What the word helicopter boat

Fill in the words: souvenirs, varied, local, seasick, booked Laura got ………….. during her cruise from Spain to Portugal. Britain has got a very ……………landscape, including mountains, forests, beautiful seacoasts and valleys. Have you already …………… the tickets to New York? My mother likes to buy…………… for her sisters on holidays. We went to a small village to meet the native people and to try the ……………. cuisine. Put the words into 3 columns: boat, car, helicopter, coach, plane, yacht by air by land by sea ______ _______ ______ ______ _______ ______ Fill in phrasal verbs: set off, set aside, set back, sets in The new shopping center wasn’t ready and the opening was ……….. for a few weeks. We must plant these trees before the cold weather ……………. . You should ………. some money to buy a new car. What time will we ……………. for the airport tomorrow?

I

1. seasick

2. varied

3. booked

4. souvenirs

5. local

II

1. by sea: boat, yacht  

2. by land: car, bus  

3.  by air: helicopter, plane

III

1) The new shopping center wasn’t ready and the opening was set back for a few weeks.

2) We must plant these trees before the cold weather sets in.

3) You should set aside some money to buy a new car.

4) What time will we set off for the airport tomorrow?

• #1

Hi, this is a part of news script. What does ‘a ferry of helicopters’ mean here?

……. But California’s National Guard arrived with a ferry of helicopters plucking evacuees to safety leaving them in Fresno.

[Video link deleted. DonnyB — moderator]

Thank you.

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 9, 2020

• #2

What does the video show? I assume it was multiple helicopters ferrying people to safety.

• #3

What does the video show? I assume it was multiple helicopters ferrying people to safety.

I want to know what the word ferry literally means here? Does it mean a kind of ship?

Last edited by a moderator: Sep 9, 2020

• #4

A ferry is something that moves people between two specific locations. The most usual vehicle that does this is a ferry boat.

A ferry boat can be anything from a raft across a stream to a large ocean going boat in the English Channel, carrying hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people. It is the job that it does that makes it a ferry, not the kind of boat.

Locally, I often take my car on a ferry that is a barge attached to a tugboat, that fits six cars or one big truck, and takes five minutes to cross a river to a rural island. Less often, I take a large roll on/roll off ferry boat that goes from the mainland to a large island, and takes about two hours. That boat has two parking decks and three stories inside, cafeterias, gift shop, decks to sit on, etc.

• #5

A ferry is something that moves people between two specific locations. The most usual vehicle that does this is a ferry boat.

A ferry boat can be anything from a raft across a stream to a large ocean going boat in the English Channel, carrying hundreds of vehicles and thousands of people. It is the job that it does that makes it a ferry, not the kind of boat.

Locally, I often take my car on a ferry that is a barge attached to a tugboat, that fits six cars or one big truck, and takes five minutes to cross a river to a rural island. Less often, I take a large roll on/roll off ferry boat that goes from the mainland to a large island, and takes about two hours. That boat has two parking decks and three stories inside, cafeterias, gift shop, decks to sit on, etc.

Thank you, Ponyprof.

So, does ‘a ferry of helicopters’ mean a ferry boat with some helicopters on its deck?

• #6

No. It means a squadron of helicopters that are doing the job of a ferry, that is moving people from one place to another.

• #7

No. It means a squadron of helicopters that are doing the job of a ferry, that is moving people from one place to another.

Now I fully understand it.
Thank you very much, Ponyprof.

• #9

As you can see here, within the aviation industry helicopters can do a transportation job that is called «helicopter ferry.»

Helicopter Ferry Flights — HeliSpeed

Thank you Ponyprof. Big help to me.

На этой странице Словаря 3000 представлены виды транспорта на английском языке. Слова даются с примерами и переводом.

Транспорт на английском языке

car	[kɑː]	автомобиль
ship	[ʃɪp]	корабль
plane	[pleɪn]	самолет
driver	[ˈdraɪvə]	водитель
boat	[bəʊt]	лодка
truck	[trʌk]	грузовик
vehicle	[ˈviːɪkl]	автомобиль
flight	[flaɪt]	полет
bus	[bʌs]	автобус
fuel	[fjʊəl]	топливо
engine	[ˈɛnʤɪn]	двигатель
ticket	[ˈtɪkɪt]	билет
train	[treɪn]	поезд
crew	[kruː]	экипаж
accident	[ˈæksɪdənt]	авария
pilot	[ˈpaɪlət]	пилот
wheel	[wiːl]	колесо
ride	[raɪd]	поездка
passenger	[ˈpæsɪnʤə]	пассажир
airline	[ˈeəlaɪn]	авиакомпания
bike	[baɪk]	велосипед (мотоцикл)
transportation	[ˌtrænspɔːˈteɪʃən]	транспортировка
deck	[dɛk]	палуба
aircraft	[ˈeəkrɑːft]	самолет, воздушное судно
crash	[kræʃ]	авария
vessel	[ˈvɛsl]	судно
port	[pɔːt]	порт

Примеры:

В примерах приведены не все возможные значения слов, а только одно-два основных, относящихся к данной части речи и теме. Если вы хотите узнать больше значений и примеров, воспользуйтесь онлайн-словарями и переводчиками.

• car — автомобиль

I’d like to rent a car. – Я хотел бы взять автомобиль в аренду.

• ship — корабль

This ship will never sink. – Этот корабль никогда не утонет.

• plane — самолет

The plane took off (landed). – Самолет взлетел (приземлился).

• driver — водитель

The driver was fined for speeding. – Водитель был оштрафован за превышение скорости.

• boat — лодка

We are going to need a bigger boat. – Нам понадобится лодка побольше.

• truck — грузовик

The truck is loaded with coal. – Грузовик загружен углем.

• vehicle – автомобиль

How many vehicles do you have? – Сколько  вас автомобилей?

• flight — полет

That was a long flight. – Это был долгий полет.

• bus — автобус

Go to the bus stop and take a bus. – Идите на автобусную остановку и сядьте в автобус.

• fuel — топливо

We ran out of fuel. – У нас закончилось топливо.

• engine — двигатель

Keep the engine running. – Не глуши мотор (оставь заведенным).

• ticket — билет

How much is a ticket? – Сколько стоит билет?

• train — поезд

I am travelling by train. – Я еду (путешествую) на поезде.

• crew — экипаж

A ship’s master is responsible for the crew. – Капитан корабля отвечает за экипаж.

• accident — авария

I witnessed a car accident. – Я стал свидетелем автомобильной аварии.

• pilot — пилот

A pilot is a person who flies a plane. – Пилот – это человек, управляющий самолетом.

• wheel — колесо

Do you have a spare wheel? – У вас есть запасное колесо?

• ride — поездка

I’ll give you a ride. – Я тебя подвезу (дословно: «дам поездку»).

• passenger — пассажир

Dear passengers, this is your captain speaking. – Уважаемые пассажиры, говорит капитан.

• airline — авиакомпания

What airline did you flight with? – Самолетом какой авиакомпании вы летели?

• bike — велосипед (мотоцикл)

My bike was stolen from a parking lot. – Мой велосипед украли с парковки.

• transportation — транспортировка

This vehicle is used for transportation of lumber. – Эта машина используется для транспортировки леса.

• deck — палуба

He went up on deck for some fresh air. – Он поднялся на палубу подышать свежим воздухом.

• aircraft – самолет, воздушное судно

Don’t forget your personal possessions on the aircraft. – Не забывайте личные вещи на самолете.

• crash — авария

I wasn’t injured in the crash. – Я не пострадал в аварии.

• vessel — судно

The company has two fishing vessels. – У компании есть два рыболовных судна.

• port — порт

naval port – военный порт

Примечания:

• В чем разница между car и vehicle?

Под словами  car и vehicle часто понимают одно и то же — автомобиль. Однако у vehicle более широкое значение — транспортное средство, то есть под это определение попадают не только автомобили, но и мотоциклы, автобусы, самолеты, даже космические корабли.

• Plane или aircraft?

Похожая ситуация со словами plane и aircraft. Plane — это самолет, как правило, гражданского флота. Aircraft — воздушное судно, т. е. любой воздушный транспорт.

• Ship или vessel?

В разговорной речи ship и vessel — синонимы, разницы между ними особой нет, разве что vessel звучит более официально.

Кстати, в русском языке тоже есть разница между словами судно и корабль. Под судном понимают любое водное транспортное средство, включая, например, гребную лодку или спасательную шлюпку. Корабль — это, как правило, крупное судно.

Есть и неофициальная разница. Моряки промыслового и транспортного флота никогда не называют свои суда кораблями, только «судно» или «пароход» (пароходов, как и паровозов уже давно нет, это проф. сленг). С другой стороны военные никогда не называют военные корабли судами, только кораблями.

• Helicopter или chopper?

Возможно, вы слышали, что вертолет на английском языке часто называют chopper — особенно в фильмах или компьютерных играх. Chopper — это американский сленговый синоним слова helicopter, который используется только неофициально. Что-то вроде «вертушка» в русском языке.

Более того, среди американских военных считается дурным тоном называть вертолет chopper:

«Если курсант американского летного училища назовет вертолет chopper, его скорее всего заставят отжиматься в качестве наказания. Пилоты никогда не используют слово chopper, а говорят только helicopter» (источник).

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Здравствуйте! Меня зовут Сергей Ним, я автор этого сайта, а также книг, курсов, видеоуроков по английскому языку.

Подпишитесь на мой Телеграм-канал, чтобы узнавать о новых видео, материалах по английскому языку.

У меня также есть канал на YouTube, где я регулярно публикую свои видео.

