I get that the spinny fan like pulls it up but like how does it spin because if I theoretically have a massive fan that spun at extreme speeds will my house fly?
Plus why do helicopters need spinny things when literally every other thing that flies just has wings and an engine. Also if the fan spins why does it spinning pull it up like when it’s on the ground it stays still but when it’s in the sky u can like manoeuvre it 360 like what.
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The rotor works basically like a boat’s propeller, except pointing upwards. The blades are angled, so they’re essentially constantly corkscrewing upwards to lift the helicopter up.
You could of course make anything fly with that, providing you have enough power and tensile strength.
As for the reason, a constant upwards lift gives them better maneuverability. They are mechanically much more complicated than planes are, but a plane also needs to move forward for the wings to generate lift, so it can’t hover around a spot or take off vertically. If you’re, say, trying to lift an injured hiker off the face of a cliff, you really do not want to try doing that with a plane and a close flyby.
The rotor gives it upwards lift, but since it’s rotating, it’s also constantly twisting the helicopter around with it. With no counteracting force, it would just spin wildly along with the rotor, so you need some solution to avoid that. The classic one is to just stick a smaller, vertical rotor on the tail to push against the rotation. Then if you want to turn left or right (also called yaw) you just make that small rotor spin faster or slower, but most of the time you want it perfectly counteracting the twisting force so that the helicopter stays still.
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