Re: Human Powered Helicopter Flies Using Arms & Legs
<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Fred_C_Dobbs</div><div class="ubbcode-body">It's interesting from a scientific/academic standpoint, and it might have some R&D implications, but it's never likely to have a practical application. No one will ever fly across the English Channel, for instance, in a human-powered helicopter.
A helicopter is about the least efficient flying machine imaginable. The trade-off necessary to enable it to remain aloft without the need for forward airspeed is that it must have wings that already are moving very fast just to it get off the ground, even before it creates any forward airspeed. The rotor tip speed of a Huey, for instance, reaches about 95% the MV of one of JMB's .45ACP rounds before it starts flying forward. That's pretty damn fast for something that isn't going anywhere.
Human powered airplanes already have flown about 70 miles at a stretch and remained aloft continuously for nearly four hours. They always recruit an accomplished bicyclist for these tests/experiments, so I know their pilot has a super-conditioned CV system, and a heart the size of a cantelope, yet all he can manage is to hover ...in ground effect, ...with no forward airspeed, ...for less than a minute. And forget about how does he control it, considering he's also "pedaling" with his arms, because he'd blow a gasket from the added strain if he tried to generate some forward airspeed or tried to climb out of ground effect.
So it's a neat parlor trick but you're not likely to see Hammacher Schlemmer start selling human-powered helicopters.</div></div>
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