https://www.peepultree.world/livehistoryindia/story/mmi-perspectives/chetak-helicopter-flying-elephant
Here’s something we bet you didn’t think was possible – an elephant that could fly and dance in the sky. In the 1970s, the Indian Air Force discovered a creative way to showcase its Chetak helicopter. See for yourself.
............your entire existence on Lemmy has been waiting for this moment. And I got to see it.
Neat.
It's a helicopter, it's not like it glides nicely through the air anyways; it beats the air into submission
Helicopters are famously safe to fly and operate with random non functional bits attached.
Is that dangerous? I was under the impression helicopters were designed with specific balance in mind
Only if you are pushing boundaries of the performance of the helicopter. Yes, they are designed with a specific balance in mind, but that balance is an envelope not a single number. They need to have capability to add people as well as have those people move around in flight. Some are designed to carry payloads/cargo, too, which can be variable in weight and shape. Have you ever seen a rescue helicopter flying with a gurney dangling by a line, swinging in the wind with a patient strapped to it? Same thing.
flying with a gurney
Military helicopters can fly with all sorts of stuff slung under them. It's how we got our radar around sometimes when I was in the army.
I fucking love the picture of the bird flying the boat while the dude slides down the line.
I believe that's one of the SEAL teams actually.
Really? Dammit!
I had a whole animal based joke playing out with bird fish seal, but I couldn't find an animal term for an army person. I thought about saying seal but couldn't tell what kind of military person it was sliding down the line.
I used to fly on the company helicopter pretty regularly. It would go around to the different sites in the broader area, picking up and dropping off. One time, we stopped at a site and a very, very large man got in and sat in back on one side. He was about as heavy as you can imagine a person being and still walking around on his own power. The pilot went straight up from the pad a couple hundred feet, played with settings on the stick, dropped maybe twenty feet, played some more, up and down a couple more times, then flew away like normal. I'd never seen them do that before or after. I assume he must have been getting the settings right for the unusually unbalanced load.
My coworker who was on that flight was really anxious about it. I was pretty confident that it was just a matter of balancing the load.
In those days I was getting to take the helicopter for a meeting with every other week, and it was always the highlight of the week. Those things are just so damned fun. They can clearly haul a lot more weight than a cab full of people.
I‘m not a pilot but i‘m assuming for slow manouvers this wouldn‘t be too much of a problem? I‘m thinking if you go over a certain speed there are also huge aerodynamic consequences.
Also, military helicopter pilots are very highly trained and can probably handle a helicopter with a change in weight distribution just fine in those slow maneuver situations.
It would confuse the hell out of drug users.
"Did I just see an elephant fly by? Holy shit! Either Dumbo is based on a real story, or that acid I took 2 weeks ago is STILL working!"
