Helicopters in Avatar film - thoughts?

[Tickle]

I watched Avatar on the weekend and it featured futuristic helicopters and other VTOL aircraft. The helicopters were like tilt rotors except that the blades were ducted. As with Hollywood tradition, most of the time they sounded like Hueys.

But they were great looking machines that came in three different sizes, a cross between an Apache and an Osprey, one with a wider cabin a la EC-130 and a larger 4-rotor cargo / assault version. They also had V tails.

I was wondering if you'd like to discuss their designs. As I understand it, the ducted rotors are nowhere efficient as an unducted rotor system. But if the ducts / rotors were large enough, would it work?

Andrew.

[Kulwin Park]

Imagination coming to life - making us think about different concepts - BRING IT ON!!!! :ok:

The ducted fans would work if the speed was there, and no vorticy loss. I've worked with Ducted Fan aircraft before - they work well. The British used them for Police Patrol Survelance Aircraft.

V-Tail has worked well too with the Beechcraft Bonanza Aircraft, and starting to come back in on new design aircraft. I think the new Cirrus fixed wing Jet, or the new Eclipse Jet now has V-Tail as concept. :8

My view - choppers were really cool in Avatar! :D

[Ian Corrigible]

Previous [real world] projects of relevance/interest include...

Doak VZ-4/Model 16 (http://www.aero-web.org/specs/doak/vz-4.htm)
Nord 500 (http://www.aviastar.org/helicopters_eng/nord-500.php)
Bell X-22A (http://www.aero-web.org/specs/bell/x-22a.htm)

I/C

[Arm out the window]

Using Huey noise isn't stupid on the part of film-makers, it's smart - it's the coolest helicopter noise known to man...

[skadi]

Using Huey noise isn't stupid on the part of film-makers, it's smart - it's the coolest helicopter noise known to man...

I agree, and ist much more better than using the sound of a small piston engine and showing a S61 or so.....
Or a decaying NR for landing....:ugh:

skadi

[lelebebbel]

i found the choppers pretty cool, too.

Just wondering how a design like that (assuming no cyclic pitch control on the rotors) would cope with fore/aft centre of gravity changes though!

[RVDT]

Hey, its the movies.....................

Build whatever you want and just change the atmosphere, gravity, and magnetic fields as required, to suit, so it works. :cool:

[Nige321]

Here you go:

Gress Aerospace (http://www.gressaero.com/)

Nige

[Rigga]

Nil autorotative properties.........end of concept.


The one with the bird that croaked in it did look nice though! (as did she)

[Twiddle]

...croaked.....

Goddam, ruined it for me now, I bet you read the F1 results and football scores to your mates as well :{

[g-mady]

http://i40.tinypic.com/w1bmti.jpg

These look like a very viable design to me...
4 sets of rotors each in a shrouded nacelle. Counter rotating, no need for a tail rotor, all engine power going to lift.

Any reasons why we haven't seen this sort of thing in reality? Almost a 4 rotor kmax???

MADY

[helimutt]

When I watched the movie, I saw these helicopter type things and thought oh, here we go, bet they don't even look like they'd fly, but to be honest, I was impressed as even when they come in to land, you see changing thrust direction and were nearly even believable.

Mind you, I did fancy the Avatar type bird too! ;)

[g-mady]

must have had a good aviation expert for the film...
Michelle Rodriguez even goes for a full and free movement check of the controls whilst being shot at!!! :ok:

[Ascend Charlie]

You see how fast those things swivelled?

Think about: inertia of blades, precession, bearings required to fight such precession, hydraulic actuators needed to fight such precession, hydraulic pumps to move large amount of fluid in short swivelly time.

The shrouds around the blades were darned thick, would interfere somewhat with angled airflow.

But what the heck, it was a reasonable film.:8