Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With
Speaker 1: tech Stuff from how stuff dot com. Hello, everyone, welcome
Speaker 1: to tech stuff. My name is Chris Poulette, and I'm
Speaker 1: an editor at how stuff works dot com. Sitting sitting
Speaker 1: to my right as unusual as senior writer Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: The Nelly a cruising y'all swung to her anchor without
Speaker 1: a flutter of the sales and was at rest. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: so um, First of all, if you are wondering why
Speaker 1: I am to Chris's right as opposed to across from him,
Speaker 1: it's because we have an interesting setup for a different
Speaker 1: kind of podcast which may or may not happen. So
Speaker 1: if if it sounds like this podcast is disjointed, as
Speaker 1: if we had started one, stopped it, and then picked
Speaker 1: it up later, that's why that's I think that's an mystery. Right, Sure,
Speaker 1: why not? So let's talk about what we're actually covering today,
Speaker 1: because has nothing to do with that. No, no, and
Speaker 1: I think we should stop hovering around the topic. We
Speaker 1: gotta get through the chop. Yeah, we're gonna talk about
Speaker 1: helicopters today. Yes, and it's kind of surprising that we
Speaker 1: haven't talked about it before. Yeah. Well, when you start
Speaker 1: looking into what is involved in making a helicopter work,
Speaker 1: I can see exactly why we haven't done it before. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, the helicopter business does have it have its
Speaker 1: ups and down. Yeah. Nice, I like how you did that.
Speaker 1: Um yeah, So so let's talk about helicopters. So, I'm
Speaker 1: sure all of you are familiar with the concept of
Speaker 1: a helicopter, But when did these things? How did how
Speaker 1: did we come up with this idea? When did this
Speaker 1: originally spring to mind? Okay, well, uh, you know, it
Speaker 1: is something that has been on my mind since I
Speaker 1: was a kid. I've always loved helicopters. So the other day,
Speaker 1: Jonathan sent me a video that I couldn't watch because
Speaker 1: my current bandwidth was too low on my internet connection,
Speaker 1: and it took me two days to actually watch it.
Speaker 1: But it was a video of some very tiny quadricopters. Yeah.
Speaker 1: They were called nano quadricopters in the video itself, although
Speaker 1: that is a misnomer since nano typically means one billion
Speaker 1: and they were not that small. The fact they fit
Speaker 1: on the palm of someone's hand. Yeah, they're about the
Speaker 1: size of the palm of your hand. And uh, I
Speaker 1: was thinking about how, uh, how unusual the quadricopter is
Speaker 1: because it doesn't have a tail rotor like a traditional
Speaker 1: helicopter does. Um. Yeah, they're very very maneuverable. Um and uh.
Speaker 1: And I thought, you know, hey, Jonathan, why don't we
Speaker 1: talk about helicopters because we never really talked about them before.
Speaker 1: So right, So that's how it came to mind. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's how it came to mind. Now, how how the
Speaker 1: idea of a helicopter actually came to mind for human
Speaker 1: beings in general? That dates back pretty far in human history,
Speaker 1: and it all begins with a toy. Yeah, you know,
Speaker 1: and I think just about everybody who's gone to their
Speaker 1: school fair or whatever is one one of these little
Speaker 1: you know, uh stick with a propeller on it, and
Speaker 1: you spin it in the palm of your hand and
Speaker 1: let go and it then crash down to the earth.
Speaker 1: But they weren't always made from plastic, no, No, they were.
Speaker 1: The Chinese had a little top that they used where
Speaker 1: the top was had feathers on it, yes, and it
Speaker 1: did the same sort of thing you would put. They
Speaker 1: put the stick between your hands, the feathers will be
Speaker 1: at the top. You spin the stick very quickly. The
Speaker 1: feathers would spin and it would create some lift and
Speaker 1: the stick would fly up in the air and then
Speaker 1: come back down. Pretty simple, yep. And as it turns
Speaker 1: out to the concept is is pretty simple. Basically, you're
Speaker 1: you're creating an air foil. Yes, Um that instead of
Speaker 1: like an airplane wing where you're going forward, Um, it's
Speaker 1: going straight up simply because um, the the air that
Speaker 1: that moves over the air foil, it creates lift is
Speaker 1: taking it, uh right up. So I guess to to
Speaker 1: really kind of discuss this, we should probably talk about
Speaker 1: a little bit about the parts of a helicopter, so
Speaker 1: that way we can explain what these these parts actually
Speaker 1: do and how they achieve flight. So the blades that
Speaker 1: we talk about, that's a rotor, right, So the rotors
Speaker 1: are affixed to a rotor mast. That's the part that
Speaker 1: actually creates the the turning motion that makes the blades
Speaker 1: go round in a circle. And the blades themselves are
Speaker 1: angled and they can that angle can change depending upon
Speaker 1: a control. Um there are different control rods that can
Speaker 1: change the the um the attitude of those blades so
Speaker 1: you have, uh, two of them. Actually, there's the cyclic controller,
Speaker 1: which can control them individually. Yes, that's also known as
Speaker 1: the stick, right, Yeah, that's the that's the stick. And
Speaker 1: then there's a was it the collective one, right, yes,
Speaker 1: the collective pitch lever. What that does is it actually
Speaker 1: it changes the attitude of all of the rotors, the
Speaker 1: main rotors at the same time. Um and that. Both
Speaker 1: of those are important for various maneuvers with the helicopter.
