Airplanes are usually inherently stable. If you let go of the controls, the airplane will go into a level flight by itself.
Helicopters are inherently unstable. If you let go of the controls, you will crash really quickly.
A guy I used to fly with said scratch your nose now because once a helicopter is in the air both hands and both feet are busy. You are controlling an aircraft in 3 dimensions and it takes all of your hands and feet. As an anecdote terminator 2 has a scene where the liquid metal guy is shooting and flying a copter and you can see he made a 3rd hand to hold the gun.
So, as someone else said, pretty much like riding a motorcycle.
You don't realize how often you scratch your nose until you are wearing a full face helmet.
Motorcycles are inherently stable to. The front wheel spinning acts as a gyro, preventing the bike from tipping over on its own. You can let go with both hands and the bike will still roll forward (except for the engine braking effect, bumps in the road, etc etc).
When I bought my first bike in 2012 I took it to work and one of my coworkers said "No way I'd ever ride one'a them. You gotta be out there balancing that muhfucka". Funny to me, because he thought that all motorcyclists were literally balancing on their bikes like a gymnast or something.
As for scratching your nose.... idk. You can open your visor at 80mph if your nose is super itchy. But one time a piece of sand or something hit my eye and I had to pull over under a bridge because I literally couldn't fucking see. YMMV
It is just a split second but my knowing you need both hands I thought I would catch a flaw but then noticed he has two hands on the controls and a third holding the gun. It really stuck in my memory because it was so much to do for a seconds worth of screen time and most people wouldn't even notice or think about it.
Edit: looking it up some people say it is 4 hands but I never noticed that so if it does in fact have 4 I missed it.
Once you're above 20ish knots from the control and behavior perspective they're actually a lot more similar than they are different.
It's the below 20 knots part that bites you.
RPL pilot here. There is an expression 'when you have an emergency - wind your watch before you do anything'
Point is, the plane is probably ok, and if you make a mistake in response you're likely to make it worse. Take your time, assess the situation work out what to do, then do it, plane will most likely glide in the meantime (yes there are some exceptions)
Emergency in a helo often needs something done immediately before it starts to fall out of the sky. It's 10,000 parts trying to pull themselves apart every second its in the air.
Highly maneuverable fighter jets are designed to be unstable so they can turn quicker. They use computer adjustments to the thrust vectoring and flight surfaces to fligh straight.
The F18 is stable, because of the dangers of carrier landings. The F35C is on the border of stability (the C model is modified to increase stability over the A and B models). Both were designed as strike-fighters, not air superiority fighters, so maneuverability was a much lower priority.
Both are still highly unstable and are designed to get as much maneuverability as possible within the constraints of their designs. That maneuverability also contributes to better control at slow speeds for carrier landings.
The legacy hornet (from which the Rhino is developed) is a royal pain to fly in its mechanical reversion mode. It can easily tumble if the pilot is not on top of things.
There are a few 4th gen fighters that civilians own but they're typically those with a ton of fast jet experience, either through career or through money. Most are owned by companies or obscenely wealthy individuals. They fall under pretty restrictive operational requirements, so you're not just taking your personal jet warbird for a spin. It's not so much a security thing, it's moreso that the jets aren't certified under civilian categories with the FAA, so they have special carveouts in the regulations for such aircraft. Is a civilian company were to develop and certify and offer a straight up F-16 clone, right down to the weapons systems (short of anything secret), it could do so the same way Cessna develops and certifies and sells a business jet.
The closest thing you can get under normal operation restrictions right now are a handful of jet and turboprop kit planes that have tandem seating. Honestly, with nobody to fight and nowhere to strike and speed limit restrictions at low altitude for non military operations, you're not going to have any more fun in an F-16 than you would in any of the normally accessible options.
The gh part lost its pronunciation pretty long ago. Spelling adjusted accordingly. (Unlike a number of other English words _cough_ )
> From Middle English flien, from Old English flēogan, from Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (compare Saterland Frisian fljooge, Dutch vliegen, Low German flegen, German fliegen, Danish flyve, Norwegian Nynorsk flyga), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (*plew-k-, “to fly”) (compare Lithuanian plaũkti ‘to swim’), enlargement of *plew- (“flow”).
Most planes are engineered so that they basically can’t stop flying unless they run into something. They will fly with wings level and a downward angle in the nose such that they maintain speed.
Basically if they nose up or slow down too much, the tail pushes the nose back down. The wings are also designed so that the plane doesn’t really want to roll and likes to stay nice and level. Like a ball in a valley.
We engineer most planes like this so that they don’t need computer control or even a pilot in order to not catastrophically fall out of the sky. Basically they’re designed to be safe even for the dumbest possible pilot or the worst possible situation or both. Without this engineering, a wing in isolation naturally wants to backflip because the lift is strongest near the leading edge (~1/4 chord)
Fighter jets have a different set of requirements. They need to be able to make very quick maneuvers and they need to be extremely fast (aerodynamically efficient ). They also now have sophisticated flight computers. So we engineer fighter planes to be inherently unstable because it allows for much quicker maneuvering and more efficient aerodynamics.
In a commercial airline you probably don’t want the plane to be able to backflip with a flick of the yoke in half a second but that’s exactly what you want in a fighter plane. We then have to use those fancy computers to ensure that it stays level unless the pilot wants it to flip or roll and then it’s able to do it on a dime.
Pedantic footnote: the airplane will not seek level flight; it will seek the attitude/airspeed it is trimmed for. This is why you as a pilot are constantly trimming the aircraft, so that you can take your hands off the controls.
Helicopters are aircraft, but assuming OP means aeroplanes, aren't plenty unstable or at least neutral? For example, most modern fighters are deliberately unstable because it enhances their manoeuvrability.
Airplanes are inherently stable. That means if you take your hands off of the controls, the plane will return to flat and level flight.
This is unlike helicopters, that take constant control inputs to maintain flat and level flight. Flying a helicopter is like standing on a basketball, constant movement is needed to stay on top.
An airplane is much easier to deal with in an engine failure, just push nose slightly towards ground and you will glide.
With helicopters you need to use your speed falling to rotate the blades, then at the last minute use the momentum of the blades to stop the helicopter falling. A much more difficult maneuver.
The other issue is helicopters fly in more challenging missions. Airplanes are usually airport to airport. Helicopters are used for rescuing people in mountains, medivac injured people from random locations, maintenance of power lines, filming etc. The tend to be low to the ground, dangerous locations etc where there isn't much time to deal with an accident.
"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter. Helicopters fly by beating the air into submission."