вертолет, геликоптер, перевозить на вертолете

существительное ↓

глагол

- ав. лететь на вертолёте
- перевозить на вертолёте

Словосочетания

the rotary movement of the helicopter blades — вращательное движение лопастей вертолёта  
to pilot a helicopter — вести, пилотировать вертолёт  
to fly a helicopter — лететь на вертолёте  
helicopter engineering — вертолетостроение  
helicopter aerodrome — вертодром (аэродром для вертолетов)  
coaxial-rotor helicopter — вертолет соосной схемы  
hovering helicopter — вертолет в режиме висения  
land helicopter — сухопутный вертолет  
radioactive contamination survey helicopter — вертолёт для разведки районов радиоактивного заражения  
helicopter destroy laser — лазер для уничтожения вертолётов  
helicopter ambulance medical detachment — отряд санитарных вертолётов  

Примеры с переводом

Примеры, ожидающие перевода

Возможные однокоренные слова

helicopt  — вертолет, геликоптер, перевозить на вертолете, вертолетный

Формы слова

noun
ед. ч.(singular): helicopter
мн. ч.(plural): helicopters

Is it a boat or a plane? Maybe it’s a flying
saucer? Back in 1959, when the world’s first hovercraft, SR.N1,
floated out across the windy English Channel, people must have
wondered exactly what they were seeing. Like a boat, a hovercraft
moves across water, but like a plane, it also pushes through the air
with the help of propellers . The «big idea» is that a hovercraft
can glide just as easily over water, land, or, ice. That makes it a
perfect vehicle for getting round some of the world’s most
inaccessible areas—places where ordinary boats can’t beach and
planes can’t land. How exactly does this unique and rather remarkable
craft actually work? Let’s take a closer look!

Photo: A US Navy hovercraft (LCAC) photographed in 2008. Picture by Chad R. Erdmann courtesy of US Navy and
Wikimedia Commons.
Much of the deck is empty space, suitable for carrying huge amounts of drive-on, drive-off military cargo.

What is a hovercraft?

One part boat, one part airplane, and one part helicopter a hovercraft is a vehicle that traps a cushion of air
underneath itself and then floats along on top of it. The air cushion
holds it high above waves and land obstructions, making the craft
superbly amphibious (equally capable of traveling on land or water or
gliding smoothly from one to the other). That’s why military
hovercraft, designed for swift beach landings, are often called LCACs
(Landing Craft Air Cushion).

Hovercraft come in all shapes and sizes, from
one-person fun machines and small beach rescue craft to giant
passenger ferries capable of carrying over 400 passengers and 50
cars. Where boats are slowed by hulls that drag deep in the water,
hovercraft ride fully clear, which means they use less fuel and can
reach blistering speeds of up to 145kph (90mph). From ice and water
to mud and sand, from floodplains and river deltas to mangrove swamps
and frozen glaciers, the great advantage of a hovercraft is that it
can glide with ease to places ordinary boats struggle to reach, and
land people safely even where there are no harbors or landing stages.

In practice, hovercraft have four broad applications: large commercial hovercraft are mostly used as
high-speed people and car ferries; slightly smaller military LCACs
are used as tried-and-tested beach landing craft; smaller niche craft
are used for things like oil and gas prospecting, inshore search and
rescue, and scientific surveys; and small, one-person recreational
craft are often raced round courses like flying go-karts!

Photo: An old coastguard hovercraft. Note the deep black skirt (on the front view, above) and the central fan (toward the back in the middle) on the plan photo below. Photos courtesy of NASA Ames Research Center and
Internet Archive (front view and top view).

How does a hovercraft work?

At first sight, you might think a hovercraft works
in much the same way as a helicopter: it throws air down underneath
itself and then simply rides along on top. But where a helicopter
balances its own weight (the force of gravity pulling it down) with a
massive down-draft of air (pushing it back up again), a hovercraft
works in a much more subtle way that allows it to use far less air,
far more efficiently, so getting by with a much smaller engine and
considerably less fuel.

The basic mechanism of a hovercraft is very simple: there’s an engine
(diesel or gasoline)
that powers both a large central fan, pointing downward, and one or more other fans pointing backward.
The central fan creates the lift that holds the craft above the waves; the other fans
propel the craft backward, forward, or to the side. A rubber skirt (with or without fingers)
traps a cushion of air under the craft. Side-wall hovercraft have only partial skirts: with solid sides and a skirt
only at the front and back, they can be powered by quieter propellers or
water-jet engines, making them quieter.

Photo: A typical hovercraft has two or more fans. The main fan in the center blows air downward to push the craft upward, above the water. Two or more other fans at the back blow air backward to make the craft go forward. This is an example of action-and-reaction (Newton’s third law of motion) at work.

How much can a hovercraft carry?

A fan of a given power will create a certain amount of pressure under the craft. Now since:

pressure = force / area

it follows that a bigger hovercraft (one with a bigger overall area) can carry more weight than a smaller hovercraft with a fan the same size. Moreover, as Christopher Cockerell, the inventor of the hovercraft, quickly discovered, bigger hovercraft are more efficient than smaller ones:

«In such vehicles, the lift or load carrying capacity is proportional to the plan area of the gas cushion or cushions. The energy required to contain the cushion or cushions is proportional to the peripheral dimension of the cushion or cushions. Thus for an increase in size of a vehicle, the lift increases proportionally to the area of the cushion or cushions whilst the energy requirements increase linearly with the periphery of the cushion or cushions. The efficiency of a vehicle therefore increases with the plan area of the cushion or cushions, and hence with the plan area of the vehicle.»—Christopher Cockerell, US Patent 3,177,960, 1965.

Types of hovercraft

Now it’s certainly possible to build a simple hovercraft with
a giant fan that blows air down into a container of some kind
(you’ll find plenty on YouTube—a couple of them are
linked in the references at the bottom of this article); that
design is called an open plenum («plenum» being another
word for the hollow region underneath the craft where the air
gathers). However, most hovercraft work in one of two other ways.

The original hovercraft design used a vertically mounted fan to blow air
between its outer shell and a slightly smaller inner container,
creating what’s called a «momentum curtain»: a ring of fast-moving, inward-pointing air that trapped a
bigger cushion of air inside it. This type of design is called a
peripheral jet and its big advantage over an open plenum is that the fan needs to move much less
air (or, to put it another way, it can create more lift with less
power). Unfortunately, it still only produces a relatively modest
hover height unless the fan is extremely powerful.

Later, engineers discovered it was more effective (and
efficient) to trap a much bigger air cushion with a rubber skirt that could
flex around waves and other obstructions, giving a greater hover height and
a better seal. Hovercraft with skirts could clear bigger
waves and land obstacles with no loss of stability or the all-important air cushion underneath
them, so the ride was generally quite smooth. Eventually, the flexible skirt evolved into a more
intricate design, with hundreds of independently moving «fingers» attached to the bottom
that could maintain the airflow even more effectively. A modern
hovercraft combines elements of the peripheral jet and flexible skirt
designs by directing many jets of air inward through the skirt.

Artwork: Hovercraft work in three main ways. Top: In an open-plenum design, the air effectively just pumps straight down under the craft. This requires a massive airflow and a very powerful engine. Middle: In Christopher Cockerell’s peripheral jet design, a ring of fast-moving air, created by outer (peripheral) jets makes a «momentum curtain» that traps high pressure air inside it. The fan needs to move much less air to create the same lifting force, so it’s a more efficient design than the open plenum. Right: Adding a skirt makes the air cushion higher, so the craft can safely clear bigger ocean waves and land obstacles. Skirts are either simple, flexible bags or more complex arrangements of individually moving segments called fingers.

Other important parts

What else do you need to make a hovercraft? A
downward-pointing fan can only blow air underneath, so hovercraft
typically have one or more propeller fans on top of the hull, pointing
backward to propel them forward. Usually, there’s a rudder positioned
just behind each fan to swivel the air it produces and steer the
hovercraft in the appropriate direction. An alternative method of
steering is to divert some of the down-draft from the fan through
air nozzles that point horizontally—and the very first hovercraft
prototype, SR.N1, effectively worked this way. Although hovercraft
usually have separate fans (to create the cushion) and propellers (to
drive them along), the same engines typically drive both, using
gearboxes and transmissions to turn the engine’s power through ninety
degrees. Bigger hovercraft like the US military LCACs typically use several
very hefty engines, such as powerful gas turbines. Then there’s the hull itself. Most
large hovercraft are built from light, rustproof, and highly durable
aluminum, though hobby craft are often molded from tough
composite materials such as fiber glass. Finally, you need a cockpit
to keep your pilot safe and sound—and some cargo space (either
enclosed, for passengers and cars, or a large «open well» deck
for carrying military cargo).

Left: Close-up of a hovercraft skirt making a tight seal with the water beneath. Photo by Cody D. Lund.
Middle: Vertical rudders behind the fans steer the hovercraft by directing air to the side. Photo by Brian P. Biller.
Right: The fans are driven from engines in the side by giant axles. Photo by Christopher A Newsome.
All photos courtesy of US Navy.

Advantages and disadvantages

Hovercraft can launch and land anywhere, travel
over almost any kind of surface, race along at high speeds, and
efficiently carry large numbers of passengers and equipment or hefty
military cargos. They compare favorably with all kinds of rival
vehicles. Since they produce an air cushion more efficiently than a
helicopter, they’re cheaper to operate, simpler, and easier to
maintain (safer too). Where boats waste energy dragging through water
and waves, a hovercraft riding smoothly on top creates little in the
way of either drag or wake, so it’s generally more efficient
(and less disruptive to the marine environment than a
propeller-driven ship).

But if hovercraft are so wonderful, why aren’t
they used everywhere? They’re expensive initially and, though cheaper
than helicopters, considerably more costly to maintain than ships and
boats of similar cargo capacity (because they’re essentially aircraft, not boats, and mechanically more complex).
Although hovercraft successfully carried tens of millions of people between
Britain and France for just over 30 years, they eventually stopped operating following the
opening of the Channel Tunnel and the arrival of low-cost
ferry ships and fast, wave-piercing catamarans.
Hovercraft are also fairly tricky to pilot: more like helicopters, in
this respect, than simple-to-operate boats. They’re very noisy too, which
can be a problem both for passengers and people living near the ports
where they operate, and is certainly a drawback for «covert»
military operations.

Who invented the hovercraft?

The basic idea behind the hovercraft can be traced
back at least to the early 18th century: in 1716, Swedish philosopher
Emmanuel Swedenborg (1688–1772) conceived a kind of overturned rowing
boat in which each stroke of the oars pumped air under the hull,
floating it happily over the waves. Unfortunately, it soon became
obvious to Swedenborg that generating an air cushion by human muscle
power wasn’t going to work, so the craft was never built. In the
1870s, British marine engineer Sir John Thornycroft (1843–1928)
figured out that a boat that could make an air cushion and carry it
underneath itself would be able to avoid the problem of dragging its
hull through the water. But his experiments to generate the cushion
simply by pumping air with bellows were unsuccessful: technology was
not on his side. [1]

Photo: Some of Sir John Thornycroft’s experiments into reducing
the drag from model boats (red) by making them skim more lightly over the surface of the water.
From Experiments with Hydroplanes or Skimmers, Scientific American, Vol 100 Number 24, June 12, 1909, p.444.