Speaker 1: But we'll get into that in a second. There's also
Speaker 1: with the rotors, there's a stabilizer. Because you've got these
Speaker 1: long air foils that are extending out from a shaft,
Speaker 1: and they're turning around and around. There's a chance that
Speaker 1: they're gonna start, you know, flopping around a little bit,
Speaker 1: causing some issues, you know. So the stabilizer is there
Speaker 1: to help add some rigidity there so that these blades
Speaker 1: will will maintain the right shape so that you can fly.
Speaker 1: It's kind of funny too, because apparently it was just
Speaker 1: one of those things that someone added to the helicopter
Speaker 1: um uh and uh as As it turns out, it
Speaker 1: it made a major improvement in the stability and and
Speaker 1: flyability of helicopters. Yeah, the early helicopters when they were flying,
Speaker 1: it was a pretty bumpy ride, and it was definitely
Speaker 1: a challenge for a pilot to maintain control because it
Speaker 1: just you know, without that stabilizer, it just like you
Speaker 1: were saying, it just wasn't as fliable. So it was
Speaker 1: definitely a good addition to the parts of a helicopter.
Speaker 1: There's a there's a there's two plates that are on
Speaker 1: the rotor mast, all right, that that also are a
Speaker 1: big part of the helicopter. It's called the upper swash
Speaker 1: plate and the lower swash plate. And despite what you
Speaker 1: might think, they are not joined by a swash buckle. Instead,
Speaker 1: if you imagine that, they imagine two plates to two
Speaker 1: round plates, right, and they're both they both have the
Speaker 1: The shaft of the motor of the rotor rather goes
Speaker 1: straight through these two plates. The lower plate is stationary,
Speaker 1: it does not turn. On top of the lower plate
Speaker 1: are ball bearings. And then on top of the ball
Speaker 1: bearings is the upper swash plate, which does turn. The
Speaker 1: ball bearings are wattle allow it to turn over. The
Speaker 1: lower swashplate. Now the swashplate. The reason that's important is
Speaker 1: remember when I was talking about the collective the collective
Speaker 1: control that changes the attitude of all the blades at
Speaker 1: the same time. Yes, that what that actually does is
Speaker 1: it allows that plate to tilt either forward or backward,
Speaker 1: or however you need it to, so that you can
Speaker 1: make the helicopter veer in the direction you want it
Speaker 1: to go. Yeah, because really, up until this point, what
Speaker 1: we were doing was going up and down. We weren't
Speaker 1: going left or right or over that way or back
Speaker 1: this way. Because if you try, if you have one
Speaker 1: of those toys that we were talking about before, with
Speaker 1: the blade on the stick, you point it straight up
Speaker 1: and it goes straight up, and then it'll drift off
Speaker 1: a little bit to the side, but you don't really
Speaker 1: control that. If you pointed it, you know at your friend,
Speaker 1: it's going to go in his or her direction. And
Speaker 1: that's what the swashplates allow the pilot of the helicopter
Speaker 1: to do it. It helps tilt the blades and and
Speaker 1: the Hello copter starts flying in that direction. Yes, because
Speaker 1: it adds it adds a second element. Right, you first
Speaker 1: have the first element you have is lift. The second
Speaker 1: element you would have is thrust. So when you start
Speaker 1: to change the attitude of the blades. You have both
Speaker 1: lift and thrust. Now, there is a point where if
Speaker 1: you were to tilt that beyond a certain threshold, you
Speaker 1: would no longer have enough lift to counteract the weight
Speaker 1: of the helicopter itself, and it would start to lose altitude.
Speaker 1: It might be moving forward, but it's going to be
Speaker 1: going lower and lower until you correct that. And that's
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why, uh, piloting a helicopter is
Speaker 1: so challenging. In fact, when we get into the different controls,
Speaker 1: you'll find out you're using both your legs and both
Speaker 1: your arms to try and maneuver a helicopter, and so
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of concentration. Yeah. That's also why
Speaker 1: you don't see a lot of people flying helicopters and
Speaker 1: loop to loops. Yeah, that's use their air wolf right. Yeah,
Speaker 1: But then no, that is true because once you get
Speaker 1: beyond that certain threshold, you no longer have the lift
Speaker 1: necessary to keep you in the air. Uh. Yeah. And
Speaker 1: these blades are connected to that rotor mast through blade grips,
Speaker 1: that's the technical term for where the blades fit into
Speaker 1: this rotor mast and on the very top of the
Speaker 1: rotor mast, you have something that's that's got an interesting name. Yes,
Speaker 1: the Jesus Nut. Yes, it really is called that. It's
Speaker 1: called the Jesus nut. And uh, there are various theories
Speaker 1: as to why it's called that, and I don't know
Speaker 1: what any of I don't know the truth of any
Speaker 1: of them. Yes, the one that we have an article
Speaker 1: on the site. Yes, it's a it's a really good
Speaker 1: article too, with lots of really helpful illustrations. So if
Speaker 1: you are interested in helicopters and you really want to
Speaker 1: get a look at what these different parts look like,
Speaker 1: I highly recommend you check it out because it's it's
Speaker 1: one of the more exhaustive articles on the side. I
Speaker 1: would say, yeah, I would. I would agree with that,
Speaker 1: and very very illustrative what you're doing here when you're
Speaker 1: flying a helicopter. Um. So yeah, we were talking about
Speaker 1: the tail roter just a moment ago. Yes, UM, very
Speaker 1: important in the in the design of a helicopter. So
Speaker 1: here's another thing about helicopters. You've got this blade turning
Speaker 1: around and around, this creating lift, and when the lift
Speaker 1: gets strong enough to counteract the weight of the helicopter
Speaker 1: is going to rise in the air without a tail rotor. Yeah,
Speaker 1: if you've ever wondered why that's there. Yeah, Without a
Speaker 1: tail rotor, which is that little, that little smaller propeller
Speaker 1: that's on the end of the tail of a helicopter.
