Talk:Helicopter flight controls/Archive 1

No substitute for the real thing

As anyone who has learned to fly rotorcraft will attest, this Wikipedia article is no substitute for instruction by a qualified teacher and lots of practice in real aircraft. Quicksilver 18:36, 4 November 2005 (UTC)

I completely agree. Many people have asked me if helicopters are harder to fly than fixed wing aircraft. I try to be respectful and just say it generally takes longer to learn to fly helicopters. This is a vast oversimplification, but I have not been able to come up with a simple, one sentence answer that accurately captures the nature of the beast. Madhu 02:48, 8 November 2005 (UTC)

Here's your simple answer... "YES!" I've flown both for some time. The helicopter requires you to learn new motor skills, think visually while ignoring 'seat-of-pants' input, concentrate continuously, and operate with both hands attached to the controls all the time. Harder? Yes. Benet Allen 19:28, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

I originally started this article, and I agree that it is nowhere near sufficient to teach someone how to fly a helicopter. I will add a disclaimer to that end.--Mbaur181 15:59, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

I've made some additions and a few style changes, and added some links. Benet Allen 19:24, 25 December 2005 (UTC)

Disclaimer issue

An issue was raised when I copied the disclaimer for this article to the Hawker Siddeley Harrier article, section on pilotage. User:Clawed seems to be strongly against the disclaimer, User:Benet Allen weakly against. Myself weakly support (after listening to other arguements). Please see Wikipedia:No disclaimer templates. Opinions? --ChrisJMoor 00:58, 30 January 2006 (UTC)

The disclaimer is not needed and should be removed. Mexcellent 07:49, 4 February 2006 (UTC)

Our legal advisors have strongly recommended that we do not add "in-article" disclaimers in addition to the "Disclaimers" link in the yellow box at the bottom of each page. It's fine to emphasize appropriately within the text that the subject is/can be dangerous, but having a separate disclaimer on this page and not on every other potentially dangerous page (from snake charming to crackpipe) actually opens us to more liability, not less. Thanks for your concern! — Catherine\^talk 23:29, 5 February 2006 (UTC)

Good points, although disclaimers seemed to be a good idea to me at the time. This whole discuss and consensus thing really works:D. Case closed.--ChrisJMoor 02:18, 6 February 2006 (UTC)

Move?

Ought pilotage to be capitalized? I don't think it's a proper noun, but I'm unfamiliar with the field. See Wikipedia:Naming conventions (capitalization). NickelShoe 18:03, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I moved it; it seems the person who wrote all these technical helicopter articles (bless him for taking the time) has a thing for capitalization that the Wikipedia guidelines do not share with him. Joffeloff 16:57, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Ground effect?

Hovering is hard etc... "This is due to the fact that while in a hover, a helicopter generates its own gusty air which acts against the fuselage and flight control surfaces."

Is this someone confusing hovering with hovering in ground effect? Or perhaps they think that since most hovering is done in ground effect, that it's not worth the distinction? — Soupisgoodfood 19:22, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Whether or not it is HIGE or HOGE makes very little difference. Rotor downwash is still going to affect the fuselage, and for main rotor tip vortices to interact with the tail rotor.--Mbaur181 15:23, 19 October 2006 (UTC)

Pilotage?

I don't think this is the correct term for this article. Pilotage refers to navigation, specifically by using visual references to landmarks. Maybe a better title would be "Helicopter flight basics" Robertson 18:38, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

The following discussion is an archived 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 article was merged. --Born2flie 17:20, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

Merge

Born2flie: It has been recommended that Helicopter flight controls be merged into this article. I have inserted the appropriate merge templates to the pages. --21:37, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

opposed The article in question (Helicopter flight controls) is more of a how-to than a true encyclopedia article. --Born2flie 05:23, 18 February 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, new to this. Did this vote result in opposed or is it just one against. Neither article is very in depth. At least by combining them they stack up to something more referable. Both talk about hovering and forward flight. Only one briefly mentions autorotation. MickycOZ 10:43, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

So far, it is just one against. The reason is that this article probably doesn't get much traffic from editors. I would recommend deleting what is on the other article and redirecting it to this article. The problem I have with the other article is that attempts to describe the "how-to" of manipulating the controls to fly rather than discussing the controls and what they do and how that allows the pilot to control the aircraft. There are other wikimedia sites for "how-to" features. --Born2flie 16:14, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Actually, in reference to the section preceding this one, I'd like to move this article to the other article title, as it is a more accurate title of what the article is speaking of. --Born2flie 13:47, 3 March 2007 (UTC)

Except for the Mnemonics section both pages pretty much cover the same ground. Agree - Helicopter flight controls is the better page title. I'd suggest merging the text, keeping the table of controls and going for title Helicopter flight controls MickycOZ 10:05, 4 March 2007 (UTC)

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.

Context

Needs an intro. NickelShoe 18:05, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

Article redundant?

Article seems mostly redundant to info in Helicopter Pilotage. As currently written, it seems the few unique details in this article should be folded into the Pilotage article, and this one deleted. Joema 14:25, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

Born2flie: I've made the recommendation to merge on both pages. --21:34, 7 January 2007 (UTC)