It wasn’t until the early 1950s that the theory of the hovercraft
moved into practice, thanks to the work of another British
engineer, Dr (and later «Sir») Christopher Cockerell (1910–1999).
Famously, he carried out an experiment with a coffee can and an empty
tin of cat food, putting one inside the other to create an ring of empty space
between them. Firing air from a blower down into this space from
above, he found he could generate what he called the momentum
curtain—a downward ring of high-pressure air that would effectively
trap a much bigger cushion of air under a hovercraft, producing more
lifting force for the same engine power. He measured the lift his
«craft» produced using a simple pair of kitchen scales.

Initially, Cockerell thought his idea would be of
huge benefit to the military and offered it to the British
government, who promptly classified it. Unfortunately for Cockerell,
the military weren’t that interested, and the «top secret»
classification also prevented any further commercial development. In
the late 1950s, the frustrated inventor managed to get his idea
declassified again and, in 1959, formed the Hovercraft Development
Company. With £150,000 backing (equivalent to several million dollars or pounds today) from a British government agency called the National Research Development Corporation (NRDC), he
commissioned a full-scale prototype, which took eight months to
build. Constructed at Cowes on the Isle of Wight, England by a marine
company called Saunders Roe, the
SR.N1 (Saunders-Roe Navigation 1) was roughly the size of a small truck, but almost square (8.8m by
7.3m or 29ft by 24ft). Its most distinctive feature was a large, vertically mounted,
white fan (powered by a 450 horsepower engine) that produced both
the air cushion (by the peripheral jet principle) and steering (using
directional channels that diverted some of the fan’s airflow). On
July 25 that year, Cockerell and pilot Peter Lamb took the SR.N1
across the English Channel (from England to France) in just over two
hours, marking the 50th anniversary of Louis Bleriot’s pioneering
cross-channel airplane flight (but taking about 1.5 hours longer).

Artwork: This early sketch of a hovercraft by Christopher Cockerell shows all the essential components of a modern machine—except the skirt, which he added later. Following Cockerell’s original numbering: 1 is the hovercraft itself; 2 is an opening at the front through which air enters; 3 is a double, four-bladed propeller; 4 is the engine; 5 is the drive shaft by which the engine powers the propeller; 6 is a chamber through which air flows; 7 is a tunnel into which air flows beneath the machine; 10 is the cockpit; 11 is the cargo bay; 12 are the bay doors; and 14 is the steering rudder at the back. Artwork from US Patent #3,363,716: Vehicles for travelling over land and/or water by Christopher Cockerell, filed on 12 December 1956 and granted on 16 January 1968. Courtesy of US Patent and Trademark Office.

Although Cockerell and his engineers continued to
tinker with the design of the SR.N1 and made small
improvements, the next big advance came with the development of the
flexible skirt, invented by British aircraft engineer Cecil Latimer-Needham (1900–1975).
Thanks to this innovation, the SR.N1 prototype was soon superseded by much bigger
and more practical craft. The
first commercial passenger hovercraft service began in 1962,
with a Vickers-Armstrong VA3 operating between Rhyl in North Wales and Merseyside, England
carrying 24 passengers at up to 110kph (70mph).
By 1968, technology had advanced to the point where Saunders Roe
could build two giant, cross-channel,
SR.N4 hovercraft ferries.
These huge machines successfully ferried tens of millions of people from England to France until
2000, when the service was closed for good. Although Britain pioneered the
hovercraft, the only passenger service now operating in the UK is a
relatively modest ferry shuttling passengers from Portsmouth on the
English mainland to the nearby Isle of Wight (fittingly, the island
where hovercraft first buzzed into life). Even so, hovercraft
continue to be widely used by military forces throughout the world,
and in all kinds of niche applications where they outperform boats
and helicopters.

Photo: The Princess Anne, one of the giant British SR.N4 hovercraft parked on a beach
in 1980. These craft were 56m (185ft) long and were powered by four gas-turbine engines,
one for each of the four propeller fans. Photo by Wikimedia user Murgatroyd49 published under a Creative Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0) Licence on
Wikimedia Commons.

Find out more

On this site

• Ships and boats

Other websites

• Burnham on Sea Rescue Hovercraft: A small seaside hovercraft used to rescue people in danger.
• Griffon Hoverwork: This site has some great technical data and specifications and offers an interesting insight into the range and diversity of modern hovercraft, from one-person military vessels to giant firefighting craft.
• The Hovercraft Museum: A collection of 60 historic hovercraft.
• Hover Club of America: An organization for recreational hovercraft enthusiasts.
• James’ Hovercraft Site: A wonderful enthusiast’s compendium of «hovercraftery».

News articles

• Hoverboard? Still in the Future by Conor Dougherty, The New York Times, 21 October 2014. What do hoverboards owe to the technology of hovercraft?
• Mercier-Jones hovercraft by Conor Dougherty, Wordless Tech, 2 January 2013. Perhaps the most exciting hovercraft you’ve ever seen!
• Hovercraft still afloat 50 years on by Brian Milligan, BBC News, 10 June 2009. A news report celebrating 50 years of the hovercraft, with video footage of early hovercraft experiments.
• It’s a Boat! It’a Plane! It’s a… Hovercraft! by Steven Zeitchik. The New York Times, 23 April 2004. The growing amateur enthusiasm for hovercraft.
• Hovercraft genius dies BBC News, 3 June 1999. An obituary for hovercraft inventor Sir Christopher Cockerell.
• Everyone By Hovercraft: Christopher Cockerell demonstrates some of his designs in this 1964 Pathe News clip.

Books

For older readers

• The Hovercraft: Photographs from the Archives of the World’s Only Hovercraft Museum by Jim Gray. Amberley Publishing, 2017. Wonderful photos for hover buffs.
• The Hovercraft: A History by Ashley Hollebone. The
  History Press, 2012. The fascinating history of water-skimming hovercraft.
• Discover the Hovercraft by Kevin Jackson.
  Flexitech, 2004. This short, hands-on book about hovercraft technology includes experiments and activities you can try.

For younger readers

• Hovercraft (Speed Machines) by Matt Scheff. ABDO, 2015. A 32-page introduction covering the history of hovercraft, how they work, and what they’re used for. Suitable for ages 7–9.
• Ships and submarines by Chris Woodford.
  Facts on File, 2004. My own book about the history of ships, from ancient wooden craft to the very latest wave-piercing catamarans. Ages 10+.

Activities

• NASA: Hovering on a Cushion of Air: Make a simple balloon-and-CD hovercraft—and learn the science that makes it skim over your desk.
• Styrofoam tray hovercraft: A simple-to-build hovercraft model you can make in perhaps an hour or less.
• Adam Savage: Build a Hovercraft With Your Kids: You’ll need a leaf blower, shower curtain, and a few more bits and pieces.

Patents

If you’re looking for more technical explanations, patents are always a good place to start. Here are four of Christopher Cokerell’s pioneering designs:

• US Patent #3,363,716: Vehicles for travelling over land and/or water by Christopher Cockerell, granted 16 January 1968. This appears to be the first US patent Cockerell filed (in 1956), though it wasn’t published until 1968 (after the patents listed below).
• US Patent #3,177,960: Vehicles for travelling over land and/or water by Christopher Cockerell, granted 13 April 1965. A modified hovercraft design from the 1960s.
• US Patent #3,334,609: Vehicles operable over water by Christopher Cockerell, granted 8 August 1967. This early design used paddles for propulsion rather than fans.
• US Patent #3,318,405: Flexible skirt deflecting means for ground effect vehicles by Christopher Cockerell, granted 9 May 1967. This patent explains the design and operation of the basic hovercraft skirt.

References

1. ↑   Most of Thornycroft’s experiments seem to have been concerned with skimming «hydroplanes,» somewhat like hydrofoils. There’s a little bit
   about his research in the article Experiments with Hydroplanes or Skimmers, Scientific American, Vol 100 Number 24, June 12, 1909, p.444–445. The first part discusses hydroplanes; on page 445, there’s a brief mention of
   how «Sir John Thornycroft also studied the passage of air under planing boats.

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of short take-off and landing (STOL) or short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft cannot perform without a runway.

In 1942, the Sikorsky R-4 became the first helicopter to reach full-scale production.^[1][2]

Although most earlier designs used more than one main rotor, the configuration of a single main rotor accompanied by a vertical anti-torque tail rotor (i.e. unicopter, not to be confused with the single-blade monocopter) has become the most common helicopter configuration. However, twin-main rotor helicopters (bicopters), in either tandem or transverse rotors configurations, are sometimes in use due to their greater payload capacity than the monorotor design, and coaxial-rotor, tiltrotor, and compound helicopters are also all flying today. Quadrotor helicopters (quadcopters) were pioneered as early as 1907 in France, and along with other types of multicopters, have been developed mainly for specialized applications such as drones.

Etymology

The English word helicopter is adapted from the French word hélicoptère, coined by Gustave Ponton d’Amécourt in 1861, which originates from the Greek helix (ἕλιξ) «helix, spiral, whirl, convolution»^[3] and pteron (πτερόν) «wing».^[4][5] For various reasons, the word is often erroneously, from an etymological point of view, analysed by English speakers into heli- and copter, leading to words like helipad and quadcopter.^[6][7] English language nicknames for «helicopter» include «chopper», «copter», «heli», and «whirlybird». In the United States military, the common slang is «helo» pronounced with a long «e».

Design characteristics

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more horizontally-spinning rotors.^[8] By contrast the autogyro (or gyroplane) and gyrodyne have a free-spinning rotor for all or part of the flight envelope, relying on a separate thrust system to propel the craft forwards, so that the airflow sets the rotor spinning to provide lift. The compound helicopter also has a separate thrust system, but continues to supply power to the rotor throughout normal flight.

Rotor system

The rotor system, or more simply rotor, is the rotating part of a helicopter that generates lift. A rotor system may be mounted horizontally, as main rotors are, providing lift vertically, or it may be mounted vertically, such as a tail rotor, to provide horizontal thrust to counteract torque from the main rotors. The rotor consists of a mast, hub and rotor blades.