Speaker 1: Without it, the body of the helicopter itself would start
Speaker 1: to spin in a direction opposite that of the rotors.
Speaker 1: So if the rotors are spinning in a clockwise direction,
Speaker 1: then the helicopter will start to spin in a wider
Speaker 1: Shan's direction. You just want, yes, I did so badly
Speaker 1: counterclockwise For those of you who do not speak archaic English, Hey,
Speaker 1: where are my Shakespeare home? He's at? So anyway, yes,
Speaker 1: the the helicopter would spin. Without any other other force
Speaker 1: to counteract this, the helicopter would start to spin in
Speaker 1: the opposite direction, which would probably be an unpleasant experience
Speaker 1: for anyone inside that helicopter. Yes, yeah, so the rotor
Speaker 1: What that does is it helps to create thrust to
Speaker 1: counteract the spinning motion so that the helicopter stays stationary.
Speaker 1: And by controlling the speed of that rotor, you can
Speaker 1: actually turn the helicopter to the left or to the right,
Speaker 1: not banking it. But actually, if you're if you're hovering
Speaker 1: in place, you can change the speed that that rotor
Speaker 1: turns and then turn your helicopter so it's facing an
Speaker 1: opposite direction. So if it started facing north, you can
Speaker 1: maybe face west, that kind of thing. And of course,
Speaker 1: for for this, we have a guy named Igor to
Speaker 1: thank for that. Yes, Igor did a great job. Of
Speaker 1: all the people who experimented with the idea of being
Speaker 1: able to levitate a person, I mean there were there
Speaker 1: were many, including a our our friend Leo, Yeah, Leonardo
Speaker 1: da Vinci. Ye. He tried to create something that he
Speaker 1: called the air screw, which was a screw shape, and
Speaker 1: the idea was that with four people powering this man powered,
Speaker 1: of course back in Leo's day, that if you were
Speaker 1: able to turn this air screw fast enough, it would
Speaker 1: be able to create enough lift to lift the machine
Speaker 1: off the ground. Now, he never got this to work,
Speaker 1: but it was sort of the basis of the idea
Speaker 1: of what would eventually become a helicopter, although it changed
Speaker 1: dramatically by the time the helicopter actually appeared. Yep. Now,
Speaker 1: Igor Sikorsky, if you've spent any time at all paying
Speaker 1: attention to helicopters, that name is going to be very
Speaker 1: familiar to you, Um was a Russian who experimented with
Speaker 1: the idea of helicopters and then kind of moved away
Speaker 1: to get into other types of airplane flight and then
Speaker 1: sort of came back to it later on. Yeah, his
Speaker 1: early attempts were not met with very much success, so
Speaker 1: he decided, hey, you know what, let's just put this
Speaker 1: on the back burner and look at something that I
Speaker 1: know will work. And then eventually, once he felt more confident,
Speaker 1: he revisited this idea of the helicopter. Yeah, back in
Speaker 1: the around the nineteen thirties, I think is when when
Speaker 1: he started really having some luck with it, and he
Speaker 1: realized that he was going to need something to prevent
Speaker 1: the helicopter body from spinning like that without any kind
Speaker 1: of force. So he decided to mount a tail roader
Speaker 1: on his helicopter too. And basically it's it's creating force
Speaker 1: in a sideways manner that that is resisting the force
Speaker 1: that that would naturally cause the helicopter to turn. So Um,
Speaker 1: you know, hats off to Igor And that was a
Speaker 1: brilliant idea. It was the nineteen thirty nine when he
Speaker 1: created the VS three hundred, which was based off these
Speaker 1: early designs and it actually worked. It lifted him up
Speaker 1: into the air. It was a bit of a bumpy ride.
Speaker 1: But then he ended up trying to uh, you know,
Speaker 1: he refined the design of it and then um actually
Speaker 1: had broke a record. On May six ninety one, he
Speaker 1: broke the world helicopter endurance record and stayed in the
Speaker 1: air for one hour, thirty two minutes and twenty six
Speaker 1: point one seconds. And yeah, that's that's pretty impressive. I mean,
Speaker 1: for for an invention that people had played with for
Speaker 1: centuries really but no one had really cracked it. It
Speaker 1: was a big jump. And speaking of jumps, we should
Speaker 1: say that between the time of the the top toy
Speaker 1: that was invented in ancient China and the time that
Speaker 1: Sikorski created the first working helicopter, there were a lot
Speaker 1: of other people who were involved in trying to make
Speaker 1: this work, and some of their contributions led into Sikorski's work. Yes,
Speaker 1: but a lot of these early inventions that were created
Speaker 1: we call them hoppers because they could they could lift
Speaker 1: off the ground briefly, but they couldn't really sustain flight
Speaker 1: for any length of time, and they didn't really have
Speaker 1: any way of changing the direction of that flight. It
Speaker 1: just would go up and down. I mean, apart from
Speaker 1: being pushed around by whatever wind happened to be in
Speaker 1: the area. Yeah, being pushed around by wind, that's not
Speaker 1: a problem. But then so he breaks the record. It
Speaker 1: turns out that, you know, the helicopters would become really
Speaker 1: important in warfare. That actually became a very uh well,
Speaker 1: the United States in particular really dependent upon helicopters in
Speaker 1: conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Heysh yeah, yeah, it starts
Speaker 1: off with one yes through early morning fog I see,
Speaker 1: uh yeah, And this was this was a pretty interesting development.