My other favorite anecdote was from a friend in the Navy: "Don't ever get into a helicopter that isn't leaking hydraulic fluid, because that means it's out of hydraulic fluid."
My first Chinook ride, I tapped the crew chief on the shoulder and pointed to a leak. He looked at it, then back at me, then yelled to let him know if it stops, cos then we're in trouble.
Hydraulic fluid, gear oil, jet fuel, coolant - if it’s a liquid that exists on the Chinook then you can guarantee you’ll find a leak of it somewhere.
As to where, the answer is everywhere but mostly inside the cockpit and cargo areas.
I’m not joking, if you ever get close to one those helicopters are COVERED in stains and residues from all the leaks that constantly occur.
Because it’s a Chinook. They simply do not exist without any leaks, it’s an impossibility in the same way you never see a buy-here pay-here lot without at least 3 Nissan Altimas.
Realistically, its easier to just have some leaks and have extra fluid than to make everything completely leak proof. Especially considering the likelihood of failure if something doesn't have enough oil, coolant, or hydraulic fluid. It just makes everything more difficult.
Throw a unicycle at one of [these](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Wiki_Paramotor_by_JeffGoin_At_PEI.jpg/220px-Wiki_Paramotor_by_JeffGoin_At_PEI.jpg) (just the backpack) and you've got yourself a paramotorunicycle
Really they're both more like a bicycle. At speed both handles pretty predictably and doesn't veer off course. A helicopter is remarkably similar to a light aircraft.
However helicopters can stop, and fly very slowly - which is much more challenging on a bike.
I was a helicopter mechanic, they always say that planes use the air to fly, helicopters beat the air into submission. Can confirm they break something pretty much every time they fly.
Hovering is relatively straightforward.
Getting to a hover is....less so.
Example. Transition from a hover to forward flight.
You'd push forward on the cyclic to drop the nose and change the angle of attack of the main rotor. That starts you sliding forward, but also down, because the main rotor is now pulling you forward with part of its energy, instead of making straight lift.
So to counter that, you have to add engine power using your collective control. This gets the main rotor spinning faster to generate enough lift to keep you in the air AND moving forward.
Of course, more power to the main rotor means the main rotor starts generating more torque that you need to compensate for by changing the speed/ pitch of the tail rotor. You do that with foot pedals.
So, just going from a hover to basic forward flight is 3 separate control inputs that all need to be balanced against each other in real time. Both hands and both feet.
EDIT- As pointed out, I had my cyclic and collective controls flipped. Thanks, stranger. It's been a day. Fixed
I see how that came to be. But now that computerized stabilisation and controls are pretty standard, be it fighter jets or drones, why isn't a modern helicopter control be more straightforward? I am unsure how much effort it takes, but I would guess it is definitely possible with a relatively simple computer by nowadays standard.
That doesn't mean that the pilot shouldn't know how to fly without those, if possible. And systems should be redundant wherever possible anyway.
Those controls are what let the pilot do things like spin in place or make banking turns.
There are definitely assists in modern helicopters, but the basic controls remain the same.
There isn't really a good way to make things more "straightforward" without removing capabilities at the same time. The extra inputs are needed
Does helicopter have any system to help to transition from hovering to moving and vice versa? Something that automatically adjust tail rotor to match with main rotor.
Thanks. A couple of additional questions:
What about autorotation in a helicopter?
Why doesn't helicopter have like an autopilot that is able to do what it can to maintain level flight based on sensors?
Autorotation is what I was describing.
Helicopter autopilots do exist, but as they are more complex than aircraft autopilots they are more expensive. Expect to pay around $100,000 or more after install.
Newer military helicopters have autopilot-ish systems. A M model black hawk, for example, has a "hover hold" that will generally keep you in a steady hover over a point on the ground if the winds aren't too bad. Same thing with a mode that will attempt to hold your altitude/airspeed
> being able to stabilize in the air?
The thing about helicopters is that "being able to stabilize" is something the vehicle actively fights against and the pilot is basically constantly herding it away from instantly spinning around in a random axis and slamming into the ground upside down.
With a normal plane, unless you have problems with the control surfaces or the wings, it just wants to fly in a straight line. If everything is going well, they are so easy to control (in terms of keeping the plane on course in normal conditions, it can get *quite complex* very fast) that they can be completely automated once in the air.
This can also lead to awkward situations, like a plane with a completely dead crew flying most of its planned route and nearly crashing into Athens after it runs out of fuel circling above the city. Or that time recently when a pilot ejected from an F-35 and the plane went on a jaunt for half an hour until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a field. On the other hand, this also means [it is possible for a complete newbie to fly and land(ish) a plane with verbal instructions from a pilot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbTDzPUDxqY).
There’s also a video on YouTube with the audio from a guy only on his 3rd flying lesson with no landing experience having to land after his instructor goes unconscious. Relatively speaking, airplanes seem easier for sure.
Most helicopters can autorotate which basically gets you a pretty steep glide in.
Of course, if your main gearbox seizes due to damage (oil leak, mechanical failure, hostile attack), that doesn't happen and you go straight down
In a plane you're managing your craft's pitch, roll and yaw using a hand control and pedals, which is already a fair bit. (Also throttle, trim, fuel mix and flaps, but you can go a while not touching those.)
In a helicopter you have all that (no flaps, I guess), and you can also control the 'collective', which is the pitch of the rotor blades, and you might be controlling the power to the tail rotor. So what you're doing is almost a superset of what a plane pilot's doing. Helicopters are very capable, as you point out, but one price for that is the pilot's doing a lot more work to manage those extra variables.
My (airplane) pilot friend said the same about helicopters:
Many people think it's like something hanging from a string, but it's actually like something balanced on a pin - and you use every both arms, hands, feet, and wrists to work controls to keep it upright (and everything is trying to knock it over, including the helicopter itself).
Let’s put it like this: if you want to turn left in a car you turn the wheel left until you’ve turned how much you want to turn, and then straighten the wheel.
In an airplane you turn the yoke left for a brief moment and then pull the yoke back until you’ve turned how much you want to turn and then rotate the yoke right for a brief moment to level your wings.
In a helicopter you have to apply left pedal to start turning but now you’re also moving sideways so you have to move the cyclic a little to the left to counteract it, but now you’ve got to increase collective to balance that.
The simple answer is a helicopter has three main inputs and you have to balance all three at the same time and changing any one requires an adjustment to the other two.
Already enough real good answers up above, but here's a good thought for you:
Every now and then there's a real life story or a study involving random people with very little or no flying experience at all suddenly having to try and land an airplane, usually with some kind of outside guidance. In a surprising number of these cases they actually manage to kind of pull it off and survive.
