Could you push a hovering helicopter?

SixPapaCharlie

SixPapaCharlie

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Lets say a helicopter was just hovering about 4 feet off the ground and you didn't want him there, could you just push it?

It seems like ya could very easily push, pull drag it wherever you wanted since there would be (in my hypothetical world) no friction.

What about a plane. Lets say you got your suspenders caught in a winglet of a 737 and it took off.
Now another 737 gets a little too close. They are flying side by side a foot apart, could you press your feet against the wayward 737's winglet with your back against the winglet of the 737 that you are stuck to and push them apart?

"SEEMS" like there is no reason I shouldn't be able to push a cruise ship floating inches away from a pier (assuming it has no directional momentum)

I am probably wrong but feels like I should be able to do these things if it came up.
 
Mass, inertia, all that complicated stuff.
Would it be a better workout to push one 737 once, or a hundred reps with a Cessna 152?
 
Perhaps you recall that feller Newton what sat under a pineapple tree. Remember what happened? Yup, a pineapple fell out of the tree and conked him on the head. Head got a ride to the hospital to mend the dent in his skull.

After all that his wife wrote F=ma and he published it. The rest is history or herstory.

Back to your monkey stash now...
 
The helicopter isn’t actually hovering. It’s in a low altitude geo-synchronous orbit, since real pilots know that helicopters can’t really fly.
 
You could but you’ll need some good insulated gloves.
 
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There’s the same “no friction” involved in picking up the helicopter, so I guess you could pick it up just as easily as you push it.

My point being that friction is not the only consideration when moving a mass around.
 
If it is a serious question, the helicopter pilot would be able to counteract what you are doing and you wouldn’t be able to move it.
 
I have seen people try and move a helicopter In just this manner. My job as a H-47 crew member years ago was to call sling loads. I would lay down on the floor and hang out of the lower cargo door in the bottom of the aircraft and call the pilots over the load. I’d either hook up the load myself or the hookup crew would load the cargo hook(s).

It was quite common for us to get the hooks close to the hookup crew, but they would want to grab the hook and try to move the helicopter. They never could manage to move that 32000 lb hovering beast no matter how hard they tried. Thing is, if the load is heavy enough (usually around 6k lbs or more) it will move the helicopter directly over the top of it as the slings come tight.

Then there was the time that I had some Korean soldiers doing a hookup on a dry winter day and one of them decided to grab the cargo hook before the grounding wire...
 
Depends on the size of the helicopter; moving a cruise ship and 747 not a chance.
 
You forgot to include the vital information; is the helo grabbing person on a treadmill or no??
 
Ok, I'll give a real answer.

Could you push on these things? Of course. Could you make an appreciable impact on moving the things apart? No.
 
wanttaja said:
"Your fingers are too short and badly woven." Will that work?

Ron Wanttaja
Click to expand...

It’s after 1 AM and I just got back from a flight. I can’t be held responsible for proper spelling. :)
 
Salty said:
There’s the same “no friction” involved in picking up the helicopter, so I guess you could pick it up just as easily as you push it.
Click to expand...

That's not true because if the helicopter was sitting there I couldn't lift it but if it was on casters I can push it. I can't lift my car but I can push it
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Lets say a helicopter was just hovering about 4 feet off the ground and you didn't want him there, could you just push it?

It seems like ya could very easily push, pull drag it wherever you wanted since there would be (in my hypothetical world) no friction.

What about a plane. Lets say you got your suspenders caught in a winglet of a 737 and it took off.
Now another 737 gets a little too close. They are flying side by side a foot apart, could you press your feet against the wayward 737's winglet with your back against the winglet of the 737 that you are stuck to and push them apart?

"SEEMS" like there is no reason I shouldn't be able to push a cruise ship floating inches away from a pier (assuming it has no directional momentum)

I am probably wrong but feels like I should be able to do these things if it came up.
Click to expand...

If you push/pull on the skids it probably just gonna tilt the rotor disk a tiny bit and then move in the opposite direction you input, assuming the pilot didn't touch a thing to stop it.
 
A small 2-seat helicopter like the R-22 could be pushed, assuming the pilot doesn't put in any cyclic to counter it. It would take more than just a slight one-handed push though. I mean, it would really take some Bryan strength.
 
Absolutely, if the pilot allowed you to, in other words, if the pilot didn't counter your pushing force, it would move easily. I push 2,000 pound airplanes around, not far fortunately.
 
can't be any harder than.....cow tipping. o_O
SixPapaCharlie said:
Lets say a helicopter was just hovering about 4 feet off the ground and you didn't want him there, could you just push it?

It seems like ya could very easily push, pull drag it wherever you wanted since there would be (in my hypothetical world) no friction.

What about a plane. Lets say you got your suspenders caught in a winglet of a 737 and it took off.
Now another 737 gets a little too close. They are flying side by side a foot apart, could you press your feet against the wayward 737's winglet with your back against the winglet of the 737 that you are stuck to and push them apart?

"SEEMS" like there is no reason I shouldn't be able to push a cruise ship floating inches away from a pier (assuming it has no directional momentum)

I am probably wrong but feels like I should be able to do these things if it came up.
Click to expand...
 
The helicopter just won’t drift in a frictionless state after the application of force though. Just the air pressure alone will help stabilize it but the primary factor will be “blow back” from the rotor.

If a helicopter at a hover develops any momentum, the rotor will want to tilt past it’s previous position because of blow back. That is, the unequal lift that will occur on the advancing side of the blades as the helicopter moves over the ground. That unequal lift acts 90 degrees later (phase lag) and will tilt the rotor in the opposite direction of movement.

