Helicopter Information
Helicopter stuff - Interesting!
A helicopter is a type of airplane known as a vertical takeoff and landing craft (VTOL).
It can have a long body or it can be short and compact. The helicopter does not have wings like an airplane. Instead it has long blades or rotors. These are attached to a shaft in the engine. It also has a tail on it with smaller rotors. The pilot uses a foot pedal and two specialized pitch sticks to control the helicopters direction.
The History of Helicopters
The idea of the helicopter has been around for ages, but it took some time to bring it to be. Check out the long history of the chopper.
- 1100 - Chinese invented a flying toy that had some of the same principles as the helicopter.
- 1483 - Leonardo Da Vinci had sketches of a helicopter-like flying machine.
- 1784 - two French men (Launoy and Bienvenu) built a feathered-model helicopter.
- 1843 - Sir George Cayley invented the steam-driven chopper.
- 1907 - Paul Cornu built a full-sized helicopter. It cleared the ground for a few minutes only, but remained tied down by ropes.
- 1916 - Professor Theodore von Karman and Lieutenant Stefan Petroczy built a working helicopter. However, because it didn't carry passengers, it was not officially recognized.
- 1931 - Gerald P. Herrick converted an airplane into a helicopter. It was able to land at a steep angle.
- 1938 - the German-made Focke Achgelis Fa 61 was the first official helicopter.
- 1939 - Igor Sikorsky made the first practical flight in the United States.
Some more facts!
- the helicopter is the only aircraft that can move forward, backward, side-to-side and hover? It can also land and take off in small, tight places.
- It took 29 days, 3 hours, 8 minutes and 13 seconds for H. Ross Perot, Jr. and J.W. Coburn to fly round the entire Earth in a helicopter? They broke the World's Record.
- Helicopters fly slower than most airplanes?
- NASA is studying the helicopter to see if it could be used on Mars?
- helicopters that are used for carrying heavy cargo loads have two blades? These are horizontal and spin in opposite directions.
- if you were to ride in a helicopter you would notice it is very noisy and it shakey!
- the fastest helicopter can reach speeds up to 400 kilometers-per-hour (248 miles-per-hour)?
Helicopter flights for Medical travel - Helivac - Patient transport in a Helicopter
This article is an unoriginal collection of facts from the internet