Have you *ever* heard of that happening in a helicopter?
Having flown both (but not being a pilot), this is valid. Landing a single engine or small airplane feels relatively comfortable especially on a long runway... and reacting to something you don't like by going around doesn't feel extreme.
A helicopter with a light cyclic... man, tough stuff. When you're about to land, your gains go way through the roof. Your apprehension flows through the cyclic. And then you want to yank up the collective to get away from the ground, but the response is so much more than you expect. Then you dump it, and come flying back down. Exciting, but terrifying.
Without an IP onboard, and me doing it solo... give me the plane.
The one thing I’m told by helicopter pilots is that you need a very light touch on the controls. An airplane is more forgiving, but you’re going to have a bad time if you ham hand the controls on a helicopter. Think of this the next time you see a movie where the helicopter pilot is slamming the stick in all directions.
Can agree. I've had a very basic flying lesson in a fixed wing and helicopter. The slightest movement on the helicopter cyclic (joystick) had an insane effect compared to the equivalent movement on the fixed wing yoke.
Once in the air both were easy to control and steer but damn if I couldn't keep the copter stable in a hover. It was like juggling a spinning plate.
Yeah this always brings a smile. You rapidly go full control deflection in any airplane other than a fighter, you've most likely bent something.
You rapidly go full control deflection in a helicopter, you most likely don't have a helicopter anymore. Hovering is a game of millimeters.
I took a few helicopter pilot lessons. This is very accurate. Any tiny movement of my hands turned into a big movement of the helicopter.
I decided that unless I get around to getting my carpal tunnel taken care of, helicoptering is not for me.
Helicopters don’t actually exist. They’re a collection of parts flying in close formation, and the slightest errant twitch can send that formation hurtling apart.
In all seriousness, helicopters are incredibly twitchy to control, especially at a hover. If you think about moving the cyclic, you’ve overcorrected.
Flying a plane is a lot closer to driving a car. It's moving in a mostly straight line, and it's mostly on you to keep it straight and you should be okay. Of course it's not nearly that simple... planes need speed to stay in the air and must not drop below a certain speed (which will vary with conditions) or it will simply fall out of the sky... and there's no "grip" in the air so holding the controls straight really just means the plane will keep whatever attitude it has now rather than straighten itself out. Still, I think a novice could get a general feel for climbing, descending, turning etc with basic instruction from the guy in the next seat.
Flying a helicopter.. you have a lot more overall freedom in all 3 directions, but it's extremely sensitive to the controls. Holding a helicopter hovering steadily is very tricky, a lot more micro-adjustments to hold them. While you're flying forward it's not too hard, but once you want to bring it to a stop and set it down nicely, you may find it becomes a lot more... excitable, and it takes a skilled and practiced hand to keep it from overshooting, start spinning, etc.
To simplify the car analogy . . .
A plane is like driving a sedan down major highway with minimal traffic congestion.
A helicopter is like driving a Formula 1 race car during a NASCAR race on a 1 mile oval.
Chopper instructor to student pilot on his first lesson:
"Get the chopper up some feet and try to hover over the tarmac."
After ten minutes:
"Well, at least try to stay within the country."
In the way of how it moves through the air. A plane is like driving a boat in 3d space at much higher speeds and making sure it stays on plane.
A helicopter is like trying to stand on top of a basketball that’s on one of those moving walkways but again moving in 3 dimensions.
Planes cover vast distances quickly, helicopters cover precise distances slowly.
The biggest test of an operator's skill is crisis management. Operating a working machine is the easy part.
If your engine breaks down in a car, so what? Just sit by the side of the road for a few hours. But if your engine breaks down in a plane, you're now in a glider that is not built for gliding, and your life is also in danger.
And if your engine breaks down in a helicopter, you're pretty much a falling rock. And you need to act quickly to not be a very dead pancake.
This is why pilot testing is so much more rigorous than driver testing - they test your ability to deal with engine failures, control surface failures, etc. that would not matter in a car, but would save your life in a plane. It's the same deal with a helicopter - when your engine kicks it, you're a glider on autorotate. Your ability to survive depends on your ability to utilise autorotate, so you're not getting your license if you can't land on autorotate, and even after getting it, your skills check includes autorotate landings.
This is not to mention all the different skills and knowledge that are not transferable between the two types of aircraft (ie what all the other redditors said), and that needs to be relearned by a plane pilot flying a helicopter (and vice versa).
Source: read too many magazines and blogs about flying
Flight in an airplane means the airplane is continuously succeeding in keeping you alive.
Flight in a helicopter means the helicopter is continuously failing to kill you.
Knowing how much skill flying a helicopter takes, longline operation is so impressive. A good pilot can put a hook on a 100 foot rope right in my hand then hover over me until I hook it onto the barrel of poop, then they can smoothly pick it up and fly away with it.
The logistics of backcountry outhouses are wild.
Just to point out an error in your phrasing, the term aircraft means any vehicle that floats or flies in the air. Helicopters, blimps, and airplanes are all aircraft.
A better way to phrase your question is why are helicopters harder to fly than airplanes.
Having flown both, when flying at a decent speed from one location to another - they are *remarkably* similar. They yaw, pitch, roll in a similar way. The helicopter wasn't some unruly beast I had to fight, it's pretty stable and you're not having to constantly work to balance the craft (contrary to what everyone else says).
When hovering, the helicopter was quite different because planes can't (usually) hover. I only spent about 10 minutes hovering, I expect after about half an hour of practice I would have been OK at hovering.
In terms of preflight checks, buttons and knobs to push and set. The helicopter was way more complicated than a light aircraft, however it was much simpler than a commercial jet.
I don’t necessarily think it’s more difficult. Learning to fly a helicopter certainly is more difficult to do certain things but they can be learnt relatively quickly then after a while flying becomes second nature. If professional pilots were finding it *difficult* to fly everyday then we probably shouldn’t be flying helicopters at all.
It’s simply a different skill set.
Helicopters are evolving too. A lot of replies have stated that helicopters are inherently unstable. Which sure that’s mostly true but modern helicopter afcs is very good! Even helicopters with crappy old afcs have trim systems so you can in fact trim your helicopter and let go of the controls and not crash immediately.
And again, go read my reply, then check what a Dunning Krueger effect is.
Rotary wing aircraft are more complex, and thus more difficult to contrrol, than fixed wing aircraft.
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A helicopter does not stabilize in air, a plane will keep its speed to the right, if tilted to the right, a helicopter will accelerate to the right, and potentially tilt more.