So, if a strong lateral force is applied that accelerates the aircraft to say 10 kts, the helicopter will oscillate a few times and come to a stationary hover again. Depending on the helicopter and if it has stability augmentation systems (SAS), the amount of oscillation will vary.

It’s also not sitting there afloat like a balloon. Just to stay at a hover you have one force (main rotor) opposing another force (tail rotor). There are some thrust variations that will occur in lateral movement that would oppose a push.

Years ago doing sling load quals in the Black Hawk, I was told you could grab a tire and push the entire aircraft. Didn’t know if they were pulling my leg or not but I never bothered to test the theory.
 
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What if it was suspended by a string?
If you had a 747 hanging from a rope, surely I could grab a wing tip and make it spin.
 
It's gonna take more than yourself, Y with a Bryan!

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SixPapaCharlie said:
That's not true because if the helicopter was sitting there I couldn't lift it but if it was on casters I can push it. I can't lift my car but I can push it
Click to expand...
Read the part you didn't quote.
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
Lets say a helicopter was just hovering about 4 feet off the ground and you didn't want him there, could you just push it?

It seems like ya could very easily push, pull drag it wherever you wanted since there would be (in my hypothetical world) no friction.

What about a plane. Lets say you got your suspenders caught in a winglet of a 737 and it took off.
Now another 737 gets a little too close. They are flying side by side a foot apart, could you press your feet against the wayward 737's winglet with your back against the winglet of the 737 that you are stuck to and push them apart?

"SEEMS" like there is no reason I shouldn't be able to push a cruise ship floating inches away from a pier (assuming it has no directional momentum)

I am probably wrong but feels like I should be able to do these things if it came up.
Click to expand...
Br-Y-an, do I smell a new video coming soon?
Make sure that you employ the monkey to do it, don't put yourself in danger trying to push two 737s apart at FL390. That's what monkeys are for!
 
Velocity173 said:
The helicopter just won’t drift in a frictionless state after the application of force though. Just the air pressure alone will help stabilize it but the primary factor will be “blow back” from the rotor.

If a helicopter at a hover develops any momentum, the rotor will want to tilt past it’s previous position because of blow back. That is, the unequal lift that will occur on the advancing side of the blades as the helicopter moves over the ground. That unequal lift acts 90 degrees later (phase lag) and will tilt the rotor in the opposite direction of movement.

So, if a strong lateral force is applied that accelerates the aircraft to say 10 kts, the helicopter will oscillate a few times and come to a stationary hover again. Depending on the helicopter and if it has stability augmentation systems (SAS), the amount of oscillation will vary.

It’s also not sitting there afloat like a balloon. Just to stay at a hover you have one force (main rotor) opposing another force (tail rotor). There are some thrust variations that will occur in lateral movement that would oppose a push.

Years ago doing sling load quals in the Black Hawk, I was told you could grab a tire and push the entire aircraft. Didn’t know if they were pulling my leg or not but I never bothered to test the theory.
Click to expand...

I read your post here and think, damn, it's amazing those things fly. I didn't think of the tail rotor and the opposing force of the main rotor, that would probably make it pretty hard to push. A helicopter lesson or two may get added to my bucket list.

I've had a few rides now, the best was from Las Vegas to the Grand Canyon. I was seated in front for W and B purposes, but had controls for my seat. So I said to the pilot, you get us a few feet off the ground and I'll take over, what does this do? He looked at me with a little fear in his eyes and said you can't touch the controls. I had to assure him I was just kidding with him, that I was a pilot and would never touch anything unless told to. Almost got myself kicked out of the best aviation ride of my life.
 
BigBadLou said:
Br-Y-an, do I smell a new video coming soon?
Make sure that you employ the monkey to do it, don't put yourself in danger trying to push two 737s apart at FL390. That's what monkeys are for!
Click to expand...

I have a backlog a mile long. I have been spewing creativity into a binder that is growing thicker by the day.
I wish I could just write ideas down and outsource all the project to a guy on fiverr for a few bucks.
 
The question is not about fighting w/ the pilot inputs or anything i just wonder if an object is not attached to the ground would it be easy to move.
It seems like weight is the factor.

Meaning I could probably move a blimp but not a helicopter of the same weight since the blimp is essentially weightless where as the helicopter is sitting on its thrust so to speak.
The plane is going to be rigid in space because it is moving. We have a boat and I can fairly easily push that thing around in the water. On land, no chance.

Blimp would be doable right?
 
SixPapaCharlie said:
The question is not about fighting w/ the pilot inputs or anything i just wonder if an object is not attached to the ground would it be easy to move.
It seems like weight is the factor.

Meaning I could probably move a blimp but not a helicopter of the same weight since the blimp is essentially weightless where as the helicopter is sitting on its thrust so to speak.
The plane is going to be rigid in space because it is moving. We have a boat and I can fairly easily push that thing around in the water. On land, no chance.

Blimp would be doable right?
Click to expand...

Actually, hang around places where they're flying hot air balloons. It takes a LOT of effort to move one of these things, once they're aloft. Remember, you're not only moving the mass of the basket, burner, occupants, etc, you're also moving the mass of the air inside the envelope.

Don't know how much of a ground crew the Goodyear folks use, but you can find historical video of dirigibles and see dozens of guys on the ground-handling ropes.

Ron Wanttaja
 
wanttaja said:
Remember ... you're also moving the mass of the air inside the envelope.
Click to expand...
Oh absolutely. Do not underestimate the weight of air.
Air is heavy! It pushes down on you from the atmosphere with almost 15 lbs for every square inch of your body. That's a lot of weight, man.
That's why people get high. With drugs or airplanes. When you climb up, there is no air up there to push down on you so it literally takes the weight off your shoulders. That's the origin of the phrase.
6PC should do a video about smart(azz) pilots explaining phrases. ;)
 
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