When a helicopter lands on a moving yacht, how come it doesn’t slide when it touches the yacht? How does it just lock on with the yacht?
In: 10
To land with a moving yacht, the helicopter has to match the direction and speed of the yacht.
The pilot will make sure that the helicopter is moving in the same direction and with the same speed as the ship, because otherwise the landing area will move away from under the helicopter. The ship, meanwhile, will do its best to maintain the same heading and speed, so the helicopter doesn’t have to make too many adjustments while landing.
Does that answer your question?
The force of friction between the helicopter’s landing gear and the yacht will be greater than the force of the sideways movement. This means that, once it has touched down, the force of the sideways movement isn’t strong enough to move the helicopter.
I have not idea how it can or is done in a civilian yacht but military there are hold-down devices.
The helicopter hover and drop down a wire that is attached the hold-down device. The wire is then winched in from the ship and the helicopter increases the lift a bit to counter it partialy. If the wire snaps the helicopter has positive lift and will go up. The helicopter is slowly winched down and when it land the trap close and lock the helicopter to the ship
Look at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6XvdXwgYN_s
When a helicopter is stationary on deck it can be died down to anchor points in the deck. There is a point on the helicopter you attach them to. IT will be done with chainshttps://www.peckhale.com/sites/default/files/styles/gallery_light_box__850x850_/public/gallery_images/TD1-B%20Tiedown%20Assembly%20%26%20Type%20XIV%20Deck%20Socket.jpg?itok=cZXDRqg7
I’m a former Marine Corps AH-1W pilot, and I have landed aboard ship numerous times.
First, shipboard landings are not gentle. Once you decide to land, you are committed to it, and you are going to firmly *plant* that aircraft on the deck.
Second, the decks themselves are coated in a very rough material called non-skid that is designed to prevent things from sliding around.
Third, unless you are doing multiple landings, the very first thing that is going to happen is that the deck crew is going to chain your aircraft to the deck to secure it.
Finally, there are sea state limits on flight operations. If the pitch and roll are too high, you will not fly.
In addition to the rest, for serious conditions there’s the beartrap. The helicopter lowers a cable which is attached to a cable coming out of the deck. This cable is attached to a winch, which reels in the helicopter while the helicopter applies lift to keep the cable taut. This makes the helicopter move with the ship as one. When the helicopter is close to the deck, the landing officer will wait for the right moment and order the pilot to land while the cable is also pulled in. This also has the advantage that the helicopter stays on the deck after landing even if the ship is wildly pitching side to side.
As much as a helicopter can use its blades to pull itself up into the air, it is also capable of using its blades to push itself down onto the deck. As you may well know pressing on something increases the friction which helps them to not slide around or get knocked off by waves.
The helicopter does not need to stop the blades and spin them in the other direction, it is able to control the tilt of the blades very rapidly. In fact, that is entirely how the helicopter can control how it flies.
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