A heli is hard to pilot, but an airliner also is.
There are systems for easing the work of the pilot, but it's not easy.
I think there is a lot more input needed to keep a helicopter stable during flight than a fixed wing aircraft. A lot more moving parts creating forces that need to be balanced.
An airplane wants to fly, and, barring catastrophic structural failure, will fly stably on its own in the absence of a pilot. A helicopter wants to kill you.
Less, glibly, a helicopter is like a spinning top which the pilot is coaxing to go a specific direction without unbalancing said top and causing it to spin out. That’s much harder than flying a plane.
An airplane goes forward by increasing throttle.
A helicopter goes forward by increasing throttle, changing rotor angle, tilting forward, and adjusting the tail rotor throttle.
Helicopters are more maneuverable than a plane, but have many more controls to do that, and they all have to be balanced or you crash.
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What people aren’t mentioning is that when you fly an airplane and make an adjustment, it tends to affect something else. If you point the nose up a little higher, you have to add throttle to keep from slowing down. If you tilt the wings, you have to pull up a little too in order to not lose altitude. With a helicopter, one adjustment affects everything else and those affect everything else again. Suppose you are starting from a perfect hover. If you want to go just go straight up, you increase the collective, which increases torque which turns the helicopter, so you have to adjust the rear propeller, which is pushing air sideways, so now you have to compensate for that, too, and so on. Fail to compensate and you fill fall out of the sky.
One of the most terrifying things about a helicopter is [this diagram](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hvcurve-en.png).
When your engine fails in a helicopter, you start falling. While you're falling, if you angle the helicopter *just* right, you can make air flow through the rotor blades and slow your descent. Do that enough, and you can softly land on the ground rather than completely being smashed to bits. Angling the helicopter just right requires a bunch of forward momentum as well as downwards.
See that red segment on the left? That represents "the forward momentum you have now plus the forward momentum you can gain on the way down isn't enough to stop your downwards momentum". Close to the ground, you need less forward momentum because you will pick up less downwards momentum. Further up, you can gain a bunch of forward momentum on the way down, so you need less now. In the middle? Well, you're in trouble. The red segment on the bottom right represents "you don't have enough time to react to stuff on the ground if something unexpected happens".
You almost always start in the bottom left, so taking off requires this somewhat perilous trajectory - gain a little height, pick up a bunch of speed, maintain your speed and move upwards as much as you can. Yes, a helicopter doesn't need a long runway, but it *does* need a clear space for a safe takeoff. You can head into the red region, but there's an inherent risk if your engine fails.
the controls are necessarily a nightmare and there are a million little things that can catch you off-guard.
take the simplest thing possible, flying straight forward. on an airplane this is easy. depending on the plane, it may even be built to naturally enter and stay in level flight without being controlled. (if you've ever noticed airplanes with a slight V shape to their wings, it helps them not roll)
with a helicopter, if the rotor is moving anticlockwise, flying forward means the rotor blades on the right side of your aircraft are generating more lift than the blades on the left side, because the blades are rotating "into the wind" on the right side.
a gust of wind can change the lift of an airplane. a gust of wind will change the lift on every part of every blade of a helicopter by a different amount.
Airplane has fixed wings. Helicopter's wings are the big as blade rotating above the pilot. I am kind of a helicopter pilot myself albeit a tiny one (flew a Kyosho helicopter before)
May i recommend a video from smarter every day about the fundamentals of a helicopter controls. He explains everything very thoroughly there, including how controls of one axis affect the others. Very interesting
A helicopter is like trying to carry a full load of groceries without a bag up an icy staircase without dropping the pickles. Everything is trying to throw you off balance. It takes active effort not to wipe out.
An airplane is more like trying to paddle a canoe down a river, but there is a waterfall if you go down too far. Most of the ride is a smooth glide. The trickiest part is the entry and the exit.
its like riding a bike vs riding a one-wheel
its "hard" to start and stop with a bike, but once you go its pretty easy to stay in line
with a one-wheel you need to concentrate all the way to not lose balance, keep speed ect.
Nothing in nature looks like a helicopter, even dragonflies. It’s completely man made concept of flying. Airplanes use a simplified approach that birds use.
Airplanes are usually inherently stable. If you let go of the controls, the airplane will go into a level flight by itself. Helicopters are inherently unstable. If you let go of the controls, you will crash really quickly.
A guy I used to fly with said scratch your nose now because once a helicopter is in the air both hands and both feet are busy. You are controlling an aircraft in 3 dimensions and it takes all of your hands and feet. As an anecdote terminator 2 has a scene where the liquid metal guy is shooting and flying a copter and you can see he made a 3rd hand to hold the gun.
As much as I would like to, I’ll never be a helicopter pilot because of my nose.
I'm sure you can scratch your nose, try it
Do what astronauts do during space walks, and mount a piece of velcro or foam within reach of your nose
Omg why have I never heard of this before? Makes so much sense if you’re on an 8 hr spacewalk, I’m sure they figured this trick out reaalll quick lol
So get rid of it??? Can't stand people like you who will see a problem and accept it
So, as someone else said, pretty much like riding a motorcycle. You don't realize how often you scratch your nose until you are wearing a full face helmet.
>You don't realize how often you scratch your nose until you are wearing a full face helmet. Which will be itchier for some reason
For me, the issue is that I'm a pollen allergic (mostly grass, but also birch). Motorcycle season tend to coincied with pollen season...
Same with my CPAP mask.
Which is why NASA put a small bit of velcro inside their astronauts' helmets. So they can scratch their nose without their hands.
Motorcycles are inherently stable to. The front wheel spinning acts as a gyro, preventing the bike from tipping over on its own. You can let go with both hands and the bike will still roll forward (except for the engine braking effect, bumps in the road, etc etc). When I bought my first bike in 2012 I took it to work and one of my coworkers said "No way I'd ever ride one'a them. You gotta be out there balancing that muhfucka". Funny to me, because he thought that all motorcyclists were literally balancing on their bikes like a gymnast or something. As for scratching your nose.... idk. You can open your visor at 80mph if your nose is super itchy. But one time a piece of sand or something hit my eye and I had to pull over under a bridge because I literally couldn't fucking see. YMMV
I have to watch that scene again. Didn't know there was a third hand holding a gun and piloting a helicopter.
It is just a split second but my knowing you need both hands I thought I would catch a flaw but then noticed he has two hands on the controls and a third holding the gun. It really stuck in my memory because it was so much to do for a seconds worth of screen time and most people wouldn't even notice or think about it. Edit: looking it up some people say it is 4 hands but I never noticed that so if it does in fact have 4 I missed it.