The mast is a cylindrical metal shaft that extends upwards from the transmission. At the top of the mast is the attachment point for the rotor blades called the hub. Main rotor systems are classified according to how the rotor blades are attached and move relative to the hub. There are three basic types: hingeless, fully articulated, and teetering; although some modern rotor systems use a combination of these.

Anti-torque

Most helicopters have a single main rotor, but torque created by its aerodynamic drag must be countered by an opposed torque. The design that Igor Sikorsky settled on for his VS-300 was a smaller tail rotor. The tail rotor pushes or pulls against the tail to counter the torque effect, and this has become the most common configuration for helicopter design, usually at the end of a tail boom.

Some helicopters use other anti-torque controls instead of the tail rotor, such as the ducted fan (called Fenestron or FANTAIL) and NOTAR. NOTAR provides anti-torque similar to the way a wing develops lift through the use of the Coandă effect on the tail boom.^[9]

The use of two or more horizontal rotors turning in opposite directions is another configuration used to counteract the effects of torque on the aircraft without relying on an anti-torque tail rotor. This allows the power normally required to be diverted for the tail rotor to be applied fully to the main rotors, increasing the aircraft’s power efficiency and lifting capacity. There are several common configurations that use the counter-rotating effect to benefit the rotorcraft:

• Tandem rotors are two counter-rotating rotors with one mounted behind the other.
• Transverse rotors are pair of counter-rotating rotors transversely mounted at the ends of fixed wings or outrigger structures. Now used on tiltrotors, some early model helicopters had used them.
• Coaxial rotors are two counter-rotating rotors mounted one above the other with the same axis.
• Intermeshing rotors are two counter-rotating rotors mounted close to each other at a sufficient angle to let the rotors intermesh over the top of the aircraft without colliding. Aircraft utilizing this is known as a synchropter.
• Multirotors make use of three or more rotors. Specific terms are also used depending on the exact amount of rotors, such as tricopter, quadcopter, hexacopter and octocopter for three rotors, four rotors, six rotors and eight rotors respectively, of which quadcopter is the most common. Multirotors are primarily used on drones and use on aircraft with a human pilot is rare.

Tip jet designs let the rotor push itself through the air and avoid generating torque.^[10]

Engines

The number, size and type of engine(s) used on a helicopter determines the size, function and capability of that helicopter design. The earliest helicopter engines were simple mechanical devices, such as rubber bands or spindles, which relegated the size of helicopters to toys and small models. For a half century before the first airplane flight, steam engines were used to forward the development of the understanding of helicopter aerodynamics, but the limited power did not allow for manned flight. The introduction of the internal combustion engine at the end of the 19th century became the watershed for helicopter development as engines began to be developed and produced that were powerful enough to allow for helicopters able to lift humans.^{[citation needed]}

Early helicopter designs utilized custom-built engines or rotary engines designed for airplanes, but these were soon replaced by more powerful automobile engines and radial engines. The single, most-limiting factor of helicopter development during the first half of the 20th century was that the amount of power produced by an engine was not able to overcome the engine’s weight in vertical flight. This was overcome in early successful helicopters by using the smallest engines available. When the compact, flat engine was developed, the helicopter industry found a lighter-weight powerplant easily adapted to small helicopters, although radial engines continued to be used for larger helicopters.^{[citation needed]}

Turbine engines revolutionized the aviation industry; and the turboshaft engine for helicopter use, pioneered in December 1951 by the aforementioned Kaman K-225, finally gave helicopters an engine with a large amount of power and a low weight penalty. Turboshafts are also more reliable than piston engines, especially when producing the sustained high levels of power required by a helicopter. The turboshaft engine was able to be scaled to the size of the helicopter being designed, so that all but the lightest of helicopter models are powered by turbine engines today.^{[citation needed]}

Special jet engines developed to drive the rotor from the rotor tips are referred to as tip jets. Tip jets powered by a remote compressor are referred to as cold tip jets, while those powered by combustion exhaust are referred to as hot tip jets. An example of a cold jet helicopter is the Sud-Ouest Djinn, and an example of the hot tip jet helicopter is the YH-32 Hornet.^{[citation needed]}

Some radio-controlled helicopters and smaller, helicopter-type unmanned aerial vehicles, use electric motors or motorcycle engines.^[11] Radio-controlled helicopters may also have piston engines that use fuels other than gasoline, such as nitromethane. Some turbine engines commonly used in helicopters can also use biodiesel instead of jet fuel.^[12][13]

There are also human-powered helicopters.

Flight controls

A helicopter has four flight control inputs. These are the cyclic, the collective, the anti-torque pedals, and the throttle. The cyclic control is usually located between the pilot’s legs and is commonly called the cyclic stick or just cyclic. On most helicopters, the cyclic is similar to a joystick. However, the Robinson R22 and Robinson R44 have a unique teetering bar cyclic control system and a few helicopters have a cyclic control that descends into the cockpit from overhead.

The control is called the cyclic because it changes cyclic pitch of the main blades. The result is to tilt the rotor disk in a particular direction, resulting in the helicopter moving in that direction. If the pilot pushes the cyclic forward, the rotor disk tilts forward, and the rotor produces a thrust in the forward direction. If the pilot pushes the cyclic to the side, the rotor disk tilts to that side and produces thrust in that direction, causing the helicopter to hover sideways.

The collective pitch control or collective is located on the left side of the pilot’s seat with a settable friction control to prevent inadvertent movement. The collective changes the pitch angle of all the main rotor blades collectively (i.e. all at the same time) and independently of their position. Therefore, if a collective input is made, all the blades change equally, and the result is the helicopter increasing or decreasing in altitude.

A swashplate controls the collective and cyclic pitch of the main blades. The swashplate moves up and down, along the main shaft, to change the pitch of both blades. This causes the helicopter to push air downward or upward, depending on the angle of attack. The swashplate can also change its angle to move the blades angle forwards or backwards, or left and right, to make the helicopter move in those directions.

The anti-torque pedals are located in the same position as the rudder pedals in a fixed-wing aircraft, and serve a similar purpose, namely to control the direction in which the nose of the aircraft is pointed. Application of the pedal in a given direction changes the pitch of the tail rotor blades, increasing or reducing the thrust produced by the tail rotor and causing the nose to yaw in the direction of the applied pedal. The pedals mechanically change the pitch of the tail rotor altering the amount of thrust produced.

Helicopter rotors are designed to operate in a narrow range of RPM.^{[14][15][16][17][18]} The throttle controls the power produced by the engine, which is connected to the rotor by a fixed ratio transmission. The purpose of the throttle is to maintain enough engine power to keep the rotor RPM within allowable limits so that the rotor produces enough lift for flight. In single-engine helicopters, the throttle control is a motorcycle-style twist grip mounted on the collective control, while dual-engine helicopters have a power lever for each engine.

Compound helicopter

A compound helicopter has an additional system for thrust and, typically, small stub fixed wings. This offloads the rotor in cruise, which allows its rotation to be slowed down, thus increasing the maximum speed of the aircraft. The Lockheed AH-56A Cheyenne diverted up to 90% of its engine power to a pusher propeller during forward flight.^[19]

Flight

There are three basic flight conditions for a helicopter: hover, forward flight and the transition between the two.

Hover

Hovering is the most challenging part of flying a helicopter. This is because a helicopter generates its own gusty air while in a hover, which acts against the fuselage and flight control surfaces. The result is constant control inputs and corrections by the pilot to keep the helicopter where it is required to be.^[20] Despite the complexity of the task, the control inputs in a hover are simple. The cyclic is used to eliminate drift in the horizontal plane, that is to control forward and back, right and left. The collective is used to maintain altitude. The pedals are used to control nose direction or heading. It is the interaction of these controls that makes hovering so difficult, since an adjustment in any one control requires an adjustment of the other two, creating a cycle of constant correction.

Transition from hover to forward flight

As a helicopter moves from hover to forward flight it enters a state called translational lift which provides extra lift without increasing power. This state, most typically, occurs when the airspeed reaches approximately 16–24 knots (30–44 km/h; 18–28 mph), and may be necessary for a helicopter to obtain flight.

Forward flight

In forward flight a helicopter’s flight controls behave more like those of a fixed-wing aircraft. Applying forward pressure on the cyclic will cause the nose to pitch down, with a resultant increase in airspeed and loss of altitude. Aft cyclic will cause the nose to pitch up, slowing the helicopter and causing it to climb. Increasing collective (power) while maintaining a constant airspeed will induce a climb while decreasing collective will cause a descent. Coordinating these two inputs, down collective plus aft cyclic or up collective plus forward cyclic, will result in airspeed changes while maintaining a constant altitude. The pedals serve the same function in both a helicopter and a fixed-wing aircraft, to maintain balanced flight. This is done by applying a pedal input in whichever direction is necessary to center the ball in the turn and bank indicator.

Uses

Due to the operating characteristics of the helicopter—its ability to take off and land vertically, and to hover for extended periods of time, as well as the aircraft’s handling properties under low airspeed conditions—it has proved advantageous to conduct tasks that were previously not possible with other aircraft, or were time- or work-intensive to accomplish on the ground. Today, helicopter uses include transportation of people and cargo, military uses, construction, firefighting, search and rescue, tourism, medical transport, law enforcement, agriculture, news and media, and aerial observation, among others.^[21]

A helicopter used to carry loads connected to long cables or slings is called an aerial crane. Aerial cranes are used to place heavy equipment, like radio transmission towers and large air conditioning units, on the tops of tall buildings, or when an item must be raised up in a remote area, such as a radio tower raised on the top of a hill or mountain. Helicopters are used as aerial cranes in the logging industry to lift trees out of terrain where vehicles cannot travel and where environmental concerns prohibit the building of roads.^[22] These operations are referred to as longline because of the long, single sling line used to carry the load.^[23] In military service helicopters are often useful for delivery of outsized slung loads that would not fit inside ordinary cargo aircraft: artillery pieces, large machinery (field radars, communications gear, electrical generators), or pallets of bulk cargo. In military operations these payloads are often delivered to remote locations made inaccessible by mountainous or riverine terrain, or naval vessels at sea.

In electronic news gathering, helicopters have provided aerial views of some major news stories, and have been doing so, from the late 1960s. Helicopters have also been used in films, both in front and behind the camera.^[24]

The largest single non-combat helicopter operation in history was the disaster management operation following the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. Hundreds of pilots were involved in airdrop and observation missions, making dozens of sorties a day for several months.

