PPRuNe Forums - What would happen to a Helicopter if it was in space? (2024)

While coming in on final the other day to the Inter Space station i took this shot. The R44 held up pretty well due to the solar flare that came from no where. But hey you get that on the big jobs.

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t.../Space44-2.gif

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PRACTICE ENGINE FAILURE GO!!!

lever down - no need
Right pedal - no need
Throttle closed - Is it running???
Upcheck - what for?

Touch checks - oh whats the point!!!

eeeerrrrr... now what? Mint anyone??? :ugh:

MADY

cleartorotate, love the shot! Should one keep the fresh air vents closed when in space??? Just a thought! :cool:

We could have some fun with this question by breaking it into two parts:

1. What happens when a helicopter operates in a vacuum?
Not much. :bored:

2. What happens when a helicopter operates in normal atmosphere but with continued zero-g? Or how much control would the pilot have with a helicopter inside a large pressurised space station? :}

Mmmmm ...

Well one things for sure .... it would be about as useful as "tit* on a bull".

An interesting thought question. Relevance to real world ops could be to help understand the stress's on a mustering heli for example.

For the exercise we can just get god to supply an unlimited size, airtight, standard earth atmosphere, sphere in space....or -

To start with it couldn't be a Robby as it would shed its tail rotor.

For the exercise perhaps we could use the Hughes 300.

My guess the biggest gyro would be the main rotor and drive shaft combo. Second biggest gyro would be the engine through tail rotor drive. Third, would be the tail rotor.

The sleeper gyro is the fuselage itself.

Anyway, i'm of to look at videos of Sopwith camels to try and get my head around gyro effects.

binghi,
I stand by my statement on gyros. As you spun up the various heavier masses with greater rotational moments of inertia things would start coming unglued pretty quickly in 0-g. You would have to start the thing up and allow it to achieve steady state in some kind of anchored system for it not to do so. As soon as a pump started transferring mass within an aircraft's system, you'd have some motion. All these forces are insignificant against the weight and friction of an aircraft on the ground in 1-g.
You'd have no aerodynamic effects to speak of until you fired up an engine or two... the engines would provide some degree of thrust depending upon the alignment of the exhausts (whether it's a turbine or a recip) and intake and some kind of impulse motion. While the rotors would again impart some degree of rotational motion as they accelerated, there'd be aerodynamic effects as well... let's just say I'll let you try it first without things being firmly tied in place.
There is, somewhere, a video of these guys playing with some gyro binoculars in space (which I can't find) and the internal friction of the gyros eventually leads to the thing precessing like mad about all three axes.
You first.:eek:

http://i616.photobucket.com/albums/t...3/Jetspace.gif

Reminds me of the photos (not photoshopped) posted by John Eacott landing on the Enterprise.

http://www.pprune.org/4667951-post4442.html

I see what your saying Um... lifting... , i guess if the machine is just 'out there' unsupported, even with the gyro instruments turned off, when the motor was started the fuselage would rotate opposite to the engine - engage clutch and... perhaps we need to 'start' the Helififtysix thought experiment with rotors at flight revs.

Using the 300 as an example, i'd probably just pull collective (standard atmosphere, just no gravity) and allow drag on the tail rotor and boom to gradually pull the machine into a 'loop' of about one gee - maybe some maneuvers could be done whilst in the loop ?

"In space, nobody can hear you scream."

But if you put a helicopter in space, some jerk would complain about the noise.:eek:

Um.. Lifting.. brilliant demo of gyroscopic stabilisation! :ok:

Next time you go up there you should convince 'em to let you bring a heli in your back pocket - maybe the one Cattletruck used. ;)

Svenestron, Flying Binghi,

I've been thinking about this in my off moments. I think the heli (lets say Hughes 300 to save any embarasing tail shedding) would actually "fly" relatively normally. The collective would control "upward" velocity (not acceleration) but would be more sensitive than in 1g. Cyclic would be much less sensitive since only the hinge offset would produce pitch/roll moments, but otherwise would manouvre the heli just fine (as long as inputs were small). Clearly the pedals would be more-or-less centred since there would be much less torque.

The biggest problems i can think of is that you could not generate "downwards" velocity and the twistgrip/collective co-relator would be totally unoptimised for "climb". Lets assume the govenor sorts out the last problem. Lets also assume that oil, hydraulic and fuel sytems have had a zero-g overhaul, so all heli systems behave themselves.

Just for fun, lets assume that the machine has been retrimmed to allow a small amount of negative collective... :uhoh:

So: flyable or not?

re 'landing' on a surface ?

Head scratch time...

1-Depending on its altitude and velocity it would either be a satellite or a fire ball on re-entry.

2-If it were travelling at the speed of light upon return the pilot would be much unger than his twin on earth.

3-If it incounter a worm hole it could theoretically return before it left-providing it did not encounter anti-matter.

This question would better be answered by Stephen Hawking

Stephen Hawking, The Big Bang, and God

Can't speak for helicopters, but according to the ESA, Helicopter Pilots will work in space....

Major Tim Peake - Augusta Westland Apache Test Pilot

If you turned everything off.... you would have the perfect hover!.:ok:

If it were runnning.. tail rotor would not have any effect but torque would so you would spin... unless you had a twin counter rotating main rotor system... then no spin... but your exhaust will be pushing you forward... assuming you have sorted the small problem of no air going in at the sharp end!!

Insurance for EOLs might come down a bit....:E

:suspect: Space 1999 was so long ago!!!!!