Speaker 1: I mean, you see a lot of of the experimental
Speaker 1: aircraft from the era just became oddities. Yes, yes, which
Speaker 1: you can still find autogenres. And we should explain what
Speaker 1: the difference between an autogyro and a helicopter is. So
Speaker 1: with a helicopter, those rotors were talking about, those are
Speaker 1: powered that that rotor mast turns under power. There's an
Speaker 1: engine and a transmission. The engine provides powered transmission converts
Speaker 1: it over into the mechanical energy that the rotors need
Speaker 1: in order to turn, and that is what makes the
Speaker 1: the blades turn fast enough to create the lift. Autogyros
Speaker 1: have unpowered rotors, so there is a there there is
Speaker 1: a set of rotors on top of an autogyro, so
Speaker 1: in a way it kind of resembles like a miniature helicopter.
Speaker 1: But then there's a propeller that's either in the front
Speaker 1: or the back of the autogyro. It all depends on
Speaker 1: the design of a specific autogyro, which what that's what
Speaker 1: provides thrust, and what happens is it generates an air
Speaker 1: flow that is directed up at the rotors that are
Speaker 1: above the autogyro, and that that upward flowing amount of
Speaker 1: air is what makes the blades start to turn. And
Speaker 1: you just keep increasing the air flow, which again makes
Speaker 1: the blades turn faster until that helps counteract the weight
Speaker 1: of the autogyro, and that's what allows the autogyro to fly.
Speaker 1: But there's no motor turning those blades. It's all just
Speaker 1: from the flow of air. Yeah. As a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: some now some of the more modern helicopters also have
Speaker 1: a second engine which can help you know, of course
Speaker 1: if in the case of the first engine and going out, um,
Speaker 1: but you know, there there's some redundancy there, uh, now
Speaker 1: in the more modern helicopters, especially for military helicopters that
Speaker 1: might be affected by enemy fire. Right sure, yeah, if
Speaker 1: you have an engine failure, then you can switch over
Speaker 1: to a second engine and h hopefully prevent catastrophe. So
Speaker 1: let's talk a little bit about the controls that are
Speaker 1: inside a helicopter. Of course, you have lots of different
Speaker 1: um uh dials and indicators that give you information about
Speaker 1: the environment and uh information about your helicopter's performance. Those
Speaker 1: are all there's they're too numerous to name really, but
Speaker 1: the actual controls when we were talking about using both
Speaker 1: your hands and both your feet, well, one hand is
Speaker 1: gonna be on that psych like pitch lever. So this
Speaker 1: is the lever that controls the angle of each of
Speaker 1: the rotor blades individually. And uh this one is used
Speaker 1: mainly to tilt the craft at either side or forward
Speaker 1: and backward. But it's it's done in uh very it's
Speaker 1: not it's it's not the one that changes the swashplate.
Speaker 1: That's the collective pitch lever. So that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: your second one that you're holding with your other hand. Um.
Speaker 1: It's mainly used in things like take off and landing.
Speaker 1: It's used to increase or decrease the pitch of all
Speaker 1: the rotor blades at the same time, and it's mostly
Speaker 1: responsible for up and down movements, not things like forward, backward, left, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: Then you've got your foot pedals and these are what
Speaker 1: control the tail rotor, and so using the the tail rotors,
Speaker 1: this is how you can turn the the helicopter so
Speaker 1: it faces a different direction. You're not banking it, but
Speaker 1: you're turning it um or you're using it just to
Speaker 1: keep it steady. Uh. And and if you're wondering, you know, well,
Speaker 1: what about hovering? Isn't that easy? No, Hovering is actually
Speaker 1: pretty difficult to do because you have to you have
Speaker 1: to get everything in a neutral position, and then you
Speaker 1: have to keep making minor adjustments in order to maintain
Speaker 1: the position that you're in. In fact, pilots will have
Speaker 1: to pick a spot that they can look at and
Speaker 1: try and maintain their attitude and altitude uh by by
Speaker 1: referencing where that spot is and making minor adjustments constantly. Yes, yeah,
Speaker 1: it helps to uh to have um uh an experienced
Speaker 1: pilot on board, just because uh, not only is there
Speaker 1: the matter of looking at the electronic components in the
Speaker 1: craft itself, but to orient him or herself with the
Speaker 1: land around, just to to give a visual representation of
Speaker 1: what's going on. And that's that's one of those things
Speaker 1: that's especially important. UM. But as the wind does blow
Speaker 1: helicopters around, you have to take these things into into
Speaker 1: account and UM one of the best ways to do
Speaker 1: that is to use that visual orientation to make sure
Speaker 1: that you haven't drifted off to some degree. Now, let's
Speaker 1: talk really quickly about what the process is like if
Speaker 1: you are taking off helicopter. So there's several steps. First,
Speaker 1: what you would have to do is you have to
Speaker 1: open up the throttle so that you can speed up
Speaker 1: these rotors so that they start turning out a speed
Speaker 1: fast enough to create the amount of lift you need. UM.