Once you're above 20ish knots from the control and behavior perspective they're actually a lot more similar than they are different. It's the below 20 knots part that bites you.
Kinda like the difference between a car and a motorcycle I suppose.
RPL pilot here. There is an expression 'when you have an emergency - wind your watch before you do anything' Point is, the plane is probably ok, and if you make a mistake in response you're likely to make it worse. Take your time, assess the situation work out what to do, then do it, plane will most likely glide in the meantime (yes there are some exceptions) Emergency in a helo often needs something done immediately before it starts to fall out of the sky. It's 10,000 parts trying to pull themselves apart every second its in the air.
Highly maneuverable fighter jets are designed to be unstable so they can turn quicker. They use computer adjustments to the thrust vectoring and flight surfaces to fligh straight.
Just convinced me never to fly a fighter jet
Only select fighters are unstable. The F16 is the very first to use fly-by-wire to allow that to work, and not every jet since has used that.
Out of curiosity, what fighter jets made after the F16 are not unstable? I thought all of them were unstable pretty much except the F15 maybe?
The F18 is stable, because of the dangers of carrier landings. The F35C is on the border of stability (the C model is modified to increase stability over the A and B models). Both were designed as strike-fighters, not air superiority fighters, so maneuverability was a much lower priority.
Both are still highly unstable and are designed to get as much maneuverability as possible within the constraints of their designs. That maneuverability also contributes to better control at slow speeds for carrier landings. The legacy hornet (from which the Rhino is developed) is a royal pain to fly in its mechanical reversion mode. It can easily tumble if the pilot is not on top of things.
Are there similar fast jet planes that a civilian can buy and fly? Like a modified civilian F16 without the guns?
There are a few 4th gen fighters that civilians own but they're typically those with a ton of fast jet experience, either through career or through money. Most are owned by companies or obscenely wealthy individuals. They fall under pretty restrictive operational requirements, so you're not just taking your personal jet warbird for a spin. It's not so much a security thing, it's moreso that the jets aren't certified under civilian categories with the FAA, so they have special carveouts in the regulations for such aircraft. Is a civilian company were to develop and certify and offer a straight up F-16 clone, right down to the weapons systems (short of anything secret), it could do so the same way Cessna develops and certifies and sells a business jet. The closest thing you can get under normal operation restrictions right now are a handful of jet and turboprop kit planes that have tandem seating. Honestly, with nobody to fight and nowhere to strike and speed limit restrictions at low altitude for non military operations, you're not going to have any more fun in an F-16 than you would in any of the normally accessible options.
That's pretty interesting.
Bad call. You're really missing out.
F-15 once came back with just one wing, I think they are kind of ok to fly :D
While the airframe is unstable, the plane is stable for the pilot, due to the computer control.
Now I want to know why it isn't spelled "fligh."
The gh part lost its pronunciation pretty long ago. Spelling adjusted accordingly. (Unlike a number of other English words _cough_ ) > From Middle English flien, from Old English flēogan, from Proto-Germanic *fleuganą (compare Saterland Frisian fljooge, Dutch vliegen, Low German flegen, German fliegen, Danish flyve, Norwegian Nynorsk flyga), from Proto-Indo-European *plewk- (*plew-k-, “to fly”) (compare Lithuanian plaũkti ‘to swim’), enlargement of *plew- (“flow”).
Thanks!
Latin
can you explain that more? Never knew that and it sounds really interesting
Most planes are engineered so that they basically can’t stop flying unless they run into something. They will fly with wings level and a downward angle in the nose such that they maintain speed. Basically if they nose up or slow down too much, the tail pushes the nose back down. The wings are also designed so that the plane doesn’t really want to roll and likes to stay nice and level. Like a ball in a valley. We engineer most planes like this so that they don’t need computer control or even a pilot in order to not catastrophically fall out of the sky. Basically they’re designed to be safe even for the dumbest possible pilot or the worst possible situation or both. Without this engineering, a wing in isolation naturally wants to backflip because the lift is strongest near the leading edge (~1/4 chord) Fighter jets have a different set of requirements. They need to be able to make very quick maneuvers and they need to be extremely fast (aerodynamically efficient ). They also now have sophisticated flight computers. So we engineer fighter planes to be inherently unstable because it allows for much quicker maneuvering and more efficient aerodynamics. In a commercial airline you probably don’t want the plane to be able to backflip with a flick of the yoke in half a second but that’s exactly what you want in a fighter plane. We then have to use those fancy computers to ensure that it stays level unless the pilot wants it to flip or roll and then it’s able to do it on a dime.
thanks buddy :)
Simple, short and accurate. A perfect explanation! :-)
Pedantic footnote: the airplane will not seek level flight; it will seek the attitude/airspeed it is trimmed for. This is why you as a pilot are constantly trimming the aircraft, so that you can take your hands off the controls.
https://youtube.com/shorts/yRJxZ2v_DK8?si=nN0_Eb_bnaO2zPA6
Well shit I'm never riding in one of those again.
Helicopters are aircraft, but assuming OP means aeroplanes, aren't plenty unstable or at least neutral? For example, most modern fighters are deliberately unstable because it enhances their manoeuvrability.
Which is why I said usually. If you compare numbers, military fighter jets are a tiny fraction of the total number of planes worldwide.
Airplanes are inherently stable. That means if you take your hands off of the controls, the plane will return to flat and level flight. This is unlike helicopters, that take constant control inputs to maintain flat and level flight. Flying a helicopter is like standing on a basketball, constant movement is needed to stay on top. An airplane is much easier to deal with in an engine failure, just push nose slightly towards ground and you will glide. With helicopters you need to use your speed falling to rotate the blades, then at the last minute use the momentum of the blades to stop the helicopter falling. A much more difficult maneuver. The other issue is helicopters fly in more challenging missions. Airplanes are usually airport to airport. Helicopters are used for rescuing people in mountains, medivac injured people from random locations, maintenance of power lines, filming etc. The tend to be low to the ground, dangerous locations etc where there isn't much time to deal with an accident.
My favorite description of helicopters is they're 10,000 pieces of machinery constantly trying to rip itself apart.
"The thing is, helicopters are different from planes. An airplane by it's nature wants to fly, and if not interfered with too strongly by unusual events or by a deliberately incompetent pilot, it will fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It is maintained in the air by a variety of forces and controls working in opposition to each other, and if there is any disturbance in this delicate balance the helicopter stops flying; immediately and disastrously. There is no such thing as a gliding helicopter. Helicopters fly by beating the air into submission." My other favorite anecdote was from a friend in the Navy: "Don't ever get into a helicopter that isn't leaking hydraulic fluid, because that means it's out of hydraulic fluid."