«Helitack» is the use of helicopters to combat wildland fires.^[25] The helicopters are used for aerial firefighting (water bombing) and may be fitted with tanks or carry helibuckets. Helibuckets, such as the Bambi bucket, are usually filled by submerging the bucket into lakes, rivers, reservoirs, or portable tanks. Tanks fitted onto helicopters are filled from a hose while the helicopter is on the ground or water is siphoned from lakes or reservoirs through a hanging snorkel as the helicopter hovers over the water source. Helitack helicopters are also used to deliver firefighters, who rappel down to inaccessible areas, and to resupply firefighters. Common firefighting helicopters include variants of the Bell 205 and the Erickson S-64 Aircrane helitanker.

Helicopters are used as air ambulances for emergency medical assistance in situations when an ambulance cannot easily or quickly reach the scene, or cannot transport the patient to a medical facility in time. Helicopters are also used when patients need to be transported between medical facilities and air transportation is the most practical method. An air ambulance helicopter is equipped to stabilize and provide limited medical treatment to a patient while in flight. The use of helicopters as air ambulances is often referred to as «MEDEVAC», and patients are referred to as being «airlifted», or «medevaced». This use was pioneered in the Korean War, when time to reach a medical facility was reduced to three hours from the eight hours needed in World War II, and further reduced to two hours by the Vietnam War.^[26] In naval service a prime function of rescue helicopters is to promptly retrieve downed aircrew involved in crashes occurring upon launch or recovery aboard aircraft carriers. In past years this function was performed by destroyers escorting the carrier, but since then helicopters have proved vastly more effective.

Police departments and other law enforcement agencies use helicopters to pursue suspects and patrol the skies. Since helicopters can achieve a unique aerial view, they are often used in conjunction with police on the ground to report on suspects’ locations and movements. They are often mounted with lighting and heat-sensing equipment for night pursuits.

Military forces use attack helicopters to conduct aerial attacks on ground targets. Such helicopters are mounted with missile launchers and miniguns. Transport helicopters are used to ferry troops and supplies where the lack of an airstrip would make transport via fixed-wing aircraft impossible. The use of transport helicopters to deliver troops as an attack force on an objective is referred to as «air assault». Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) helicopter systems of varying sizes are developed by companies for military reconnaissance and surveillance duties. Naval forces also use helicopters equipped with dipping sonar for anti-submarine warfare, since they can operate from small ships.

Oil companies charter helicopters to move workers and parts quickly to remote drilling sites located at sea or in remote locations. The speed advantage over boats makes the high operating cost of helicopters cost-effective in ensuring that oil platforms continue to operate. Various companies specialize in this type of operation.

NASA developed Ingenuity, a 1.8 kg (4.0 lb) helicopter used to survey Mars (along with a rover). It began service in February 2021. As the Martian atmosphere is 100 times thinner than Earth’s, its two blades spin at close to 3,000 revolutions a minute, approximately 10 times faster than that of a terrestrial helicopter.^[27]

Market

In 2017, 926 civil helicopters were shipped for $3.68 billion, led by Airbus Helicopters with $1.87 billion for 369 rotorcraft, Leonardo Helicopters with $806 million for 102 (first three-quarters only), Bell Helicopter with $696 million for 132, then Robinson Helicopter with $161 million for 305.^[28]

By October 2018, the in-service and stored helicopter fleet of 38,570 with civil or government operators was led Robinson Helicopter with 24.7% followed by Airbus Helicopters with 24.4%, then Bell with 20.5 and Leonardo with 8.4%, Russian Helicopters with 7.7%, Sikorsky Aircraft with 7.2%, MD Helicopters with 3.4% and other with 2.2%.
The most widespread model is the piston Robinson R44 with 5,600, then the H125/AS350 with 3,600 units, followed by the Bell 206 with 3,400.
Most were in North America with 34.3% then in Europe with 28.0% followed by Asia-Pacific with 18.6%, Latin America with 11.6%, Africa with 5.3% and Middle East with 1.7%.^[29]

History

Early design

The earliest references for vertical flight came from China. Since around 400 BC,^[30] Chinese children have played with bamboo flying toys (or Chinese top).^[31][32][33] This bamboo-copter is spun by rolling a stick attached to a rotor. The spinning creates lift, and the toy flies when released.^[30] The 4th-century AD Daoist book Baopuzi by Ge Hong (抱朴子 «Master who Embraces Simplicity») reportedly describes some of the ideas inherent to rotary wing aircraft.^[34]

Designs similar to the Chinese helicopter toy appeared in some Renaissance paintings and other works.^[35] In the 18th and early 19th centuries Western scientists developed flying machines based on the Chinese toy.^[36]

It was not until the early 1480s, when Italian polymath Leonardo da Vinci created a design for a machine that could be described as an «aerial screw», that any recorded advancement was made towards vertical flight. His notes suggested that he built small flying models, but there were no indications for any provision to stop the rotor from making the craft rotate.^[37][38] As scientific knowledge increased and became more accepted, people continued to pursue the idea of vertical flight.

In July 1754, Russian Mikhail Lomonosov had developed a small coaxial modeled after the Chinese top but powered by a wound-up spring device^[36] and demonstrated it to the Russian Academy of Sciences. It was powered by a spring, and was suggested as a method to lift meteorological instruments. In 1783, Christian de Launoy, and his mechanic, Bienvenu, used a coaxial version of the Chinese top in a model consisting of contrarotating turkey flight feathers^[36] as rotor blades, and in 1784, demonstrated it to the French Academy of Sciences. Sir George Cayley, influenced by a childhood fascination with the Chinese flying top, developed a model of feathers, similar to that of Launoy and Bienvenu, but powered by rubber bands. By the end of the century, he had progressed to using sheets of tin for rotor blades and springs for power. His writings on his experiments and models would become influential on future aviation pioneers.^[37] Alphonse Pénaud would later develop coaxial rotor model helicopter toys in 1870, also powered by rubber bands. One of these toys, given as a gift by their father, would inspire the Wright brothers to pursue the dream of flight.^[39]

In 1861, the word «helicopter» was coined by Gustave de Ponton d’Amécourt, a French inventor who demonstrated a small steam-powered model. While celebrated as an innovative use of a new metal, aluminum, the model never lifted off the ground. D’Amecourt’s linguistic contribution would survive to eventually describe the vertical flight he had envisioned. Steam power was popular with other inventors as well. In 1878 the Italian Enrico Forlanini’s unmanned vehicle, also powered by a steam engine, rose to a height of 12 meters (39 feet), where it hovered for some 20 seconds after a vertical take-off. Emmanuel Dieuaide’s steam-powered design featured counter-rotating rotors powered through a hose from a boiler on the ground.^[37] In 1887 Parisian inventor, Gustave Trouvé, built and flew a tethered electric model helicopter.^{[citation needed]}

In July 1901, the maiden flight of Hermann Ganswindt’s helicopter took place in Berlin-Schöneberg; this was probably the first heavier-than-air motor-driven flight carrying humans. A movie covering the event was taken by Max Skladanowsky, but it remains lost.^[40]

In 1885, Thomas Edison was given US$1,000 (equivalent to $30,000 today) by James Gordon Bennett, Jr., to conduct experiments towards developing flight. Edison built a helicopter and used the paper for a stock ticker to create guncotton, with which he attempted to power an internal combustion engine. The helicopter was damaged by explosions and one of his workers was badly burned. Edison reported that it would take a motor with a ratio of three to four pounds per horsepower produced to be successful, based on his experiments.^[41] Ján Bahýľ, a Slovak inventor, adapted the internal combustion engine to power his helicopter model that reached a height of 0.5 meters (1.6 feet) in 1901. On 5 May 1905, his helicopter reached 4 meters (13 feet) in altitude and flew for over 1,500 meters (4,900 feet).^[42] In 1908, Edison patented his own design for a helicopter powered by a gasoline engine with box kites attached to a mast by cables for a rotor,^[43] but it never flew.^[44]

First flights

In 1906, two French brothers, Jacques and Louis Breguet, began experimenting with airfoils for helicopters. In 1907, those experiments resulted in the Gyroplane No.1, possibly as the earliest known example of a quadcopter. Although there is some uncertainty about the date, sometime between 14 August and 29 September 1907, the Gyroplane No. 1 lifted its pilot into the air about 0.6 metres (2 ft) for a minute.^[1] The Gyroplane No. 1 proved to be extremely unsteady and required a man at each corner of the airframe to hold it steady. For this reason, the flights of the Gyroplane No. 1 are considered to be the first manned flight of a helicopter, but not a free or untethered flight.

That same year, fellow French inventor Paul Cornu designed and built the Cornu helicopter which used two 6.1-metre (20 ft) counter-rotating rotors driven by a 24 hp (18 kW) Antoinette engine. On 13 November 1907, it lifted its inventor to 0.3 metres (1 ft) and remained aloft for 20 seconds. Even though this flight did not surpass the flight of the Gyroplane No. 1, it was reported to be the first truly free flight with a pilot.^{[n 1]} Cornu’s helicopter completed a few more flights and achieved a height of nearly 2.0 metres (6.5 ft), but it proved to be unstable and was abandoned.^[1]

In 1909, J. Newton Williams of Derby, Connecticut, and Emile Berliner of Washington, D.C., flew a helicopter «on three occasions» at Berliner’s lab in Washington’s Brightwood neighborhood.^[45]

In 1911, Slovenian philosopher and economist Ivan Slokar patented a helicopter configuration.^[46][47][48]

The Danish inventor Jacob Ellehammer built the Ellehammer helicopter in 1912. It consisted of a frame equipped with two counter-rotating discs, each of which was fitted with six vanes around its circumference. After indoor tests, the aircraft was demonstrated outdoors and made several free take-offs. Experiments with the helicopter continued until September 1916, when it tipped over during take-off, destroying its rotors.^[49]

During World War I, Austria-Hungary developed the PKZ, an experimental helicopter prototype, with two aircraft built.