Speaker 1: You do this by actually twisting the handle of one
Speaker 1: of the levers you're holding in your hands and twisting
Speaker 1: it one way opens the throttle and twisting it the
Speaker 1: other way closes the throttle. So that's you know, that's
Speaker 1: essentially like sitting stepping on the accelerator of a of
Speaker 1: an automobile. UM. So the next what you would do,
Speaker 1: once you've got the the rotors moving at the right speed,
Speaker 1: you'd start to pull back on the collective control and
Speaker 1: that's what's going to raise the swashplate assembly, and that's
Speaker 1: going to change the pitch of the rotor blades, and
Speaker 1: then that's what's going to let you direct that lift
Speaker 1: in the right direction so that you can actually get
Speaker 1: off the ground. Then you would start to press down
Speaker 1: on the left foot pedal because you would need to
Speaker 1: get the tail rotor spinning so that you could counteract
Speaker 1: that torque we were talking about the the the tendency
Speaker 1: for the chassis to spend in the opposite direction of
Speaker 1: the rotors. Right as soon as you're lifting off the ground,
Speaker 1: you're going to be it's going to be much easier
Speaker 1: for the rotors to start to spin the body of
Speaker 1: the helicopter, the fuselage. Yes, so if you weren't, if
Speaker 1: you were not making that rotor tail rotor spin, you
Speaker 1: would start to go on a little spinny spinny ride yourself,
Speaker 1: which would most likely end in disaster. So yeah, you
Speaker 1: you then would start to actually add a counteractive thrust
Speaker 1: through the tail road or by pressing down that left pedal. Now,
Speaker 1: if you got to a point where you needed to
Speaker 1: turn or you need to slow that down. You could
Speaker 1: stop pressing down the left pedal and start pressing down
Speaker 1: the right pedal, and that's what would counteract that. UM.
Speaker 1: Then you keep pulling back on that collective control while
Speaker 1: holding down the left foot pedal, and once the correct
Speaker 1: amount of lift is created, your helicopter will leave the
Speaker 1: ground and you'll be flying over the air and delivering
Speaker 1: traffic reports like nobody's business. Yeah it's um, it's pretty interesting. Uh.
Speaker 1: And there's even other challenges to flying a helicopter, right,
Speaker 1: I mean, not only is it requiring a lot of coordination,
Speaker 1: but even just the way that the air flight works.
Speaker 1: When you start traveling, say forward, you're moving forward at
Speaker 1: around UM fifteen to twenty knots of airspeed, you have
Speaker 1: to end up transitioning, transitioning from hovering, which is more
Speaker 1: or less staying fairly stationary, to moving at a full
Speaker 1: forward flight phase. And there's that's where you have the
Speaker 1: effective translational lift or et L. And at that point,
Speaker 1: the pilot would start to ease up on that left
Speaker 1: foot pedal and move closer to a neutral setting, and
Speaker 1: there's gonna be a shutter that you feel through the
Speaker 1: rotor system. Because you are going to fly out of
Speaker 1: what is called rotor wash. And rotor wash is not
Speaker 1: where you go to a place where people start pouring
Speaker 1: sud sea water all over your rotor blades and then
Speaker 1: squirt them down. It's not that's not a rotor wash.
Speaker 1: Rotor wash is actually turbulence which is created by these
Speaker 1: rotor blades turning so quickly, and you fly through your
Speaker 1: own turbulence. Then once you get to a certain angle,
Speaker 1: that turbulence is not no longer directed in your flight path,
Speaker 1: and you end up having this much more smooth experience.
Speaker 1: So before you hit that that flying in that helicopter
Speaker 1: might feel a little well, pardon the pun, but choppy,
Speaker 1: because you just you know, you're actually flying through turbulence
Speaker 1: that you have created through the helicopter itself. Um. By
Speaker 1: the way, I don't know if you've ever heard this,
Speaker 1: but I have friends who were in the Marines, and
Speaker 1: they said that the way the Marines would explain helicopters,
Speaker 1: as they say, helicopters fly by beating the air into submission,
Speaker 1: which is a very Marines kind of thing, simper five.
Speaker 1: So the yeah, it's a it's a pretty interesting method
Speaker 1: of flight. It's amazing to me even seeing them now.
Speaker 1: I mean you can see them helicopters outside the windows
Speaker 1: of our office fairly frequently. We're in a part of
Speaker 1: Atlanta where we'll see traffic helicopters or news helicopters fly overhead. Um.
