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can you imagine being in high school rn jesus christ

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Cockpit smut is a time honored tradition

B-2 pilots are freaky man.

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Sailing ships and their rigs, 16th- 19th century

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This scientist crafts stunning visual art through chemistry.

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Tentacles and Beaks of Cephalopods | December, 2015 Investigating the anatomical differences of cephalopod beaks and tentacles with regards to their diet.

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So there's this video which gets reposted fairly often of a guy's head getting clipped by a Bell 407 main rotor (which I won't be sharing for obvious reasons). And the comments are always so fearful about being around helicopters and how could such a thing happen.

So I'm here to explain exactly how something like that could happen and how to avoid getting a messy haircut when entering or exiting a running helicopter.

Lets start with just being around one in general. The whole rear half of the helicopter is just completely off limits. There's the tail rotor which has been responsible for many many accidents, hot engine exhaust, and you are not in view of the pilot. Approaching from the sides or from a forward diagonal angle instead is best.

But why is approaching directly from the front not generally the preferred method?

Because the rotors can tilt.

When the pilot moves the cyclic control forward, aft, or sideways, the rotor disc will tilt in the corresponding direction. If the cyclic is pushed forward then the front of the rotor disc will dip lower than usual. Even larger helicopters can have the blade tips dip below 5-6 feet which is enough to hit most people.

To exacerbate this, many helicopters also have rotor masts that are pretilted forward a few degrees, even with the cyclic in a neutral position.

This is why you should prefer to approach diagonally and not directly from the front where the rotor blades could potentially be at the lowest point, while avoiding the hazards to the rear.

Another thing to consider is the slope. Plenty of accidents have happened because of people approaching from or leaving to an upslope.

A helicopter landed on a slope (even a seemingly shallow one) will touch down sideways to it and use lateral cyclic input to help hold it into the upslope side.

Up close to the side of the helicopter or beyond the rotors you are safe but attenpting to cross the blade tips could put you close enough to them to cause injury.

Lastly and one of the reasons for the accident with the Bell 407 in the video mentioned earlier is the landing gear.

That particular helicopter was equipped with low skids which are typically used for operations from prepared helipads and paved surfaces. They are a bit more streamlined and more convenient to enter and exit the cabin but they bring the fuselage and rotors closer to the ground.

Here is a comparison of a Bell 407 with low and high skids equipped.

(Low)

(High)

The extra few inches added with high skids makes a big difference for raising the fuselage and tail rotor from obstacles when landing off airport.

So between the forward disc tilt, sloped ground, and low skids, its absolutely possible to get hit by the main rotor.

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Tango. Uniform. Mike. Bravo. Lima. Romeo.

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I can see where Riko gets her keen eye from

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Mikoyan MiG 1.44 russian prototype fighter jet vs Chengdu J-20 chinese 5th generation fighter jet.

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The first rule of gun safety is to relax and have fun

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