- 3,987
- Gaithersburg/MD
- landseaair
I could not for the life of my figure out a good way to put this question in the tittle of the thread without making it too long so here goes...
Say you are standing behind a helicopter in the air and its just hovering, also say that facing the tail of the helicopter the tail rotor is on the left side "pulling" against the torque of the main rotor to keep the helicopter straight, now in order to rotate counterclockwise all the rotor has to do is reduce its pitch so that the torque of the main rotor can naturally rotate the helicopter. Now here comes the tricky part, when the helicopter wants to rotate the other direction (in this case clockwise) the angle of attack on the rotors is changes so that they "grip" the air more and pull the helicopter against the main rotors torque. Now I would imagine that this would make turning one direction slightly different than the other. Is there some sort of natural or automatic compensation that occurs when rotating in that "pulling" direction or does the pilot have to compensate himself???
I know I'm not using the best terms or wording here but its the best my tired brain can do at the moment...
Say you are standing behind a helicopter in the air and its just hovering, also say that facing the tail of the helicopter the tail rotor is on the left side "pulling" against the torque of the main rotor to keep the helicopter straight, now in order to rotate counterclockwise all the rotor has to do is reduce its pitch so that the torque of the main rotor can naturally rotate the helicopter. Now here comes the tricky part, when the helicopter wants to rotate the other direction (in this case clockwise) the angle of attack on the rotors is changes so that they "grip" the air more and pull the helicopter against the main rotors torque. Now I would imagine that this would make turning one direction slightly different than the other. Is there some sort of natural or automatic compensation that occurs when rotating in that "pulling" direction or does the pilot have to compensate himself???
I know I'm not using the best terms or wording here but its the best my tired brain can do at the moment...