Speaker 1: And in fact, when the article was being written for
Speaker 1: the site, Marshall Brain, the founder of How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: had contacted a company in Atlanta that did helicopter tours
Speaker 1: and helicopter pilots worked for him and managed to get
Speaker 1: the president of the company to agree to fly a
Speaker 1: helicopter so that we could get some video, which led
Speaker 1: to one of the more famous incidents and How Stuff Works,
Speaker 1: where this helicopter pilot uh flew relatively close to the
Speaker 1: building and anyone who was on our floor knew what
Speaker 1: was going on, well not even everyone here. Most of
Speaker 1: the people knew what was going on, but anyone on
Speaker 1: any other floor had no idea. And I'm pretty sure
Speaker 1: we terrified half of an office building. Sorry about that,
Speaker 1: but it was Marshall Brain who did that, um, so
Speaker 1: not us, not us, But yeah, we've got some pretty
Speaker 1: cool footage from those videos. I mean, how could you
Speaker 1: not We have some pretty cool footage from those videos
Speaker 1: that are part of this article. So if you want
Speaker 1: to see what I'm talking about in action, go to
Speaker 1: how stuff works dot com look up how helicopters work.
Speaker 1: And we have other articles about helicopters as well, including
Speaker 1: specific ones like how the Apache helicopter works, which goes
Speaker 1: into more detail about other systems besides the flight control system.
Speaker 1: It's also got weapons systems and its role in military applications,
Speaker 1: where of course just really focusing on the basics of
Speaker 1: helicopter flight. But let's also talk now, do you have
Speaker 1: anything else you want to talk about specifically about helicopters
Speaker 1: before I move on to quadrocopters. Um, no, go ahead, Okay,
Speaker 1: So quadricopters, Now, if you haven't seen one of these,
Speaker 1: these tend to be these little uh unmanned aerial vehicles
Speaker 1: that have four rotor systems on them. Yeah. The ones
Speaker 1: I've seen have been primarily for models for entertainment purposes. Yeah,
Speaker 1: our C controlled ones or sometimes that you can control
Speaker 1: them through a smartphone. In our RC episode we talked
Speaker 1: a little bit about them. What what are you when
Speaker 1: are you grinning out? Someone's going to write in about
Speaker 1: RC controlled I'm sorry control can stop by over my
Speaker 1: a t M machine with my PIN number. And I've
Speaker 1: got an r C controlled helicopter. How about that? How
Speaker 1: about them apples? Anyway? Yes, I okay, so anyway, Yes,
Speaker 1: there's all the ones that you can control your smartphone.
Speaker 1: The parrot a r drone which was at c E
Speaker 1: S the first time I think was maybe three or
Speaker 1: four years ago, and that was very impressive to see.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I had ever seen a
Speaker 1: four rotor copter, a quadricopter. And uh, you might wonder, well,
Speaker 1: how did these things work? They don't have a tail rotor.
Speaker 1: There's no tail rotors, so how do they counteract that
Speaker 1: torque we were talking about. It's actually pretty clever. Two
Speaker 1: of the rotors on a quadricopter turn in one direction
Speaker 1: and the other turn to turn in the other direction,
Speaker 1: and they cancel each other out, yes, the opposite. They
Speaker 1: both produce enough torque so that you can keep the
Speaker 1: quadricopter from turning in place, either one way or the other.
Speaker 1: And when I say you, I don't really mean you,
Speaker 1: because most of these have some pretty sophisticated microprocessors on
Speaker 1: board that really register measure the amount of torque and
Speaker 1: all the other elements here so that they can make
Speaker 1: adjustments to the speed of each of those rotors in
Speaker 1: order to maintain the proper attitude and altitude of that device.
Speaker 1: So all you have to do is say I want
Speaker 1: you to go over there, and then all these other
Speaker 1: microprocessors do everything that they can to make that happen
Speaker 1: while keeping it nice and safe, which is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: I mean you you know, you think about all the
Speaker 1: work that they have to do in order for that
Speaker 1: to to turn out that way. Well, there are lots
Speaker 1: of different kinds of quadricopters, and if you do want
Speaker 1: to make it turn like if you want to make
Speaker 1: it bank one way or the other. Again, what happens
Speaker 1: is it the quadricopter adjust the speed at which certain
Speaker 1: rotors are spinning, so the lift changes exactly, Yes, the
Speaker 1: lift changes and the torque changes, so the two together
Speaker 1: can make you straight feit to the left or to
Speaker 1: the right, or forward or backward. I've even seen, I
Speaker 1: mean we've seen some that can do flips, because what
Speaker 1: will do is they'll is one side will spend very
Speaker 1: very quickly while the other side stopped spinning. It'll lift
Speaker 1: up into the air and then they'll switch the directions
Speaker 1: of the rotors so that it flips it in mid
Speaker 1: air and lands back, you know, right side up, with
Speaker 1: all rotors going, so it goes back into flying. And
Speaker 1: the video that we were talking about at the very
Speaker 1: top of this podcast, it was a little unnerving really
Speaker 1: because we were seeing groups of these quadricopters that were
Speaker 1: all following the same program, and you could have them
Speaker 1: grouped into individual little squadrons, like squadrons of four quadricopters,
Speaker 1: and I think there was something like, uh, they were
Speaker 1: using twelve and all. So they had three groups of
Speaker 1: four and they would send the three groups of four
Speaker 1: through and through an obstacle course and they would maneuver
Speaker 1: past each other, but they would all the four quadrocopters
Speaker 1: would move as a single unit, which was kind of creepy,
Speaker 1: you know, to see something move like several small things
Speaker 1: all moving together as one like that was a little odd.