Early development

In the early 1920s, Argentine Raúl Pateras-Pescara de Castelluccio, while working in Europe, demonstrated one of the first successful applications of cyclic pitch.^[1] Coaxial, contra-rotating, biplane rotors could be warped to cyclically increase and decrease the lift they produced. The rotor hub could also be tilted forward a few degrees, allowing the aircraft to move forward without a separate propeller to push or pull it. Pateras-Pescara was also able to demonstrate the principle of autorotation. By January 1924, Pescara’s helicopter No. 1 was tested but was found to be underpowered and could not lift its own weight. His 2F fared better and set a record.^[50] The British government funded further research by Pescara which resulted in helicopter No. 3, powered by a 250-horsepower (190 kW) radial engine which could fly for up to ten minutes.^[51][52]

In March 1923 Time magazine reported Thomas Edison sent Dr. George de Bothezat a congratulations for a successful helicopter test flight. Edison wrote, «So far as I know, you have produced the first successful helicopter.» The helicopter was tested at McCook’s Field and remained airborne for 2 minutes and 45 seconds at a height of 15 feet.^[53]

On 14 April 1924, Frenchman Étienne Oehmichen set the first helicopter world record recognized by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI), flying his quadrotor helicopter 360 meters (1,180 ft).^[54] On 18 April 1924, Pescara beat Oemichen’s record, flying for a distance of 736 meters (2,415 ft)^[50] (nearly 0.80 kilometers or .5 miles) in 4 minutes and 11 seconds (about 13 km/h or 8 mph), maintaining a height of 1.8 meters (6 feet).^[55] On 4 May, Oehmichen completed the first one-kilometer (0.62 mi) closed-circuit helicopter flight in 7 minutes 40 seconds with his No. 2 machine.^[1][56]

In the US, George de Bothezat built the quadrotor helicopter de Bothezat helicopter for the United States Army Air Service but the Army cancelled the program in 1924, and the aircraft was scrapped.^{[citation needed]}

Albert Gillis von Baumhauer, a Dutch aeronautical engineer, began studying rotorcraft design in 1923. His first prototype «flew» («hopped» and hovered in reality) on 24 September 1925,^[57] with Dutch Army-Air arm Captain Floris Albert van Heijst at the controls. The controls that van Heijst used were von Baumhauer’s inventions, the cyclic and collective.^[58][59] Patents were granted to von Baumhauer for his cyclic and collective controls by the British ministry of aviation on 31 January 1927, under patent number 265,272.^{[citation needed]}

In 1927,^[60] Engelbert Zaschka from Germany built a helicopter, equipped with two rotors, in which a gyroscope was used to increase stability and serves as an energy accumulator for a gliding flight to make a landing. Zaschka’s aircraft, the first helicopter, which ever worked so successfully in miniature, not only rises and descends vertically, but is able to remain stationary at any height.^[61][62]

In 1928, Hungarian aviation engineer Oszkár Asbóth constructed a helicopter prototype that took off and landed at least 182 times, with a maximum single flight duration of 53 minutes.^[63][64]

In 1930, the Italian engineer Corradino D’Ascanio built his D’AT3, a coaxial helicopter. His relatively large machine had two, two-bladed, counter-rotating rotors. Control was achieved by using auxiliary wings or servo-tabs on the trailing edges of the blades,^[65] a concept that was later adopted by other helicopter designers, including Bleeker and Kaman. Three small propellers mounted to the airframe were used for additional pitch, roll, and yaw control. The D’AT3 held modest FAI speed and altitude records for the time, including altitude (18 m or 59 ft), duration (8 minutes 45 seconds) and distance flown (1,078 m or 3,540 ft).^[65][66]

First practical rotorcraft

Spanish aeronautical engineer and pilot Juan de la Cierva invented the autogyro in the early 1920s, becoming the first practical rotorcraft.^[67] In 1928, de la Cierva successfully flew an autogyro across the English Channel, from London to Paris.^[68] In 1934, an autogyro became the first rotorcraft to successfully take off and land on the deck of a ship.^[69] That same year, the autogyro was employed by the Spanish military during the Asturias revolt, becoming the first military deployment of a rotocraft. Autogyros were also employed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania for delivering mail and newspapers prior to the invention of the helicopter.^[70] Though lacking true vertical flight capability, work on the autogyro forms the basis for helicopter analysis.^[71]

Single lift-rotor success

In the Soviet Union, Boris N. Yuriev and Alexei M. Cheremukhin, two aeronautical engineers working at the Tsentralniy Aerogidrodinamicheskiy Institut (TsAGI or the Central Aerohydrodynamic Institute), constructed and flew the TsAGI 1-EA single lift-rotor helicopter, which used an open tubing framework, a four-blade main lift rotor, and twin sets of 1.8-meter (5.9-foot) diameter, two-bladed anti-torque rotors: one set of two at the nose and one set of two at the tail. Powered by two M-2 powerplants, up-rated copies of the Gnome Monosoupape 9 Type B-2 100 CV output rotary engine of World War I, the TsAGI 1-EA made several low altitude flights.^[72] By 14 August 1932, Cheremukhin managed to get the 1-EA up to an unofficial altitude of 605 meters (1,985 feet), shattering d’Ascanio’s earlier achievement. As the Soviet Union was not yet a member of the FAI, however, Cheremukhin’s record remained unrecognized.^[73]

Nicolas Florine, a Russian engineer, built the first twin tandem rotor machine to perform a free flight. It flew in Sint-Genesius-Rode, at the Laboratoire Aérotechnique de Belgique (now von Karman Institute) in April 1933, and attained an altitude of six meters (20 feet) and an endurance of eight minutes. Florine chose a co-rotating configuration because the gyroscopic stability of the rotors would not cancel. Therefore, the rotors had to be tilted slightly in opposite directions to counter torque. Using hingeless rotors and co-rotation also minimised the stress on the hull. At the time, it was one of the most stable helicopters in existence.^[74]

The Bréguet-Dorand Gyroplane Laboratoire was built in 1933. It was a coaxial helicopter, contra-rotating. After many ground tests and an accident, it first took flight on 26 June 1935. Within a short time, the aircraft was setting records with pilot Maurice Claisse at the controls. On 14 December 1935, he set a record for closed-circuit flight with a 500-meter (1,600-foot) diameter.^[75] The next year, on 26 September 1936, Claisse set a height record of 158 meters (518 feet).^[76] And, finally, on 24 November 1936, he set a flight duration record of one hour, two minutes and 50 seconds^[77] over a 44 kilometers (27 miles) closed circuit at 44.7 kilometers per hour (27.8 mph). The aircraft was destroyed in 1943 by an Allied airstrike at Villacoublay airport.^[78]

American single-rotor beginnings

American inventor Arthur M. Young started work on model helicopters in 1928 using converted electric hover motors to drive the rotor head. Young invented the stabilizer bar and patented it shortly after. A mutual friend introduced Young to Lawrence Dale, who once seeing his work asked him to join the Bell Aircraft company. When Young arrived at Bell in 1941, he signed his patent over and began work on the helicopter. His budget was US$250,000 (equivalent to $4.6 million today) to build two working helicopters. In just six months they completed the first Bell Model 1, which spawned the Bell Model 30, later succeeded by the Bell 47.^[79]

Birth of an industry

Heinrich Focke at Focke-Wulf had purchased a license from Cierva Autogiro Company, which according to Frank Kingston Smith Sr., included «the fully controllable cyclic/collective pitch hub system». In return, Cierva Autogiro received a cross-license to build the Focke-Achgelis helicopters. Focke designed the world’s first practical transverse twin-rotor helicopter, the Focke-Wulf Fw 61, which first flew in June 1936. The Fw 61 had flown higher than 8,000 feet (2,400 m) at speeds of 120 miles per hour (190 km/h). Autogiro development was now being bypassed by a focus on helicopters.^[80]

During World War II, Nazi Germany used helicopters in small numbers for observation, transport, and medical evacuation. The Flettner Fl 282 Kolibri synchropter—using the same basic configuration as Anton Flettner’s own pioneering Fl 265—was used in the Mediterranean, while the Focke Achgelis Fa 223 Drache twin-rotor helicopter was used in Europe.^{[citation needed]} Extensive bombing by the Allied forces prevented Germany from producing any helicopters in large quantities during the war.

In the United States, Russian-born engineer Igor Sikorsky and Wynn Laurence LePage competed to produce the U.S. military’s first helicopter. LePage received the patent rights to develop helicopters patterned after the Fw 61, and built the XR-1.^[81] Meanwhile, Sikorsky settled on a simpler, single rotor design, the VS-300, which turned out to be the first practical single lifting-rotor helicopter design. After experimenting with configurations to counteract the torque produced by the single main rotor, Sikorsky settled on a single, smaller rotor mounted on the tail boom.

Developed from the VS-300, Sikorsky’s R-4 was the first large-scale mass-produced helicopter, with a production order for 100 aircraft. The R-4 was the only Allied helicopter to serve in World War II, primarily for search and rescue (by the USAAF 1st Air Commando Group) in the Burma campaign;^[82] in Alaska; and in other areas with harsh terrain. Total production reached 131 helicopters before the R-4 was replaced by other Sikorsky helicopters such as the R-5 and the R-6. In all, Sikorsky produced over 400 helicopters before the end of World War II.^[83]

While LePage and Sikorsky built their helicopters for the military, Bell Aircraft hired Arthur Young to help build a helicopter using Young’s two-blade teetering rotor design, which used a weighted stabilizer bar placed at a 90° angle to the rotor blades. The subsequent Model 30 helicopter showed the design’s simplicity and ease of use. The Model 30 was developed into the Bell 47, which became the first helicopter certified for civilian use in the United States. Produced in several countries, the Bell 47 was the most popular helicopter model for nearly 30 years.

Turbine age

In 1951, at the urging of his contacts at the Department of the Navy, Charles Kaman modified his K-225 synchropter—a design for a twin-rotor helicopter concept first pioneered by Anton Flettner in 1939, with the aforementioned Fl 265 piston-engined design in Germany—with a new kind of engine, the turboshaft engine. This adaptation of the turbine engine provided a large amount of power to Kaman’s helicopter with a lower weight penalty than piston engines, with their heavy engine blocks and auxiliary components. On 11 December 1951, the Kaman K-225 became the first turbine-powered helicopter in the world. Two years later, on 26 March 1954, a modified Navy HTK-1, another Kaman helicopter, became the first twin-turbine helicopter to fly.^[84] However, it was the Sud Aviation Alouette II that would become the first helicopter to be produced with a turbine-engine.^[85]

Reliable helicopters capable of stable hover flight were developed decades after fixed-wing aircraft. This is largely due to higher engine power density requirements than fixed-wing aircraft. Improvements in fuels and engines during the first half of the 20th century were a critical factor in helicopter development. The availability of lightweight turboshaft engines in the second half of the 20th century led to the development of larger, faster, and higher-performance helicopters. While smaller and less expensive helicopters still use piston engines, turboshaft engines are the preferred powerplant for helicopters today.

