Frequently Asked Questions
I recently flew in an helicopter in very poor weather. A fixed wing aircraft would have been buffeted quite badly but no noticeable turbulence / buffeting was evident in the helicopter. How come ? Or was it just good airmanship ?
The fixed wing of a fixed wing aircraft is exactly that, fixed. The turbulence and buffeting is not absorbed by the wing. All of the turbulence in the wing is transferred directly to the fuselage of the aircraft.
In helicopters the rotor system flexes during flight. The blades can sometime flex as much as 2 or 3 feet during flight and much of the turbulence is dampened out before it reaches the rotor hub. On many aircraft the hub also flexes in
unison with the blades.
Some aircraft have additional computerized flight control systems which assist the pilot and make automatic inputs to the flight controls.
Plus ... helicopter pilots are heads above their fixed wing counterparts when it comes to airmanship ...
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