Speaker 1: And they can make a move through things like windows,
Speaker 1: which was way griefier. Yeah, I got I gotta these
Speaker 1: images of of drones coming into your house. Hello, Mr Smith, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we have something we'd like to say to you. Oh skynet, Yeah, no,
Speaker 1: it's a Yeah. The video, So the video we're talking
Speaker 1: about specifically, and I'll try and link to this when
Speaker 1: we do some show notes. Is called Precise Aggressive Maneuvers
Speaker 1: for Autonomous quad quad Rotors quator. I was gonna say
Speaker 1: quadrocopters but spelled quadrotors and that totally threw me off.
Speaker 1: But this was done through the GRASP Lab g r
Speaker 1: a s P at the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah, that's
Speaker 1: a general robotics Automation Sensing and Perception. Yeah, so this
Speaker 1: particular video shows these uh, these tiny quadrocopters moving through
Speaker 1: various manu overs. What's interesting here is that the one
Speaker 1: I'm looking at right now, like it's this is one
Speaker 1: of those videos that just got really popular all of
Speaker 1: a sudden, right like that. Several of our listeners are
Speaker 1: watching listeners um are have seen it. Yeah, but the
Speaker 1: video that I'm looking at right now was uploaded so
Speaker 1: two years ago and we're just now starting to catch
Speaker 1: on it. Sometimes the Internet is a little slow to
Speaker 1: catch on the memes, That's what I'm saying. But yeah,
Speaker 1: this was something that started to make it make the
Speaker 1: rounds and uh and on Google Plus and on Facebook
Speaker 1: recently and Twitter as well, and uh, just one of
Speaker 1: those cool things that it turns out it's been in
Speaker 1: the works for a few years, but we just started
Speaker 1: to get the attension of the world in general. But
Speaker 1: it shows a really interesting approach to programming these quadricopters
Speaker 1: and showing their capabilities and what they might be used for.
Speaker 1: And you might think, okay, well, you know, you put
Speaker 1: a camera on these and then suddenly you've got a
Speaker 1: spy plane. But you could also have it for something
Speaker 1: like first responders. So there's a let's say there's an
Speaker 1: accident and you send some of these in, uh that
Speaker 1: to in order to to scan the scene and make
Speaker 1: sure that one it's safe enough to send in an
Speaker 1: emergency response teams, and to whether or not it's even
Speaker 1: necessary to start send an emergency response teams. You may
Speaker 1: send in Let's say there's a building that's that's on fire,
Speaker 1: and you send some of these over to look because
Speaker 1: I mean, these things, relatively to a human life, are cheap.
Speaker 1: They're nothing, So you can make as many of these
Speaker 1: as you like. They're gonna be. They might be a
Speaker 1: little expensive, but it's less expensive than losing a human life.
Speaker 1: So you send these things in and take a look around.
Speaker 1: It may turn out that well, you know, that building
Speaker 1: was completely abandoned, there was no one in there, so
Speaker 1: we don't need to risk the lives of any emergency responders.
Speaker 1: We can just use the firefighters to try and put
Speaker 1: this fire out. So that's the kind of idea that
Speaker 1: we'd be looking at from that point forward. And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of other possibilities, Um, besides that. I mean,
Speaker 1: that's traffic, you know, having them look at traffic things
Speaker 1: like that. That's these are all possibilities. No, granted, you
Speaker 1: have to figure out how to supply the power to
Speaker 1: these things. Most of them are battery operated, and the
Speaker 1: battery will only last so long. So it's not like
Speaker 1: if you would send out you know, wake up, punch
Speaker 1: the clock, send out fifty quadricopters to cover the city
Speaker 1: and then at the end of the day they all
Speaker 1: come back. Uh. So you know, it's not like it's
Speaker 1: a it's a it's not like you can solve all
Speaker 1: the problems just by sitting out quatricopters. But it's a
Speaker 1: cool idea, and the videos are pretty awesome. Also, the
Speaker 1: the the parrot videos, those are really cool too because
Speaker 1: those have incorporated smartphone applications. Yes, and you can see
Speaker 1: through the camera. You can see. Yes, you can use
Speaker 1: it as you can use as a surveillance tool. Although
Speaker 1: it is it's whisperer quiet. I've used that. I've used
Speaker 1: that phrase like eight times on tech stuff recently. But yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's not like it's subtle. It's you'll hear a
Speaker 1: when you're playing with one of these things. But you
Speaker 1: can use it to look through the camera. And they've
Speaker 1: been incorporated games into the drones so that you can
Speaker 1: if you have one and your friend has one, you're
Speaker 1: both controlling them with your smartphones. You can play a
Speaker 1: game where you're essentially kind of like laser tag but
Speaker 1: with drones. How awesome is that? And then they also
Speaker 1: have other games where, uh, they'll have targets show up
Speaker 1: on your screen. They're not they don't actually exist in
Speaker 1: real life. It's an augmented reality program where the targets
Speaker 1: appear on your screen and your job is to fly
Speaker 1: your drone so that you can use a little imaginary
Speaker 1: laser to shoot down these targets. It's neat stuff like that,
Speaker 1: and it really, i mean, beyond the fact that a
Speaker 1: quadricopter is pretty darn cool by itself. Yeah, yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 1: as a matter of fact, that one in particular also