Safety

Maximum speed limit

There are several reasons a helicopter cannot fly as fast as a fixed-wing aircraft. When the helicopter is hovering, the outer tips of the rotor travel at a speed determined by the length of the blade and the rotational speed. In a moving helicopter, however, the speed of the blades relative to the air depends on the speed of the helicopter as well as on their rotational speed. The airspeed of the advancing rotor blade is much higher than that of the helicopter itself. It is possible for this blade to exceed the speed of sound, and thus produce vastly increased drag and vibration.

At the same time, the advancing blade creates more lift traveling forward, the retreating blade produces less lift. If the aircraft were to accelerate to the air speed that the blade tips are spinning, the retreating blade passes through air moving at the same speed of the blade and produces no lift at all, resulting in very high torque stresses on the central shaft that can tip down the retreating-blade side of the vehicle, and cause a loss of control. Dual counter-rotating blades prevent this situation due to having two advancing and two retreating blades with balanced forces.

Because the advancing blade has higher airspeed than the retreating blade and generates a dissymmetry of lift, rotor blades are designed to «flap» – lift and twist in such a way that the advancing blade flaps up and develops a smaller angle of attack. Conversely, the retreating blade flaps down, develops a higher angle of attack, and generates more lift. At high speeds, the force on the rotors is such that they «flap» excessively, and the retreating blade can reach too high an angle and stall. For this reason, the maximum safe forward airspeed of a helicopter is given a design rating called V_NE, velocity, never exceed.^[86] In addition, it is possible for the helicopter to fly at an airspeed where an excessive amount of the retreating blade stalls, which results in high vibration, pitch-up, and roll into the retreating blade.

Noise

During the closing years of the 20th century designers began working on helicopter noise reduction. Urban communities have often expressed great dislike of noisy aviation or noisy aircraft, and police and passenger helicopters can be unpopular because of the sound. The redesigns followed the closure of some city heliports and government action to constrain flight paths in national parks and other places of natural beauty.

Vibration

To reduce vibration, all helicopters have rotor adjustments for height and weight. A maladjusted helicopter can easily vibrate so much that it will shake itself apart. Blade height is adjusted by changing the pitch of the blade. Weight is adjusted by adding or removing weights on the rotor head and/or at the blade end caps. Most also have vibration dampers for height and pitch. Some also use mechanical feedback systems to sense and counter vibration. Usually the feedback system uses a mass as a «stable reference» and a linkage from the mass operates a flap to adjust the rotor’s angle of attack to counter the vibration. Adjustment can be difficult in part because measurement of the vibration is hard, usually requiring sophisticated accelerometers mounted throughout the airframe and gearboxes. The most common blade vibration adjustment measurement system is to use a stroboscopic flash lamp, and observe painted markings or coloured reflectors on the underside of the rotor blades. The traditional low-tech system is to mount coloured chalk on the rotor tips, and see how they mark a linen sheet. Health and Usage Monitoring Systems (HUMS) provide vibration monitoring and rotor track and balance solutions to limit vibration.^[87] Gearbox vibration most often requires a gearbox overhaul or replacement. Gearbox or drive train vibrations can be extremely harmful to a pilot. The most severe effects are pain, numbness, and loss of tactile discrimination or dexterity.

Loss of tail-rotor effectiveness

For a standard helicopter with a single main rotor, the tips of the main rotor blades produce a vortex ring in the air, which is a spiraling and circularly rotating airflow. As the craft moves forward, these vortices trail off behind the craft.

When hovering with a forward diagonal crosswind, or moving in a forward diagonal direction, the spinning vortices trailing off the main rotor blades will align with the rotation of the tail rotor and cause an instability in flight control.^[88]

When the trailing vortices colliding with the tail rotor are rotating in the same direction, this causes a loss of thrust from the tail rotor. When the trailing vortices rotate in the opposite direction of the tail rotor, thrust is increased. Use of the foot pedals is required to adjust the tail rotor’s angle of attack, to compensate for these instabilities.

These issues are due to the exposed tail rotor cutting through open air around rear of the vehicle. This issue disappears when the tail is instead ducted, using an internal impeller enclosed in the tail and a jet of high pressure air sideways out of the tail, as the main rotor vortices can not impact the operation of an internal impeller.

Critical wind azimuth

For a standard helicopter with a single main rotor, maintaining steady flight with a crosswind presents an additional flight control problem, where strong crosswinds from certain angles will increase or decrease lift from the main rotors. This effect is also triggered in a no-wind condition when moving the craft diagonally in various directions, depending on the direction of main rotor rotation.^[89]

This can lead to a loss of control and a crash or hard landing when operating at low altitudes, due to the sudden unexpected loss of lift, and insufficient time and distance available to recover.

Transmission

Conventional rotary-wing aircraft use a set of complex mechanical gearboxes to convert the high rotation speed of gas turbines into the low speed required to drive main and tail rotors. Unlike powerplants, mechanical gearboxes cannot be duplicated (for redundancy) and have always been a major weak point in helicopter reliability. In-flight catastrophic gear failures often result in gearbox jamming and subsequent fatalities, whereas loss of lubrication can trigger onboard fire.^{[citation needed]} Another weakness of mechanical gearboxes is their transient power limitation, due to structural fatigue limits. Recent EASA studies point to engines and transmissions as prime cause of crashes just after pilot errors.^[90]

By contrast, electromagnetic transmissions do not use any parts in contact; hence lubrication can be drastically simplified, or eliminated. Their inherent redundancy offers good resilience to single point of failure. The absence of gears enables high power transient without impact on service life. The concept of electric propulsion applied to helicopter and electromagnetic drive was brought to reality by Pascal Chretien who designed, built and flew world’s first man-carrying, free-flying electric helicopter. The concept was taken from the conceptual computer-aided design model on 10 September 2010 to the first testing at 30% power on 1 March 2011 – less than six months. The aircraft first flew on 12 August 2011. All development was conducted in Venelles, France.^[91][92]

Hazards

As with any moving vehicle, unsafe operation could result in loss of control, structural damage, or loss of life. The following is a list of some of the potential hazards for helicopters:

• Settling with power is when the aircraft has insufficient power to arrest its descent. This hazard can develop into vortex ring state if not corrected early.^[93]
• Vortex ring state is a hazard induced by a combination of low airspeed, high power setting, and high descent rate. Rotor-tip vortices circulate from the high pressure air below the rotor disk to low pressure air above the disk, so that the helicopter settles into its own descending airflow.^[93] Adding more power increases the rate of air circulation and aggravates the situation. It is sometimes confused with settling with power, but they are aerodynamically different.
• Retreating blade stall is experienced during high speed flight and is the most common limiting factor of a helicopter’s forward speed.
• Ground resonance is a self-reinforcing vibration that occurs when the lead/lag spacing of the blades of an articulated rotor system becomes irregular.
• Low-G condition is an abrupt change from a positive G-force state to a negative G-force state that results in loss of lift (unloaded disc) and subsequent roll over. If aft cyclic is applied while the disc is unloaded, the main rotor could strike the tail causing catastrophic failure.^[94]
• Dynamic rollover in which the helicopter pivots around one of the skids and ‘pulls’ itself onto its side (almost like a fixed-wing aircraft ground loop).
• Powertrain failures, especially those that occur within the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram.
• Tail rotor failures which occur from either a mechanical malfunction of the tail rotor control system or a loss of tail rotor thrust authority, called «loss of tail-rotor effectiveness» (LTE).
• Brownout in dusty conditions or whiteout in snowy conditions.
• Low rotor RPM, is when the engine cannot drive the blades at sufficient RPM to maintain flight.
• Rotor overspeed, which can over-stress the rotor hub pitch bearings (brinelling) and, if severe enough, cause blade separation from the aircraft.
• Wire and tree strikes due to low altitude operations and take-offs and landings in remote locations.^[95]
• Controlled flight into terrain in which the aircraft is flown into the ground unintentionally due to a lack of situational awareness.
• Mast bumping in some helicopters^[96]

List of fatal crashes

Deadliest helicopter crashes by death toll

Date	Operator	Aircraft	Event and location	Death toll
19 August 2002	Russia	Mil Mi-26	Shot down over Chechnya	127[97]
9 December 1982	Nicaragua	Mil Mi-8	Shot down by Sandinistan rebels while carrying 88 people. All 84 passengers were killed and all four crew members survived.[98]	84
4 February 1997	Israel	Sikorsky CH-53 Sea Stallion (x2)	Collision over Israel	73
14 December 1992	Russia (Russian Air Force)	Mil Mi-8	Shot down by Georgian forces in Abkhazia using SA-14 MANPADs, despite heavy escort. Three crew and 58 passengers, composed of mainly Russian refugees.[99]	61
4 October 1993	Georgia	Mil Mi-8	Shot down when transporting 60 refugees from eastern Abkhazia; all on board were killed.[99][failed verification]	60
10 May 1977	Israel	CH-53	Crash near Yitav in the Jordan Valley	54
8 January 1968	United States	Sikorsky CH-53A Sea Stallion, USMC	Crash near Đông Hà Combat Base in South Vietnam. All five crew and 41 passengers were killed.	46[100]
11 July 1972	United States	Sikorsky CH-53D Sea Stallion, USMC	Shot down by missile near Quảng Trị in South Vietnam. Six US Marines and 50 Vietnamese Marines on board. Three US Marines and 43 Vietnamese Marines were killed.	46[101]
11 September 1982	United States	Boeing CH-47 Chinook, U.S. Army	Crash at an air show in Mannheim, then located in West Germany.	46[102]
6 November 1986	British International Helicopters	Boeing 234LR Chinook	Crash in the Shetland Islands	45
28 January 1992	Azerbaijan	Mil Mi-8	Shootdown	44
3 July 2009	Pakistan (Pakistan Army)	Mil Mi-17	Crash	41
6 August 2011	United States	CH-47 Chinook	Shootdown, Afghanistan	38[103]
18 August 1971	United States	CH-47 Chinook, US Army	Crash near Pegnitz, then located in West Germany. All four crew and 33 passengers were killed.	37[104]
26 January 2005	United States	Sikorsky CH-53E Super Stallion, USMC	Crash landed near Ar Rutbah, Iraq	31[105]

