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In the Military, it's a great job! (We're the only branch of the service that sends the Officers out "in harms way"HA)

Seriously though, if you want to be an aircraft mechanic, you should seriously consider joining the military, I joined the Air Force in 1965 & later spent 23 years in Germany working for NATO on the AWACS aeroplanes, I don't regret a moment of it.

If you want a real challenge, join the Navy, those guys do the same job as I did, but under much more difficult circumstances.

In civilian life it's unfortunately about getting the most out of you for the least amount of pay & benefits.

But if you love aeroplanes (engines in my case) Go for it!

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Helicopters can land on a normal runway although they don't always have to touch the ground, a helipad is specifically designed for a helicopter.

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HELICOPTER

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Corcoranophobia

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The UH-60 'Black Hawk' Helicopter was derived from the original Sikorsky S-70 model, and put into service with with the US Army beginning in 1979. It was purchased by the Army as an eventual replacement for the UH-1 'Iroquois', nicknamed 'Huey'. The UH-60 Black Hawks carried greater loads, including more troops, and had greater range. There a great many variants of the Sikorsky S-70 / UH-60, including variants used by the military forces of many nations. There are also US Navy variants of the S-70/UH-60 called the SH-60 'Seahawk'. An army variant of the original UH-60 is an MH-60 'stealth helicopter' version, modified to reduce radar signature. Two of these were used in the special operation by US Navy Seals to get Osama bin Laden. As for the Pave Hawk, this was another variant, the HH-60. This variant was fitted with various special electronic features to aid in search and rescue missions, as well as insertion and extraction of special operations personnel.

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Firstly, read the instructions. You must sync the controller to the helicopter every time you turn off both controller and helicopter at the same time. Basically, you have to sync every time you fly.

The following is from the experience I had with the same helicopter the first day I opened the box that may also be a solution to your problem. I read the manual and sync'd the helicopter and controller as instructed. The LED in the helicopter stopped flashing signifying that sync has been completed. I increased the throttle and nothing happened. I repeated the sync and still nothing. I was getting increasingly frustrated as I do not like being stumped. I had planned on returning the helicopter the next day but made one last attempt to fly it. I repeated the exact same sync procedure I had done many times prior and this time it worked. I stopped and looked around and noticed that, because it was later in the night, I only had a hallway light on and not my kitchen and living room lights.

Moral of the story, check your lighting. I was using a granite counter top directly under bright florescent lights bars. I am guessing this interfered with the IR controller therefor functionality of the helicopter.

I suggest trying everything again under indirect light and a non reflective surface if possible. Good luck and I hope you get it working because it is a blast.

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around 2500 pounds per hour.

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As big as necessary to be visible form a typical approach altitude. Normally about the size of the helicopter(s) expected there is enough.

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It is possible to use an automobile engine to power a helicopter, but the thing better be light (have an aluminum block and heads) and have a high horsepower to weight ratio. But it can't be a hot rod engine either. It absolutely must be set up to run extremely reliably or you'll be autorotating down every week. A light plane or gyro-copter may be easier to build from scratch, but you may have figured that out already.

The Lycoming engines (O-235, O-290, O-320, O-360,...) used in light aircraft have been adapted for use in a number of home brew or kit rotorcraft. A lot of two-seater helicopters are built using them. But they cost. A more modest power plant can be used to power up a single-seater. You can pay $3K to $4K just for a Lycoming core (the whole engine, but outside its hours and needing to be rebuilt).

Are you going to design the thing and build it from scratch? Or use a plan to construct it? Plans aren't free, but they have a singular advantage - they have been proven, have been engineered to work. Plus, critical parts can be purchased instead of built (machined). If you plan to fly this thing, what's your life worth?

Have you looked at the Adams-Wilson Choppy plans? (The A/W-95 is the current run, if memory serves.) They use about the smallest airframe and a modest power plant to lift one person (about 250 pounds) clear of the ground. These have been built and flown so they're relatively safe. The whole thing is doable at home. (Which is why it was designed.) Plans cost about a hundred bucks.

There are mini helicopters and gyrocopters that have motorcycle engines adapted for use to power them up. Hit the www and check it out. If you're not already surfing the net for info, you should be. What you waitin' on?

There are going to be severe limits on what you can do unless you have a machine shop. The swash plate and pitch linkage is not something that can be "welded up" from scrap. It has to be machined. The main rotor hub must be adequate. And what about the tail rotor drive mechanism? You lose a tail rotor and you won't be autorotating the vehicle in. (Your loss of control will yield a high probably of serious injury or death, and probably the latter.)

And if you haven't looked into FAA regs regarding home builts, you need to. These aren't local cops; they're Feds, and they'll kick your butt for fooling around with uncleared (uncertified) aircraft. Any flying machine can fall onto a citizen or a house or other structure. It can be much worse than a car crash. You don't want to be crashing or even autorotating into someone's back yard and a kid's birthday party there, do you? A flying machine puts people at risk like no vehicle can. You been warned, ait?