Speaker 1: has some bumpers that it's sort of be a shield
Speaker 1: for the for the rotors. Yes, yes, so that you
Speaker 1: can fly at indoors. A lot of the UM model
Speaker 1: helicopters I've seen are are more traditional and do not
Speaker 1: have that kind of protection for the rotors, so you
Speaker 1: you wouldn't want to necessarily fly it around your house,
Speaker 1: even bang into a lamp or something. Yeah, even I've
Speaker 1: seen some of the small ones that are pumped sort
Speaker 1: of palm sized. Um. But yeah, I mean if if
Speaker 1: it actually touches something, it could uh damage it or
Speaker 1: the copter or both, and that that would be you
Speaker 1: could bang into someone. So but yeah, the a r
Speaker 1: drone when the little bumpers you're talking about, they look
Speaker 1: like little discs that fit around like hollow disks. So yeah,
Speaker 1: they fit right around where the rotors are. And so
Speaker 1: it kind of makes this a safer device, so that
Speaker 1: if it were to bump into something, you would just
Speaker 1: get bumped, you wouldn't get cut. Yeah, Still you wouldn't
Speaker 1: want to get it around people or or pets certainly,
Speaker 1: so yeah, but it makes it a little safer. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's kind of neat, and then uh, I've also heard
Speaker 1: from enthusiasts, people who really enjoy flying r C helicopters
Speaker 1: and r C quadricopters that if you're interested in this,
Speaker 1: a quadricopter in general tends to be a lot easier
Speaker 1: to fly because those microprocessors I was talking about do
Speaker 1: a lot of the fine tuning for you. So all
Speaker 1: you do is you tell it I want you to
Speaker 1: go up, and it takes care of the controls that
Speaker 1: needs to to make those different rotors spin at the
Speaker 1: right speeds and makes it go up or turn left
Speaker 1: or turn right or straight or whatever. So it's it
Speaker 1: can be a lot of fun and it can get
Speaker 1: people into the hobby and it's not incredibly challenging. On
Speaker 1: the other hand, flying a remote control helicopter requires a
Speaker 1: lot of finesse. Not quite the same sort of thing
Speaker 1: you would need if you were flying a life size helicopter,
Speaker 1: but still it does require that you control things like
Speaker 1: the tail rotor and that you're very methodical with the
Speaker 1: way that you try and turn the helicopter, maneuver it
Speaker 1: take off and landings. It's it's actually, from what I understand,
Speaker 1: one of the more challenging r C vehicles to control,
Speaker 1: because there's just so much you have to keep in mind. However,
Speaker 1: that being said, even though it's really challenging, I also
Speaker 1: hear it's one of the most enjoyable experiences, very rewarding
Speaker 1: because once you master that, you know, you really have
Speaker 1: a sense of accomplishment. So if you are interested in
Speaker 1: that kind of hobby, I recommend you go ahead and
Speaker 1: you know, check it out. See what, See what it
Speaker 1: would look. How much it would cost to get into it,
Speaker 1: because these these devices can be fairly expensive. Sometimes sometimes
Speaker 1: a few hundred dollars is on the low end of
Speaker 1: some of these devices. But it is something that if
Speaker 1: you're interested in learning more about flight, if you're interested
Speaker 1: in just kind of getting a new skill, it's kind
Speaker 1: of a cool thing to get into. And uh, you know,
Speaker 1: you know what, I've never actually written in a helicopter,
Speaker 1: have you No, that's one of my goals I really
Speaker 1: want to do. I want to do a hellic just
Speaker 1: a simple helicopter tour. Nothing, nothing terribly you know, exciting.
Speaker 1: I was thinking about actually doing one in Hawaii because
Speaker 1: I thought, well, heck, that would be amazing. You know,
Speaker 1: the landscape and everything, But I happen to be married
Speaker 1: to someone who finds air travel to be the uh
Speaker 1: not the most relaxing experience, and so I didn't do that.
Speaker 1: I did go parasailing, though interesting. Yeah, totally not at
Speaker 1: all like flying in a helicopter would. Yeah, I don't
Speaker 1: even know why I brought it up, all right, So
Speaker 1: let's let's wrap this up, guys. This was fun. I'm
Speaker 1: glad we did this because, you know, we like to
Speaker 1: try and tackle lots of different kinds of topics here
Speaker 1: at Tech Stuff. We like to talk about the things
Speaker 1: that are a big social phenomena, you know, things like
Speaker 1: like social networking sites and how technology affects us personally
Speaker 1: or as a society. And we like to talk about companies,
Speaker 1: and we like to talk about innovators. But once in
Speaker 1: a while, it's fun to take a specific type of
Speaker 1: technology and really deconstruct it and talk about the various
Speaker 1: parts and what makes it go tick or fly in
Speaker 1: this case. So if you guys have any suggestions for
Speaker 1: future topics, no matter which category they may be, and
Speaker 1: we'll even open it up a little bit. We're hoping
Speaker 1: this year, and I'm saying hoping because there's guarantee it's
Speaker 1: ever gonna work out, but we're hoping that we can
Speaker 1: maybe get a few guests on the show in the future.
Speaker 1: So if you have any specific guests in technology that
Speaker 1: you think would be an interesting interview for tech Stuff,
Speaker 1: let us know and we will try our best to
Speaker 1: see if we can arrange something. Now, keep in mind
Speaker 1: that requires the scheduling of not just the two tech
Speaker 1: Stuff host you've come to know and love, but whatever
Speaker 1: amazing person you have come up with. So we'll do
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