My first Chinook ride, I tapped the crew chief on the shoulder and pointed to a leak. He looked at it, then back at me, then yelled to let him know if it stops, cos then we're in trouble.
Aah, the chinook. Like two palm trees fucking a dumpster.
Now I can never unsee.
What kind of leak?
The better question in a Chinook would be what hose ***WASN’T*** leaking.
I meant, what kind of fluid is leaking and where is it leaking to?
Hydraulic fluid, gear oil, jet fuel, coolant - if it’s a liquid that exists on the Chinook then you can guarantee you’ll find a leak of it somewhere. As to where, the answer is everywhere but mostly inside the cockpit and cargo areas. I’m not joking, if you ever get close to one those helicopters are COVERED in stains and residues from all the leaks that constantly occur.
But like... Why?
Because it’s a Chinook. They simply do not exist without any leaks, it’s an impossibility in the same way you never see a buy-here pay-here lot without at least 3 Nissan Altimas.
Realistically, its easier to just have some leaks and have extra fluid than to make everything completely leak proof. Especially considering the likelihood of failure if something doesn't have enough oil, coolant, or hydraulic fluid. It just makes everything more difficult.
Probably, just yet another one constant of our space-time?
So basically, if the plane is a car, the helicopter is a unicycle?
Motorised and with turbo
Motorized might imply that it has some sort of self balancing. More like leaf blower propelled unicycle.
This is my new favorite description
Throw a unicycle at one of [these](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2e/Wiki_Paramotor_by_JeffGoin_At_PEI.jpg/220px-Wiki_Paramotor_by_JeffGoin_At_PEI.jpg) (just the backpack) and you've got yourself a paramotorunicycle
Really they're both more like a bicycle. At speed both handles pretty predictably and doesn't veer off course. A helicopter is remarkably similar to a light aircraft. However helicopters can stop, and fly very slowly - which is much more challenging on a bike.
Those are great!
I was a helicopter mechanic, they always say that planes use the air to fly, helicopters beat the air into submission. Can confirm they break something pretty much every time they fly.
In engineer circles that becomes, 10,000 parts rotating around an oil slick waiting for metal fatigue to set in. Same sentiment, just more technical.
My trainer indicated the helicopters only fly cuz the earth repels them.
Cool breeze.. am I right
Also this means as opposed to OPs assumption, hovering is actually the hardest thing to do in a helicopter.
Hovering is relatively straightforward. Getting to a hover is....less so. Example. Transition from a hover to forward flight. You'd push forward on the cyclic to drop the nose and change the angle of attack of the main rotor. That starts you sliding forward, but also down, because the main rotor is now pulling you forward with part of its energy, instead of making straight lift. So to counter that, you have to add engine power using your collective control. This gets the main rotor spinning faster to generate enough lift to keep you in the air AND moving forward. Of course, more power to the main rotor means the main rotor starts generating more torque that you need to compensate for by changing the speed/ pitch of the tail rotor. You do that with foot pedals. So, just going from a hover to basic forward flight is 3 separate control inputs that all need to be balanced against each other in real time. Both hands and both feet. EDIT- As pointed out, I had my cyclic and collective controls flipped. Thanks, stranger. It's been a day. Fixed
This is a great example
I see how that came to be. But now that computerized stabilisation and controls are pretty standard, be it fighter jets or drones, why isn't a modern helicopter control be more straightforward? I am unsure how much effort it takes, but I would guess it is definitely possible with a relatively simple computer by nowadays standard. That doesn't mean that the pilot shouldn't know how to fly without those, if possible. And systems should be redundant wherever possible anyway.
Those controls are what let the pilot do things like spin in place or make banking turns. There are definitely assists in modern helicopters, but the basic controls remain the same. There isn't really a good way to make things more "straightforward" without removing capabilities at the same time. The extra inputs are needed
Does helicopter have any system to help to transition from hovering to moving and vice versa? Something that automatically adjust tail rotor to match with main rotor.
You have those swapped. Cyclic moves you forward/back. Collective goes up/down
You are correct, it's been a long day. Will fix, thank you
Thanks. A couple of additional questions: What about autorotation in a helicopter? Why doesn't helicopter have like an autopilot that is able to do what it can to maintain level flight based on sensors?
Autorotation is what I was describing. Helicopter autopilots do exist, but as they are more complex than aircraft autopilots they are more expensive. Expect to pay around $100,000 or more after install.
Thank you for the responses. Super helpful!
Newer military helicopters have autopilot-ish systems. A M model black hawk, for example, has a "hover hold" that will generally keep you in a steady hover over a point on the ground if the winds aren't too bad. Same thing with a mode that will attempt to hold your altitude/airspeed
Thanks!
Piloting an aircraft is like driving a complicated car. Piloting a helicopter is like driving a drum set.
This brought on a very hearty laugh. Well said.
Speaking as someone that plays the drums, that makes sense.
> being able to stabilize in the air? The thing about helicopters is that "being able to stabilize" is something the vehicle actively fights against and the pilot is basically constantly herding it away from instantly spinning around in a random axis and slamming into the ground upside down. With a normal plane, unless you have problems with the control surfaces or the wings, it just wants to fly in a straight line. If everything is going well, they are so easy to control (in terms of keeping the plane on course in normal conditions, it can get *quite complex* very fast) that they can be completely automated once in the air. This can also lead to awkward situations, like a plane with a completely dead crew flying most of its planned route and nearly crashing into Athens after it runs out of fuel circling above the city. Or that time recently when a pilot ejected from an F-35 and the plane went on a jaunt for half an hour until it ran out of fuel and crashed in a field. On the other hand, this also means [it is possible for a complete newbie to fly and land(ish) a plane with verbal instructions from a pilot](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AbTDzPUDxqY).
There’s also a video on YouTube with the audio from a guy only on his 3rd flying lesson with no landing experience having to land after his instructor goes unconscious. Relatively speaking, airplanes seem easier for sure.
Both things want to hit the ground. The airplane just prefers taking the scenic route.
Airplanes glide to crash. Helicopters just drop.
Most helicopters can autorotate which basically gets you a pretty steep glide in. Of course, if your main gearbox seizes due to damage (oil leak, mechanical failure, hostile attack), that doesn't happen and you go straight down
Pulling the old, Payne Stewart.
