Slashdot Mirror
NASA Tests Flying Airbag
coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."
No, that would be a flying douchebag.
... when you strap my mother-in-law to a turbine engine. The rest of the plane is optional.
The thing hit the ground, and what happened? Worst. summary. ever. From nasa: "Engineers say the MD-500 survived relatively intact as a result of the honeycomb cushion. "
Here's my question, which I also found myself thinking after watching Iron Man. Sure enough, the foam or the super exoskeleton or whatever can protect the outside of your body and the bones from harm when undergoing a sudden deceleration, such as crashing or whatnot, but what about all of the soft things sloshing around inside your body, like your brain, your viscera, etc? Surely they are going to, well, *slosh* around violently upon a sudden stop like that. I think boxers have proved that point very well over the years.
Yes, they are fiction and I treat them accordingly, but such egregious fact-ignoring is a bit scary sometimes.
...from becoming a helicopter pilot. In fact, just last night my wife said, "sure honey, you can become a pilot just as soon as they invent the deployable energy absorber."
C'MON NASA!!!
Helicopters can auto-rotate so crashing into the ground at 50-60mph like they say is a pretty severe crash.
Basic physics: the forces involved in a bouncy collision are *greater* than the forces involved in an identical "smooshy" collision. Why? Because the crash has to not just bring you to a stop, but throw you back away again.
What you want is a smooshy collision that takes place over a long time. Thus, airbags.
Be the first one on your block to have Personal Interceptor Missiles! Now available with micro-nukes for those neighbors that just won't turn the music down when asked.
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
This site has a video and some more information.
The secret to creativity is knowing how to hide your sources. - Albert Einstein
Perhaps you need to go back and study some more physics. In earth gravity of 32ft/s^2 it would take about 2 seconds to hit the ground from 35 feet falling straight down. 2 seconds of earth acceleration has you moving at 64ft/s, which is just over 43mph. Even the lackluster summary states the impact was at 33 degrees, which implies the helicopter was guided in along a slope, rather than being dropped. So using a bit of trig, 35ft/Sine(33) = 64.26ft is the length of slope the helicopter descended, at 33 degrees to the ground, to impact at 54mph, which would then imply that it was actually falling slower than gravitational pull would account for, largely due to the friction of the guide cable. This is likely the same rig used to test reentry mechanisms for many other NASA vehicles, which has the ability to vary impact angle, while maintaining repeatability between each test in a given configuration.
Just put weights in it, duh.
<xml><I><am><so><damn>Web 2.0</damn></so></am></I></xml>
I really don't know what the heck they mean by "Relatively Intact". In my 3300+ hours of piloting helicopters the only valid criteria was "Could you walk away from it?" That's the standard pilots (and I assume passengers) really care about.