Word: rotor
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...engine now has the fierce beauty of power. Its massive rotor, the principal moving part, is spinning some 13,000 times per minute (though with only the faintest vibration). The fire raging in its heart would heat 1,000 five-room houses in zero weather (though much of the engine's exterior is cool). From the air intake in its snout, invisible hooks reach out; their suction will clasp a man who comes too close and break his body. The blast roaring out the tail will knock a man down at 150 ft. The reaction of the speeding...
...named because, in each of the 10-lb. power units at the tips of its two rotor blades, air rams through one end fast enough to do away with the need for the mechanical air compressor of the ordinary jet engine...
...Lake Union in Seattle, killing the pilot and a Civil Aeronautics Administration man. Two days later, Coast Guard Pilot David Gershowitz was showing off his Sikorsky HO51 before 250 high-school kids at Floyd Bennett Field, New York, when he swooped too low, pulled up too quickly. The tail rotor hit the ground and broke off. The helicopter belly-crashed in orange flames as Pilot Gershowitz rolled to safety...
...high-speed take-offs and landings which are the cause of many airplane accidents. But they have special hazards and problems of their own. There are four factors (thrust, weight, drag and lift) which must be kept in proper balance. A helicopter has two sticks controlling the main rotor. There are also the throttle and rudder pedals. All these must be managed with perfect coordination. A helicopter cannot be stalled like an airplane, but if the power is cut too much, the rotor blades can be stalled-with the same results...
...helicopter can "throw" a rotor blade, with immediately disastrous results. (This may have been what happened at Seattle and Providence.) The small tail rotor can and sometimes does come off, or get damaged. Engine failure by itself is not too serious, since a helicopter with a dead rotor acts like an autogiro and windmills down to earth...