• TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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        1 month ago

        Mainly just copium for the pilots. Helicopters aren’t like airplanes where you have glide time and altitude to decide what to do after something bad happens. If you watch fixed winged ejections there’s usually about 30 seconds to a min after something goes wrong before the pilot decides to bail. Helicopters go from everything being fine, to a debris field in seconds.

        • Estiar@sh.itjust.works
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          1 month ago

          It’s more about altitude than the ability to glide. Helicopters can do what’s called Auto rotation, which means they actually can glide. If the blade seize up however, they can’t autorotate. Helicopters fly a lot lower than most airplanes though, so they can’t glide as far.

            • Estiar@sh.itjust.works
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              1 month ago

              Wow. I’d be nuts to fly one of those things. 6000 VVI sounds like suicide

              With the collective firmly held down on the bottom stop, things happen very fast. The helicopter is descending in a hurry, as in 4,000 – 6,000 feet per minute. Do the math, if you are at 1,000 feet and the descent rate is 4,000 feet, you have one quarter or a minute – 15 seconds – to find a place to land.

              • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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                1 month ago

                Yeah, helicopters are the apex predators of soldiers and rich people. Even if you pull off the perfect autorotation, the glide ratio is still only a maximum of like 3:1.

                I think I remember reading a report somewhere that more people have been killed by practicing autorotation than have actually pulled it off in the wild.

      • tibi@lemmy.world
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        1 month ago

        Now you have blades shooting away from the helicopter at a high speed which could kill someone.

    • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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      1 month ago

      The Kamov does it.

      The individual rotor blades are separated from the center with an explosive charge and their centrifugal motion carries them laterally away from the vehicle as the seat rockets straight up.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        1 month ago

        As a bonus, whoever was close enough to shoot you down is about to get at least one heavy steel javelin flung terrifyingly close to their direction at high speeds.

        I’m assuming here that impact with a long range SAM is probably something you’re not about to eject from.

        • chiliedogg@lemmy.world
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          1 month ago

          In cases like that I’d imagine you’d try and eject prior to being hit, though I don’t know enough to know how much warning time there is.