World records

Record type	Record	Helicopter	Pilot(s)	Date	Location	Note	Reference
Speed	400.87 km/h (249.09 mph)	Westland Lynx	John Trevor Egginton (UK)	11 August 1986	UK		[106]
Distance without landing	3,561.55 km (2,213.04 mi)	Hughes YOH-6A	Robert G. Ferry (USA)	6 April 1966	United States		[107]
Around-the-world speed	136.7 km/h (84.9 mph)	Agusta A109S Grand	Scott Kasprowicz (USA)	18 August 2008	From and to New York City via Europe, Russia, Alaska, Canada	No in-flight refueling	[108]
Highest altitude without payload	12,442 m (40,820 ft)	Aerospatiale Lama	Jean Boulet (France)	21 June 1972	France		[109]
Highest level flight altitude	11,010 m (36,120 ft)	Sikorsky CH-54 Tarhe	James K. Church	4 November 1971	United States		[110]
Altitude with 40-tonne payload	2,255 m (7,398 ft)	Mil V-12	Vasily Kolochenko, et al.	6 August 1969	USSR		[111]
Highest takeoff (turbine)	8,848 m (29,029 ft)	Eurocopter AS350	Didier Delsalle	14 May 2005	Nepal	Mount Everest	[112]
Highest takeoff (piston)	4,300.7 m (14,110 ft)	Robinson R44	Mark Young	12 October 2009	United States	Pike’s Peak, Colorado	[113]
First manned electric flight	Purely electric hover	Solution F Prototype	Pascal Chretien	12 August 2011	France	Venelles	[114]
Longest human-powered lift	Pedalling, lift 64 s endurance, 3.3 m height; diagonal width: 46.9 m	AeroVelo Atlas, 4 rotors	Dr. Todd Reichert	13 June 2013	Canada	Indoor soccer stadium; Igor I. Sikorsky Competition winner	[115]

See also

References

Notes

Footnotes

Bibliography

External links

• «www.helicopterpage.com – How Helicopters Work» Complete site explaining different aspects of helicopters and how they work.
• «Planes That Go Straight Up». 1935 article about early development and research into helicopters.
• «Flights — of the Imagination». 1918 article on helicopter design concepts.
• «Twin Windmill Blades Fly Wingless Ship» Popular Mechanics, April 1936
• Silent (Russian-language intertitled) video about the Cheremukhin/Yuriev TsAGI 1-EA pioneer helicopter
• American Helicopter Society
• Graham Warwick (17 June 2016). «How The Helicopter Has Developed». Aviation Week & Space Technology. Getting from idea to reality took far longer for the helicopter than for the fixed-wing aircraft.

noun

COLLOCATIONS FROM OTHER ENTRIES

a rescue helicopter/boat/ship

▪ A rescue helicopter is on its way.

helicopter pad

helicopter parents

launch/landing/helicopter pad

▪ The hospital has built a helicopter pad.

COLLOCATIONS FROM CORPUS

■ ADJECTIVE

military

▪ As many as 44 military planes and helicopters had been badly damaged, he acknowledged.

▪ A military helicopter was dispatched and the man was rescued based on the general description provided.

▪ The Chairman gave orders for the military helicopter to fly the scientist back to Baghdad.

▪ Although the city could get the surplus military helicopters for free, it must pay to maintain and operate them.

▪ Old-fashioned sandbags were laid in their tens of thousands, mostly by military helicopters, and effectively protected many homes.

▪ McGuire pleaded guilty to violating the federal Arms Export Control Act, conspiring to destroy military helicopters and aiding foreign insurgence.

model

▪ On very early model helicopters this was probably the only method which stood a any chance of success, but only just!

▪ The model helicopter pilot is not alone in suffering from this problem.

▪ Now it’s up to you Only a few years ago it was a considerable achievement to fly a model helicopter at all.

▪ A model helicopter behaves in exactly the same way.

■ NOUN

army

▪ Meanwhile, powerful United States Army helicopters continued dropping massive concrete blocks to hinder the lava flow.

▪ Each night as they lay in bed, they could hear army helicopters hovering over the parish.

▪ What do I tell him the next time he asks about the army helicopters heading for the clouds?

▪ In that post he achieved a military first, using an aircraft carrier to transport Army helicopters and Special Forces troops.

▪ Most Army helicopters now operate with a crew of two, and the Gazelles of 658 Squadron are no exception.

▪ Pickett, an Army helicopter pilot, was shot down by the rebels in 1991, then executed.

attack

▪ Intruder jets from the aircraft carrier Ranger, and Cobra attack helicopters scoured the area for armed men.

crash

▪ And he, too, would later die in a helicopter crash on his way to a race in Talladega.

flight

▪ The gourmet weekend, including helicopter flight from Penzance and three-night break, costs £320.

gunship

▪ Both planes and helicopter gunships had been used.

▪ Our forward observer and company commander came up and called in some helicopter gunships.

▪ Our helicopter gunships flew 118 missions and returned safely to base.

▪ As soldiers jumped out of the lorries, firing all around, helicopter gunships appeared overhead.

▪ It is indisputable, however, that the warplanes and helicopter gunships occasionally make mistakes.

▪ Countless unarmed civilians fleeing to the borders were killed by helicopter gunships.

▪ As helicopter gunships buzzed overhead and tanks shelled two blocks of flats nearby, bulldozers set about destroying a swath of homes.

pad

▪ His car was mud-splattered, parked amongst the jeeps and armoured personnel carriers, a hundred yards from the helicopter pad.

▪ He walked past the helicopter pad and along a sandy road that led toward the church spires.

pilot

▪ The model helicopter pilot is not alone in suffering from this problem.

▪ This explains why most of today’s top helicopter pilots are connected with the model trade in some way!

▪ Walter Kovaleff, a helicopter pilot, said the hourly cost could run as high as $ 190.

▪ The helicopter pilots reported in by radio.

▪ The department has three helicopter pilots and two mechanics already on the force, said Kovaleff.

▪ A helicopter pilot has to fly to a point 200 kilometres due East.

▪ Life was getting very serious for helicopter pilots.

police

▪ Isabel Lenihan, who’s 77, was found by a police helicopter.

▪ Next, a police helicopter flies over the crowd.

▪ As more than 300 people took to the streets, a police helicopter and eight vans carrying riot police were brought in.

▪ The maneuvers came after days of ominous-looking deployments around the residence by police helicopters, armored personnel carriers and commandos.

▪ A police helicopter was scrambled and armed units joined a search for the gunmen.

▪ A police helicopter was used in the search for the two men who were both white and wearing overalls.

▪ A police helicopter was called in to floodlight the area outside Kelvedon railway station where the 14-year-old girl was trapped.

rescue

▪ Highlight of the day was a 20 minute flight in one of the rescue helicopters.

▪ He was struck there for four hours with Park Service rescue helicopters buzzing around, throwing him ropes.

▪ A rescue helicopter was scrambled after his empty dinghy was spotted floating out to sea.

▪ The rescue helicopter strewed thousands of blossoms on the waters of the Bay.

ride

▪ Maybe she would relish a return and revel in her celebrity as the girl who got the helicopter ride.

▪ The tours will feature helicopter rides, horseback treks and river rafting.

▪ First prize was a helicopter ride won by Mrs Isobelle Flood.

▪ An optional helicopter ride down the canyon can be arranged for you by your escort.

■ VERB

fire

▪ As soldiers jumped out of the lorries, firing all around, helicopter gunships appeared overhead.

▪ There have been several incidents of so-called ARVNs turning around and firing into the helicopter that just dropped them off.

▪ We fired prep fire before helicopters would bring troops in the landing zone.

fly

▪ James Carney may have been hurled from a flying helicopter.

▪ She was flown to hospital by helicopter in a coma but died of multiple skull fractures.

▪ You either patrolled an area close by or you were flown by helicopter to the more remote places.

▪ At roundup time, Mercer teams with his oldest son, Gary, who flies a helicopter.

▪ She was flown by helicopter to hospital in Orlando.

▪ Maybe I ought to fly my helicopter up there and find out.

hover

▪ The helicopters hovered overhead in formation.

▪ I saw the helicopter hover in the air, and then it crashed into our guest house.

▪ A giant helicopter was hovering overhead, its spotlight trained on the field below.

▪ Each night as they lay in bed, they could hear army helicopters hovering over the parish.

▪ With the helicopter hovering overhead, he drove for the peak of the leading wave, but then backed off.

▪ Small patrol helicopters hovered over the treetops beyond the barbed wire.

▪ He has been pictured in a Tarzan suit with a helicopter hovering over his head.

▪ Police helicopters hovered and riot police were posted around the square and nearby side streets.

kill

▪ Countless unarmed civilians fleeing to the borders were killed by helicopter gunships.

provide

▪ During floods, the Sisters collect food, while the Government provides helicopters to deliver it.

shoot

▪ Tape of the scene shot by news helicopters show a distraught woman, driving a Jaguar, wearing a fur coat.

use

▪ For example, new antitank missiles, particularly when used from helicopters, are making main battle tanks obsolete.

▪ Officers used their helicopters when there was a contact, so when we went up, there was almost certainly action.

▪ They used helicopters, airplanes and mortars.

▪ About 240 firefighters using helicopters, planes and ground equipment were fighting the blaze.

▪ Mr. Dorrell Several ambulance services now use helicopters.

▪ The marines’ concept of using helicopters was not the same as ours.

▪ They used a helicopter to make their survey of the volcano itself.

▪ They had used helicopters to lift the ARVNs to battles they almost always lost.

EXAMPLES FROM CORPUS

▪ And, those helicopters have many residents worried.

▪ As they came back, Robert’s helicopter came into view.

▪ But the front of the vehicle caught the undercarriage and sent the helicopter shuddering sideways.

▪ Commanders naturally depended greatly on their helicopters.

▪ On the glistening horizon two black dots appeared, separated, and became helicopters roaring low overhead and scattering the distracted fowl.

▪ The shock of the explosion rocked the helicopter.

▪ Two helicopters and several Coast Guard boats searched until midnight without finding anything.

▪ With the helicopter hovering overhead, he drove for the peak of the leading wave, but then backed off.