What happens when a helicopter experiences engine failure midair?
In: Engineering
Don’t worry, they are designed for this.
If the engine fails, the first thing that happens is the propeller on top is disconnected from the engine and is now spinning freely. So it doesn’t just come to a stop along with the engine.
What’s next is cool. With the fact that the blades have an angle to them, the fact that air is rushing between them if the helicoptor tries to fall will actually cause the propellers to spin on their own. Furthermore, since they never actually stopped spinning when the engine died, the pilot still maintains a decent amount of control the whole time. Like a plane with no engines, it still has a sort of “glider” effect, slowly descending but still allowing the pilot a lot of control and keeping it in the air. Trying to climb isn’t going to be practical, but a controlled, safe landing is absolutely doable. Of course, like a plane with no engines, you only get one try.
The process is called auto-rotation, if you want to google more about it. It even exists in nature. Check out the seeds of a maple tree, which actually grow themselves little wings and fall to the ground slowly and safely when they fall out of the branches of a huge tree. That’s the same idea as a helicoptor with a dead engine – a safe, slow descent.
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