Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

The Coming Air Age

Posted by michael on from the RSN dept.

Lovejoy writes "Sixty years ago in The Atlantic Monthly, Igor Sikorsky wrote The Coming Air Age. "Any of us who are alive ten years after this Second World War is won will see and use hundreds of short-run helicopter bus services." He goes on to write about personal helicopters which fit in large garages and that helicopters that are easier to drive than cars, etc.. So, will personal flight ever be viable? Do wildly wrong predictions like this give futurists pause? I think they should."

4 of 252 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen. by littlerubberfeet · · Score: 4, Informative

    NO, the helocopter dies, and you autorotate down to the ground. At any decent helo flight school, they will force at least 3 practice autorotations, where they actually shut off the engine. They are no more dangerous then having an engine shut off in a Porsche at 140 mph. It just takes a little more training, which wouldn't be a bad thing for most car drivers.

    --
    Sig (appended to the end of comments you post, 120 chars)
  2. Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen. by shadowj · · Score: 5, Informative
    When the power goes in a helicopter you just drop, vertically.

    Not quite true. When the power goes in a helicopter, there's a lot of angular momentum stored in the rotor, and aerodynamic effects allow you to spin the rotor even faster by angling the blades appropriately as you, er, plummet.

    As you approach the ground (probably a lot faster than you'd like), you angle the blades to bite into the air, trading lift for angular momentum. If you do this correctly, you may be able to save your butt.

    --

    --Larry

    Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence

  3. Re:Easy prediction: It'll Never Happen. by Usquebaugh · · Score: 4, Informative

    That's assuming you have a place to land, the rotors are still in one piece, the rotors are free to auto rotate, the other control surfaces are still functioning. There is plenty of footage of autorotation accidents.

    Having an engine shut off at speed in a corner is vicious, suddenly no drive going to braking. When your car is balanced at speed any change in force is a big problem.

  4. It's already happened, sort of by T.Hobbes · · Score: 4, Informative

    In Sao Paulo, Brazil, there are somewhere around 300 private helicopters that those who can afford them use to avoid traffic and crime. They use them just like the plebes use cars. The best article I found on the topic is at aviation today (here).
    Of course, having 300 'copters in a city of unpteen million isn't exactly what the man predicted, but the patter of use is consistent.