Now here is a DEEP subject! Would it have been possible to safely hover, then vertically descend to land in AIRWOLFs Lair, which was a washed out mesa that had eroded into a huge cave? It might be possible if the opening was at least twice or three times larger than the helicopter. AIRWOLFs overall length from tail skid (stinger) to rotor tip was 50.3 feet and its rotor diameter (disc circumference) was 42 feet. Therefore the lairs opening needed to be 100 plus feet across or more. Although season two shots of AIRWOLF rising up through the chimney makes it appear barely wider than AIRWOLFs rotor circumference; but that was special effects and hard to glean how wide it would have been. In order to hover a helicopter, you need a good visual reference, in order to make the constant cyclic stick adjustments to know the appropriate amount to move it. Hovering surrounded by a dimly lit rock wall would cause you to lose depth perception inevitably causing you to drift into the wall. So, realistically youd have to remove or open the door and look straight down leaning out the side of the helicopter; which is an awkward way to fly that takes practice to learn (long line, air crane and logging pilots are good at it). The major problem is as you vertically descend when surrounded by a rock wall is you are descending into your own down draft and vortices creating a dangerous situation. If you descend too fast... 300 foot per minute or maybe less because you are surrounded by rock walls; aerodynamically the helicopter would enter into a ring tip vortice state (aka. settling with power). This means the helicopter is creating vortices big enough to suck its own downdraft from under the rotor back over the top of the rotor system... effectively creating a vacuum and destroying lift over a portion of the rotor system. Now the helicopter descends faster! If the pilot increases collective/power/pitch it exacerbates the situation more by increasing the amount of air circulating in the vortices; hence 1
Posted on: Tue, 05 Aug 2014 17:47:50 +0000
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