Links are provided to get you started and give you some things to think about. And there is always Wikianswers for other questions.

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The rotors provide lift to keep them up.

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It should take about 9-14 minutes to travel 100 miles by helicopter.

Goodluck!

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Do you want new, used, turbine, piston, one or two engines...there are a LOT of variables in play here.

For instance, you can buy a new Schweizer 300 for about $250,000. It looks like a smaller version of the helicopters they used in MASH. It's good for observation (there's a very popular police version of it), flight training, commuting and having fun in.

If you've got around $3 million, try a Bell JetRanger. It's the most popular turbine helicopter. Most news helicopters are JetRangers.

For $6 million and up, the Sikorsky S-76 is excellent.

You can also buy very good helicopters from Russia like Mi-171 or used Mi-2.

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The Bell-Boeing V-22 Osprey, Harrier, F-35, anything with VTOL.

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PAVE is a U.S. Air Force program name relating to electronic systems. Some state that it is just a codename, rather than an acronym. Others point to the definition of PAVE in some military glossaries as "Precision Avionics Vectoring Equipment" or "Precision Acquisition Vehicle Entry".

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hel-i-cop-ter

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if the engine fails a good pilot can 'auto rotate' using the dead rotor to lower the helicopter

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Bell designed and built the Huey. The term "Huey" came from using the words/letters UH all the time in Vietnam...the UH-1 Iroquois (UH=Utility Helicopter); all US Army choppers minus the Cobra are (were) named after American Indian tribes: Blackhawk, Iroquois, Apache, Cayuse, Kiowa, Chinook, Shawnee, Mohawk (an airplane, fixed wing), Sioux, etc.

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The Abydos Helicopter is a hieroglyph that looks as though it is a helicopter. Egyptologists maintain that this has been caused by a change to an original hieroglyph when the pharaoh Ramses ll ascended the throne. See http://www.kch42.dial.pipex.com/egypttour_abydos.htm

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Yes, smaller helicopters such as an R-22 or B206 can be placed on a truck and moved with out removing the rotor blades. Generally speaking the blades are removed to protect them and to make lifting the helicopter by crane a much eaiser task.

I have personally witnessed a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter not only transported on a flatbed trailer with rotor attached, but also watched them unload it by simply flying it off the trailer.

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A helicopter is able to fly because of the lifting effect of its main rotor.

The rotor blades of a helicopter act in the same manner as the wings of a plane, creating lift by forcing air above and below a curved airfoil. The air moves faster over the top of the blade, reducing the pressure there. The air below pushes upward with greater pressure, lifting the rotor and the attached frame and cabin. At the same time, the blades can be angled in any direction, allowing it to move in any direction by using the blades like the propellers on an airplane. Jet helicopters also generate some forward speed from their turbine exhaust.

The main rotor is the set of blades on the top of the craft, driven by the engine (piston, jet turbine, etc.). By turning the blades, which are airfoils and like a narrow "wing" in shape, we move them through the air. And by "tipping" the leading edge of the blade up (increasing the pitch) as it moves, the blade will have a positive angle of attack. It will bite into the air and force that air down. This forces the blades up, and the rotor will provide lift. Lift causes the craft to defy gravity.

The torque (rotational motion) of a single rotor blade will have to be offset, and the tail rotor does this. Additionally, the tail rotor (or air turbine in the NOTAR helicopter) will also allow the craft to be turned and "pointed" in another direction. The pedals control the tail rotor or air turbine. By pushing the stick to the side (and adding a bit more pitch with the cyclic), the blades can be controlled to allow a bit more lift on one side to tip or bank the chopper and turn it. (A bit more pitch is added to offset the slight loss of lift.) The pedals will also be used in conjunction with the stick. By pushing the stick left, the blades will have a bit more pitch as they come around on the right side and a bit less as they come around on the left side. This will bank and turn the helicopter.

Pushing the stick forward causes more pitch to the blades as they come around the back of the circle they make around the craft. This lifts the back of the craft. And it will make for a bit less pitch in the front for a bit less lift in front. This tips the craft forward. Often when we see a helicopter take off, it rises a bit, tips forward (now that the rotors will clear the ground), and accelerates forward as it continues to rise. The pilot has pulled up on the collective (to increase the pitch of the main rotor blades). That provided lift. He also has to push forward on the cyclic to tip the helicopter forward to begin to gather forward airspeed.

(for more information see the related links below)

A helicopter can take off and land vertically (straight up and down). It can fly in any direction, even sideways and backwards. It can also hover or hang in the air above a given place.

A helicopter gets its power from rotors or blades. When its rotors are spinning, a helicopter doesn't look much like an airplane. But the rotor blades have an airfoil shape like the wings of an airplane. So as the rotors turn, air flows more quickly over the tops of the blades than it does below. This creates enough lift for flight.

Additionally, helicopters avoid areas close to storms. The reason is that the helicopter requires a careful balance of the air supporting it. Downdrafts or turbulent winds can drastically affect control of the helicopter.

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