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