Helicopter designers take note

[mickjoebill]

If McClaren built helicopters....

Mclaren's new road car has been unvieled, they hope to make 800 per year
at £150k each. A construction feature to note is that it is the first road car to have a carbon fiber tub acting as a chassis and a safety cell.
There is a picture of the tub here.
BBC NEWS | Business | McLaren road car marks expansion (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8238430.stm?ls)

Surely it is feasible to design a helicopter cockpit around a carbon fiber safety cell? In particular so that it has some chance of breaking and tumbling away from the fuel tank engine and gearbox in a prang?


And, as the song goes , "he aint heavy...."


Mickjoebill

[widgeon]

I would of thought that CF is less safe , metals "crumple" to absorb some of the shock of impact. Carbon fibre breaks when put under stress. A cf Module is more likely to keep it's shape after impact and I guess if the occupant is completly surrounded by air bags it would be safer. Cars generally do not have any significant vertical force in accidents ( so fwd and side air bags help) , most helicopter accidents involve significant vertical force so unless you can make air bags below the pilot keeping the cockpit intact will not reduce severity of the injuries.

[Flyt3est]

Widgeon

I'd sort of play devils advocate here and say that the tub in an F1 car is designed to sustain impacts at any angle and speeds up to and including a couple of hundred miles per hour.. therefore it's not unreasonable to assume you could expand this into a two seat road car..

However

Protecting a driver in a small confined space is a whole different ball game to protecting pax and crew inside a helicopter cabin.

Vertical loads aside, I don't think it would be a viable option.

[glennahall]

An airframe that comes to mind is the classic H500 series (still with us today.)

I've seen those things take some BRUTAL punishment and after everything breaks off and the thing rolls around for a while, the passengers stagger out shaken and stirred but alive and (sort of) walking.

Then there's the 206's. They absorb so much impact that they turn into a double stack of pancakes with human butter in the middle.

Very best regards...

(Edited for silly typo)

[mickjoebill]

metals "crumple" to absorb some of the shock of impact.

There are a few tricks that F1 have that are surprising in their effectiveness.
They fill voids with tiny balls around 2mm in diameter made of a material that when crushed turns to a fine dust. The drivers tub is made of carbon fiber and aluminium ( or a synthetic) honeycomb that prevents it shattering.

The weight of a F1 nose cone is unbelievable at around just 3kg.
Yet it can help de-accelerate the 750kgs mass of a F1 car so a driver can walk away from a head on 100mph impact.


These principles when applied at design stage would reduce typical heli de-accelarations could have a dramatic impact on survivability.

But my general contention is for the cell to be able to break and tumble away from the load bearing structure of the craft, leaving fuel tank and the heavy bits behind. Dodging the rotor blades is the tricky bit!
Mickjoebill

[widgeon]

Well I just watched Golden Eye and It seems Eurocopter already have this technology on the Tiger :) ( one wonders how much they paid the Ecoli brothers for the plug ).

[ramen noodles]

The impact absorption of a modern helicopter is several times that of the McClaren that you highlight. Any helo designed to the latest standard (B429, AW139 and S92 come immediately to mind) can withstand about 18 g's, and must have seats that are twice as strong. I think these civil machines could rival the military machines that the US builds (most non-US military helos are no stronger than older civil machines).

Most of the civil helos we fly are designed and built to old standards and only about 1/4 the crash safety standard of the newest designs, however.