Why do plane and helicopter pilots have to pysically fight with their control stick when flying and something goes wrong?
In: Engineering
Answer: Former helicopter mechanic and crew chief here. Helicopters have a mechanical linkage from pilot input to control output. These linkages are hydraulic assisted. In emergency situations, you may lose or have to disable the hydraulic servos. As you can imagine, the feedback from the rotor blades can make it quite difficult to smoothly operate.
As an example, when you drive your car, stick your hand out the window and feel the air flowing. Your muscles are the servos controlling your hand. Now imagine you didn’t have control of your finger but still control hand overall. It’s a rough, but you can still keep your hand more or less in place, even if the finer details aren’t the same.
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