rotor, replaces exposed tail blades with air from inside the boom, which its backers say makes it safer and quieter.

What is a helicopter with intermeshing counter-rotating rotors called?

Synchropter rotors lean outward and mesh without colliding, so the helicopter needs no tail rotor and saves engine power for lift.

Which military aircraft takes off like a helicopter, then tilts its rotors forward to fly like an aeroplane?

V-22 Osprey was built to fit aboard ships, so for storage its rotors fold and its whole wing swivels to lie along the fuselage.

Which control does a helicopter pilot raise to make the aircraft climb?

Collective raised gives every blade more pitch and more drag, so the engine must deliver more power and the rotor makes more torque.

Where is the cyclic stick usually located?

Between the pilot's legs sits the cyclic, and pushing it forward first dips the nose, so the helicopter speeds up but loses height.

What is the throttle on most light helicopters?

A motorcycle-style twist grip sets engine power, though helicopters fitted with a governor adjust power automatically to hold rotor RPM steady.

What is the emergency descent called that lets a helicopter land safely after an engine failure?

Autorotation works because a freewheeling clutch frees the rotor from the dead engine, while air flowing up through the disc keeps the blades turning.

Which part of flying a helicopter is widely regarded as the most challenging?

Hovering needs constant corrections, since adjusting any one control often means adjusting the other two.

What is the boost a helicopter gains on flying out of its own downwash?

Translational lift becomes fully effective at roughly 16 to 24 knots, and pilots recognise the moment by a brief vibration.

How fast does a typical main rotor turn?

300-600 RPM is typical for a main rotor, geared down by a transmission from an engine turning several times faster.

What type of engine powers most modern medium and large helicopters?

Turboshaft engines give more power for their weight than piston engines, though they cost more, so helicopter makers switched to them from the 1950s.

Which was the first helicopter certified for civilian use in the United States?

Bell 47 won the first US civil helicopter certificate in 1946, and in the Korean War its army version carried wounded soldiers on stretchers atop its skids.

In which country did the bamboo flying top, an early ancestor of the helicopter, originate?

China's flying top fascinated George Cayley as a child, and in 1792 he began building helicopter tops of his own.

What is Leonardo da Vinci's 1480s vertical-flight design usually called?

Aerial screw was Leonardo's linen spiral made airtight with starch and meant to be turned by muscle power, which could never have lifted a full-size craft.

Which brothers were drawn to flight by a rubber-band toy helicopter from their father?

Wright brothers Wilbur and Orville played with their 1878 toy until it broke, built their own, and later called it the spark of their interest in flying.

At the London 2012 Olympics opening ceremony, which film character escorted the Queen to a helicopter?

James Bond, played by Daniel Craig, greeted a Queen who played herself, but stuntmen Gary Connery and Mark Sutton made the parachute jump over the stadium.

Which inventor tried to power a helicopter with guncotton made from stock-ticker paper?

Thomas Edison's guncotton engine tests in the 1880s ended with explosions so bad that he gave up on that engine.

The 1907 Breguet Gyroplane No. 1 is possibly the earliest example of what?

A quadcopter layout of four rotors lifted its pilot about 0.6 m in 1907, but with no controls, four men on the ground had to hold it steady.

Which city did US helicopters evacuate in April 1975 as North Vietnamese forces closed in?

Saigon's evacuation crowded US ships so badly that some South Vietnamese pilots dropped off their passengers, then flew away and ditched their helicopters in the sea.

Which engineer invented the autogyro, first flown successfully in 1923?

Juan de la Cierva's first autogyros rolled over on take-off because one side of the rotor lifted more, until he hinged the blades so they could flap.

Which German test pilot flew a helicopter inside Berlin's Deutschlandhalle arena in 1938?

Hanna Reitsch was the regime's famous female pilot, so for propaganda she flew the helicopter indoors in repeated shows.

At which nuclear power plant did helicopter crews drop thousands of tonnes of sand, lead and boron onto a burning reactor?

Chernobyl's helicopter crews dropped sand to stop the fire and radioactive releases, and boron to prevent further nuclear reactions, about 5,000 tonnes in all.

What name does the US Army give the Sikorsky UH-60 utility helicopter?

The Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk entered US Army service in 1979 as the replacement for the UH-1 'Huey'; the Navy's SH-60 Seahawk is a derivative.

What is the use of helicopters to fight wildland fires called?

Helitack crews are flown to wildfires, often miles from the nearest road, then land nearby to clear brush and cut a line around the blaze.

Why did NASA's Mars helicopter need much faster-spinning rotors than Earth helicopters?

Thinner air on Mars, about 1% as dense as Earth's, demanded bigger, faster blades, and though built for up to five test flights, Ingenuity flew 72 times.

Which is the largest helicopter ever to go into serial production?

Mil Mi-26 crews airlifted a frozen woolly mammoth in October 1999, still encased in a 23-tonne block of frozen soil, to the Siberian town of Khatanga.

Which helicopter set the FAI absolute speed record of 400.87 km/h in 1986?

Westland Lynx G-LYNX, flown by test pilot Trevor Egginton on 11 August 1986 with BERP rotor blades whose tips neared Mach 0.97, set the 400.87 km/h record over the Somerset Levels.

In May 2005, a helicopter touched down on the summit of which mountain?

Everest's summit landing was repeated the next day by pilot Didier Delsalle, to prove the first had not been luck.

What rotor layout does the Boeing CH-47 Chinook use?

Tandem rotors on the Chinook turn in opposite directions, so each cancels the other's torque and no tail rotor is needed.

In 1993, a skycrane helicopter lifted the Statue of Freedom off the top of which building for restoration?

The US Capitol's Statue of Freedom needed the skycrane lift because its bronze surface was badly pitted and corroded after almost 130 years on the dome.

Which industry gave commercial passenger helicopters a niche market, flying its crews out to work?

Offshore oil crews change by helicopter, which lets workers fly out for two-week shifts on a platform and then go home.

At high forward speed, which rotor problem limits how fast a helicopter can safely fly?

Retreating blade stall hits the blade moving backward, which meets slower air and needs a steeper angle until it stalls, shaking the helicopter, pitching its nose up and rolling it.

Which space program's astronauts did the famous US Navy helicopter known as Helo 66 lift from the ocean?

Apollo crews from five missions were lifted aboard by Helo 66, but the real helicopter crashed into the Pacific during a 1975 training flight, so museum versions are replicas.

Where did a US Army pilot fly the first combat rescue by helicopter, in April 1944?

Burma's heat and humidity sapped the low-powered Sikorsky helicopter so badly that the first combat rescue had to fly the stranded men out over several trips.

Which Russian polymath showed a spring-powered coaxial rotor model to the Academy of Sciences in 1754?

Mikhail Lomonosov showed his spring-driven coaxial rotor model to the Russian Academy of Sciences in July 1754, proposing such machines to lift meteorological instruments.