In a plane you're managing your craft's pitch, roll and yaw using a hand control and pedals, which is already a fair bit. (Also throttle, trim, fuel mix and flaps, but you can go a while not touching those.) In a helicopter you have all that (no flaps, I guess), and you can also control the 'collective', which is the pitch of the rotor blades, and you might be controlling the power to the tail rotor. So what you're doing is almost a superset of what a plane pilot's doing. Helicopters are very capable, as you point out, but one price for that is the pilot's doing a lot more work to manage those extra variables.
My (airplane) pilot friend said the same about helicopters: Many people think it's like something hanging from a string, but it's actually like something balanced on a pin - and you use every both arms, hands, feet, and wrists to work controls to keep it upright (and everything is trying to knock it over, including the helicopter itself).
Let’s put it like this: if you want to turn left in a car you turn the wheel left until you’ve turned how much you want to turn, and then straighten the wheel. In an airplane you turn the yoke left for a brief moment and then pull the yoke back until you’ve turned how much you want to turn and then rotate the yoke right for a brief moment to level your wings. In a helicopter you have to apply left pedal to start turning but now you’re also moving sideways so you have to move the cyclic a little to the left to counteract it, but now you’ve got to increase collective to balance that. The simple answer is a helicopter has three main inputs and you have to balance all three at the same time and changing any one requires an adjustment to the other two.
Already enough real good answers up above, but here's a good thought for you: Every now and then there's a real life story or a study involving random people with very little or no flying experience at all suddenly having to try and land an airplane, usually with some kind of outside guidance. In a surprising number of these cases they actually manage to kind of pull it off and survive. Have you *ever* heard of that happening in a helicopter?
Having flown both (but not being a pilot), this is valid. Landing a single engine or small airplane feels relatively comfortable especially on a long runway... and reacting to something you don't like by going around doesn't feel extreme. A helicopter with a light cyclic... man, tough stuff. When you're about to land, your gains go way through the roof. Your apprehension flows through the cyclic. And then you want to yank up the collective to get away from the ground, but the response is so much more than you expect. Then you dump it, and come flying back down. Exciting, but terrifying. Without an IP onboard, and me doing it solo... give me the plane.
The one thing I’m told by helicopter pilots is that you need a very light touch on the controls. An airplane is more forgiving, but you’re going to have a bad time if you ham hand the controls on a helicopter. Think of this the next time you see a movie where the helicopter pilot is slamming the stick in all directions.
Can agree. I've had a very basic flying lesson in a fixed wing and helicopter. The slightest movement on the helicopter cyclic (joystick) had an insane effect compared to the equivalent movement on the fixed wing yoke. Once in the air both were easy to control and steer but damn if I couldn't keep the copter stable in a hover. It was like juggling a spinning plate.
Yeah this always brings a smile. You rapidly go full control deflection in any airplane other than a fighter, you've most likely bent something. You rapidly go full control deflection in a helicopter, you most likely don't have a helicopter anymore. Hovering is a game of millimeters.
Seems like helicopters could really do with less sensitive controls. Is there ever any reason to move the stick as far as it'll go?
I took a few helicopter pilot lessons. This is very accurate. Any tiny movement of my hands turned into a big movement of the helicopter. I decided that unless I get around to getting my carpal tunnel taken care of, helicoptering is not for me.
"If the wings are moving faster than the fuselage, it's probably a helicopter, and therefore unsafe." \- From somewhere in the US military
Helicopters don’t actually exist. They’re a collection of parts flying in close formation, and the slightest errant twitch can send that formation hurtling apart. In all seriousness, helicopters are incredibly twitchy to control, especially at a hover. If you think about moving the cyclic, you’ve overcorrected.
Flying a plane is a lot closer to driving a car. It's moving in a mostly straight line, and it's mostly on you to keep it straight and you should be okay. Of course it's not nearly that simple... planes need speed to stay in the air and must not drop below a certain speed (which will vary with conditions) or it will simply fall out of the sky... and there's no "grip" in the air so holding the controls straight really just means the plane will keep whatever attitude it has now rather than straighten itself out. Still, I think a novice could get a general feel for climbing, descending, turning etc with basic instruction from the guy in the next seat. Flying a helicopter.. you have a lot more overall freedom in all 3 directions, but it's extremely sensitive to the controls. Holding a helicopter hovering steadily is very tricky, a lot more micro-adjustments to hold them. While you're flying forward it's not too hard, but once you want to bring it to a stop and set it down nicely, you may find it becomes a lot more... excitable, and it takes a skilled and practiced hand to keep it from overshooting, start spinning, etc.
To simplify the car analogy . . . A plane is like driving a sedan down major highway with minimal traffic congestion. A helicopter is like driving a Formula 1 race car during a NASCAR race on a 1 mile oval.
Chopper instructor to student pilot on his first lesson: "Get the chopper up some feet and try to hover over the tarmac." After ten minutes: "Well, at least try to stay within the country."
In the way of how it moves through the air. A plane is like driving a boat in 3d space at much higher speeds and making sure it stays on plane. A helicopter is like trying to stand on top of a basketball that’s on one of those moving walkways but again moving in 3 dimensions. Planes cover vast distances quickly, helicopters cover precise distances slowly.
The biggest test of an operator's skill is crisis management. Operating a working machine is the easy part. If your engine breaks down in a car, so what? Just sit by the side of the road for a few hours. But if your engine breaks down in a plane, you're now in a glider that is not built for gliding, and your life is also in danger. And if your engine breaks down in a helicopter, you're pretty much a falling rock. And you need to act quickly to not be a very dead pancake. This is why pilot testing is so much more rigorous than driver testing - they test your ability to deal with engine failures, control surface failures, etc. that would not matter in a car, but would save your life in a plane. It's the same deal with a helicopter - when your engine kicks it, you're a glider on autorotate. Your ability to survive depends on your ability to utilise autorotate, so you're not getting your license if you can't land on autorotate, and even after getting it, your skills check includes autorotate landings. This is not to mention all the different skills and knowledge that are not transferable between the two types of aircraft (ie what all the other redditors said), and that needs to be relearned by a plane pilot flying a helicopter (and vice versa). Source: read too many magazines and blogs about flying
Flight in an airplane means the airplane is continuously succeeding in keeping you alive. Flight in a helicopter means the helicopter is continuously failing to kill you.
Knowing how much skill flying a helicopter takes, longline operation is so impressive. A good pilot can put a hook on a 100 foot rope right in my hand then hover over me until I hook it onto the barrel of poop, then they can smoothly pick it up and fly away with it. The logistics of backcountry outhouses are wild.
