Talk:Helicopter flight controls

Mnemonics in Forward flight section

I'm not sure this adds to the article's ability to explain how the controls work. If it was in a descriptive, encyclopedic tone, it might be used to explain the relationship of the flight controls and interactions required between different control inputs. But, as it is in the article currently, it just seems a bit of information that will only benefit student helicopter pilots, or those learning to fly R/C helicopters rather than an everyday reader. --Born2flie 17:52, 25 April 2007 (UTC)

The following is a closed discussion of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the proposal was the articles were merged --Born2flie (talk) 22:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Recommended merge

Cyclic pitch & Collective pitch → Helicopter flight controls — The first two articles are close to duplicating information within this article, and by merging the two to this article, the relationship of the controls to the rotor system can be better explained to readers. Born2flie 13:23, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Survey

Add  * '''Support'''  or  * '''Oppose'''  on a new line in the appropriate section followed by a brief explanation, then sign your opinion using ~~~~. Please remember that this is not a vote; comments must include reasons to carry weight.

• Support I think the two stubs would help to better develop this article. See the recommendation above for my comments. --Born2flie 13:26, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support: Article should be merged, as separate pages are quite sparse. (Above comment is ambiguous.) Redirects can be used on cyclic pitch and collective pitch. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Algocu (talk • contribs) 11:35, 12 May 2007 (UTC)

• Support: The articles should be merged. This would flesh out the fight controls article a bit. --Knag 19:03, 5 July 2007 (UTC)

Oppose Ok im not an expert but i know that collective pitch and cycle pitch are diffrent. collective pitch changes the indevidual blade angle to change lift cycle pitch changes the angle of the blade head to move the helecopter in the desired direction. im ok with the stubs being merged into the artical but they need to be keep in seperate(SP) "chapters"

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the proposal. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Fourth control, interaction of controls... Offer to help

I have no idea how to edit on Wikipedia - I would be willing to review and even generate text (my training is in aerospace engineering) - Traditionally, the engine throttle, the fourth control, is a twist handle on the end of the collective. The amount of power needed to keep the blades spinning is a function of: the lift being requested, the RPM of the Rotor, flight speed and the amount of "lift" required by the anti-torque tail rotor. Like any wing, the amount of drag on the "wings" (the rotor blades) is the result of viscous, form and induced drag. The total drag for a wing typically has a minimum at a certain flight speed with induced drag predominating at lower flight speed and viscous and form drag at higher speeds. Similarly, the rotor blades which are merely rotating wings (albeit in a very complex system) will have a minimum drag at a certain rotor RPM. However, since the helicopter has the possibility of forward flight, the drag minimum can vary with flight speed (see advancing and retreating blade). Further, when considered as a lifting "thrust actuator disk", the rotor generally has induced drag so that the whole helicopter system will have a flight speed where there is minimum drag and thus minimum power needed. Etc. need to discuss torque vs power, interaction of controls (increasing lift - up collective) increases drag ---> torque --> need for increased tail rotor lift), loss of lift of retreating blades setting maximum flight speed, etc. DSMOSELEY@AOL.COM 03:45, 4 August 2007 (UTC)Thomas S. Moseley

Blade movements and corresponding Helicopter flight movements

Is anyone able to write on how Helicopter blade movements relates to Helicopter movements, such as forward, up, down, left, right etc. An animation will be good. Thanks. Photnart (talk) 12:20, 24 August 2009 (UTC).

Throttle

I have a simple question about the function of the throttle (the traditional type - at the end of the collective). If you pronate your hand, the engine power goes down or up? Could anybody clarify? Draco flavus (talk) 08:48, 8 June 2010 (UTC)

Gyroscopic precession?

Recently there has been some contradicting changes in the cyclic section regarding the reason for the 90 degree difference between the direction of the swashplate and the actual movement. According to the wikipedia article on swashplate, it seems to me that the reason is indeed gyroscopic precession or more generally the conservation of angular momentum. I am not an expert on this subject and it is perhaps more ideal if an expert were to help on this edit. In the meantime, I have changed this section to include gyroscopic precession as that is what I perceive as the general opinion. Andy Jiang (talk) 05:40, 26 May 2012 (UTC)

Having tried to understand this sort of thing, I've come to the conclusion that there is a lot of confusion in free sources available on the web, as to how the cyclic really affects direction. However, asking for an expert here reflects a misunderstanding of how Wikipedia works. To the extent that an expert is needed, it is an expert in understanding the available literature, and in selecting that literature which is correct. An expert that didn't cite the literature would be contributing original research, not verifiable information.

The main problem I see with some of the simplistic descriptions is that helicopter blades are normally hinged in a way that would not transmit the torque, from the differential lift, to the vehicle as a whole. David Woolley (talk) 12:08, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

Reading the article more closely, the weaknesses seem to be that it doesn't explain clearly what tilting the rotor disk really means, and doesn't explain why helicopters pitch forwards when going into horizontal flight. I think I can explain both of these, but that is mainly from first principles, rather than from a clear source document, so is not eligible for inclusion in WP. David Woolley (talk) 13:47, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Thinking about this some more, I think that precession is a special case of the more general case of phase lag, rather than being a different phenomenon. In the simple gyroscope case, the motion of each component sub-mass is more constrained than it is in a rotor. However, as already noted, what is actually needed is authoritative sources which correctly explain the physics, rather than theorising on it. David Woolley (talk) 13:42, 1 December 2017 (UTC)

Assessment comment

The comment(s) below were originally left at Talk:Helicopter flight controls/Comments, and are posted here for posterity. Following several discussions in past years, these subpages are now deprecated. The comments may be irrelevant or outdated; if so, please feel free to remove this section.

Born2flie: Inital rating based on size of article. --23:26, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Substituted at 01:11, 22 May 2016 (UTC)

Missing information on flight controls for other helicopter concepts

The article seems to be totally missing any description of flight controls for helicopter concepts beyond the simple Sikorski single-vertical-axis-rotor-with-horizontal-axis-tail-rotor design.

For example, the dual-rotor, opposing-direction of spin, single-axis flight rotors of Mars Helicopter Ingenuity, or of helicopters that have even dual axis but counter rotating blades are both not explained, yet very much are types of helicopter flight controls. Cheers. N2e (talk) 20:33, 1 August 2020 (UTC)