ncjay wrote: Depending on how bad the engine failure is, what if there is no rotation? Otherwise, I think I understand, but I still wouldn't want to try it.
The answer to that question is sprag clutch.
ncjay wrote: Depending on how bad the engine failure is, what if there is no rotation? Otherwise, I think I understand, but I still wouldn't want to try it.
The answer to that question is sprag clutch.
NOT A TA wrote: it wasn't cold enough and the floor was smooth so getting enough lift for the tests was very hard.
i dont know much about helicopters but i would have never expected that these would be things you would have to worry about.
When you are talking about human powered flight, the margins are VERY thin:
In reply to aircooled:
That was impressive. 
A good friend of mine flies Apaches. He put me in a simulator once and tried to teach me the basics of flying a helicopter.
Yeah, I crashed that simulator LIKE A BOSS.
The video above is the winner of the contest I was involved in. The machine I piloted (in the late 80's) looked more like a traditional helicopter with a main rotor and tail rotor. I was told it cost over $100,000.00 to build at the time. I'm pretty sure I'm the first person to actually leave the ground (barely) in one of them but competitors didn't share info. The competitors didn't want to release any info that might help other teams so I was sworn to secrecy about construction details and flight testing till the contest was won. We thought Cal Poly Tech was our biggest competitor.
My involvement ended when the Sikorsky engineer in charge of the project got transferred from CT to San Diego.
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