Just to point out an error in your phrasing, the term aircraft means any vehicle that floats or flies in the air. Helicopters, blimps, and airplanes are all aircraft. A better way to phrase your question is why are helicopters harder to fly than airplanes.
Having flown both, when flying at a decent speed from one location to another - they are *remarkably* similar. They yaw, pitch, roll in a similar way. The helicopter wasn't some unruly beast I had to fight, it's pretty stable and you're not having to constantly work to balance the craft (contrary to what everyone else says). When hovering, the helicopter was quite different because planes can't (usually) hover. I only spent about 10 minutes hovering, I expect after about half an hour of practice I would have been OK at hovering. In terms of preflight checks, buttons and knobs to push and set. The helicopter was way more complicated than a light aircraft, however it was much simpler than a commercial jet.
I don’t necessarily think it’s more difficult. Learning to fly a helicopter certainly is more difficult to do certain things but they can be learnt relatively quickly then after a while flying becomes second nature. If professional pilots were finding it *difficult* to fly everyday then we probably shouldn’t be flying helicopters at all. It’s simply a different skill set. Helicopters are evolving too. A lot of replies have stated that helicopters are inherently unstable. Which sure that’s mostly true but modern helicopter afcs is very good! Even helicopters with crappy old afcs have trim systems so you can in fact trim your helicopter and let go of the controls and not crash immediately.
You, sir, have an extreme form of Dunning Kruger effect. Rotary wings are significantly more complex to pilot than fixed wings.
No not complex at all. Step into an EC135 or 145 and these newer helis are basic as!
And again, go read my reply, then check what a Dunning Krueger effect is. Rotary wing aircraft are more complex, and thus more difficult to contrrol, than fixed wing aircraft.
Once you learn the concepts they’re not that complicated. Stop saying dunning Krueger when you don’t know who you’re talking to 🤦🏼♂️
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A helicopter does not stabilize in air, a plane will keep its speed to the right, if tilted to the right, a helicopter will accelerate to the right, and potentially tilt more. A heli is hard to pilot, but an airliner also is. There are systems for easing the work of the pilot, but it's not easy.
I think there is a lot more input needed to keep a helicopter stable during flight than a fixed wing aircraft. A lot more moving parts creating forces that need to be balanced.
An airplane wants to fly, and, barring catastrophic structural failure, will fly stably on its own in the absence of a pilot. A helicopter wants to kill you. Less, glibly, a helicopter is like a spinning top which the pilot is coaxing to go a specific direction without unbalancing said top and causing it to spin out. That’s much harder than flying a plane.
A helicopter doesn’t want to kill you. It’s just very afraid of heights and wants to be back on the ground as quickly as possible at all costs.
An airplane goes forward by increasing throttle. A helicopter goes forward by increasing throttle, changing rotor angle, tilting forward, and adjusting the tail rotor throttle. Helicopters are more maneuverable than a plane, but have many more controls to do that, and they all have to be balanced or you crash.
The best concept I had was when I begin to understand how a swash plate works and then you keep in mind that any action is 90° out from it's reaction
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What people aren’t mentioning is that when you fly an airplane and make an adjustment, it tends to affect something else. If you point the nose up a little higher, you have to add throttle to keep from slowing down. If you tilt the wings, you have to pull up a little too in order to not lose altitude. With a helicopter, one adjustment affects everything else and those affect everything else again. Suppose you are starting from a perfect hover. If you want to go just go straight up, you increase the collective, which increases torque which turns the helicopter, so you have to adjust the rear propeller, which is pushing air sideways, so now you have to compensate for that, too, and so on. Fail to compensate and you fill fall out of the sky.
One of the most terrifying things about a helicopter is [this diagram](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Hvcurve-en.png). When your engine fails in a helicopter, you start falling. While you're falling, if you angle the helicopter *just* right, you can make air flow through the rotor blades and slow your descent. Do that enough, and you can softly land on the ground rather than completely being smashed to bits. Angling the helicopter just right requires a bunch of forward momentum as well as downwards. See that red segment on the left? That represents "the forward momentum you have now plus the forward momentum you can gain on the way down isn't enough to stop your downwards momentum". Close to the ground, you need less forward momentum because you will pick up less downwards momentum. Further up, you can gain a bunch of forward momentum on the way down, so you need less now. In the middle? Well, you're in trouble. The red segment on the bottom right represents "you don't have enough time to react to stuff on the ground if something unexpected happens". You almost always start in the bottom left, so taking off requires this somewhat perilous trajectory - gain a little height, pick up a bunch of speed, maintain your speed and move upwards as much as you can. Yes, a helicopter doesn't need a long runway, but it *does* need a clear space for a safe takeoff. You can head into the red region, but there's an inherent risk if your engine fails.
A plane flys because of physics. It *wants* to fly. A helicopter does not want to fly. It flies despite physics.
the controls are necessarily a nightmare and there are a million little things that can catch you off-guard. take the simplest thing possible, flying straight forward. on an airplane this is easy. depending on the plane, it may even be built to naturally enter and stay in level flight without being controlled. (if you've ever noticed airplanes with a slight V shape to their wings, it helps them not roll) with a helicopter, if the rotor is moving anticlockwise, flying forward means the rotor blades on the right side of your aircraft are generating more lift than the blades on the left side, because the blades are rotating "into the wind" on the right side. a gust of wind can change the lift of an airplane. a gust of wind will change the lift on every part of every blade of a helicopter by a different amount.
Airplane has fixed wings. Helicopter's wings are the big as blade rotating above the pilot. I am kind of a helicopter pilot myself albeit a tiny one (flew a Kyosho helicopter before)
Helicopter pilots can stop if it all gets a bit too much for them. Real pilots have to be ahead of the aircraft all the time.
May i recommend a video from smarter every day about the fundamentals of a helicopter controls. He explains everything very thoroughly there, including how controls of one axis affect the others. Very interesting
A helicopter is like trying to carry a full load of groceries without a bag up an icy staircase without dropping the pickles. Everything is trying to throw you off balance. It takes active effort not to wipe out. An airplane is more like trying to paddle a canoe down a river, but there is a waterfall if you go down too far. Most of the ride is a smooth glide. The trickiest part is the entry and the exit.
its like riding a bike vs riding a one-wheel its "hard" to start and stop with a bike, but once you go its pretty easy to stay in line with a one-wheel you need to concentrate all the way to not lose balance, keep speed ect.
Nothing in nature looks like a helicopter, even dragonflies. It’s completely man made concept of flying. Airplanes use a simplified approach that birds use.