When 1 helicopter appeared. Who created the helicopter? Successes in the field of helicopter engineering

The first sketch of a helicopter with a brief description was made in 1489 by Leonardo da Vinci. His helicopter was propelled by muscle power. It is not known whether Leonardo tested his apparatus, since there are no documents left to testify to this. Scientists have long believed that an aircraft cannot be propelled by muscular force. But not so long ago such a helicopter was built. He was able to take off and fly.

Three hundred years after Leonardo M.V. Lomonosov built the first helicopter model. It consisted of a fuselage and two propellers rotating in different directions. This model was designed to lift thermometers in order to measure the air temperature in the upper atmosphere. The clock spring served as the engine.

In 1784, the French inventors Lonnoy and Bienvenue used the elastic force of a compressed bow in their model of a helicopter. The weight of their toy model was about 80 g.

In the 90s of the XIX century. N.E. began to create a helicopter. Zhukovsky with his students. The scientist believed that the helicopter will always have the advantage of safe ascent and descent.

And in 1907, a helicopter appeared that was able to get off the ground. It was designed by the French brothers L. and J. Breguet, together with Professor C. Richet.

Russian inventor I.I. Sikorsky in 1901, as a child, built a model of his first helicopter with an engine on an elastic band. Later, he created a large model with two propellers that took to the air and flew a few meters above the ground.

Even at the end of the XIX century. several helicopter layouts were proposed: single-rotor, coaxial, transverse and longitudinal propeller layout.

The disadvantage of the single-screw scheme was the reactive moment that occurs when the screw rotates. He made not so much the screw itself rotate as the helicopter gondola. To compensate for it, it was proposed to install tail screws or use a twin-screw coaxial scheme. To ensure the translational movement of the helicopter, it was proposed to use propellers or tilt the axis of the rotating propeller. There were also proposals to use flapping wings, paddle wheels, land tugs and a sail.

A special role in the history of the world helicopter industry is occupied by the work in 1908-1914. student of the Moscow Technical School B.N. Yuriev. He led a group of students, members of the commission on helicopters at the MTU Aeronautical Circle. In 1911, Yuriev developed a project for a single-rotor helicopter with a tail rotor. In this project, Yuryev was able to solve the problem of balancing the reactive moment acting on the gondola. To do this, he used a tail rotor mounted on the tail of the helicopter and driven by a transmission from the engine. Since the force generated by the tail rotor had a large arm relative to the center of gravity of the helicopter, its action balanced the reaction moment. To turn the helicopter, Yuryev suggested making the pitch of the tail rotor blades variable. With an increase in the thrust of this screw, it was possible to overcome the reactive moment of the main screw and turn the car in the right direction.

To ensure the controllability of the helicopter relative to the longitudinal and transverse axes, it was possible to put one propeller on the side and front of the machine. The side screw would control the roll of the helicopter, and the front one would regulate the flight altitude of the apparatus. However, such a scheme was very complex and made the helicopter unstable. Therefore, Yuryev designed the main rotor in such a way that he independently created both moments necessary to control the helicopter. To this end, the inventor created a swashplate. The principle of its operation was that flight control was carried out by changing the angle of inclination of the blades to the plane of rotation, which was achieved by the mobility of the blades relative to their longitudinal axes. If the blade passed through different sections of the described circle with different installation angles, then this led to an increase or decrease in thrust in these sections. As a result, the rotor turned in the appropriate direction.

The necessary installation of the blades was provided by the machine. It consisted of two rings connected by a rigid sliding connection and suspended on a cardan on a fixed support. The inner, movable, ring was connected by rods with levers that turned the blades, and rotated along with the propeller shaft. The outer, fixed ring was connected to the longitudinal and transverse control rods. It transmitted the force from these rods to the movable ring, while changing the angle of inclination of the latter. Tilting, the movable ring caused a change in the angles of installation of the blades relative to the longitudinal axis and the appearance of a horizontal component of the main rotor thrust. This component imparted translational motion to the helicopter and tilted it in the direction of motion. To turn, it was necessary to direct the outer ring in the right direction.

For the vertical movement of the helicopter served as a control system for the overall pitch of the propeller. It was achieved by simultaneously increasing or decreasing the installation angles of all rotor blades by raising or lowering the sliding cardan of the swashplate. At the same time, the engine thrust was increased or decreased.

The rapid development of aircraft construction led to the fact that the designers for a while left the helicopter unattended. Only in 1923, the Spaniard Pescara created a helicopter that hovered in the air for ten minutes at a height of three meters and flew a total of 300 m.

In 1924, the Frenchman Emishen built a helicopter that rose and flew at a height of one and a half meters, about 120 m. Emishen himself controlled it. This machine was able to hover in the air, turn around on the spot and fly in reverse.

I. Sikorsky managed to realize his childhood dream. In 1919, he emigrated to the United States, where he created his own company, Sikorsky. In 1939, the inventor created his first helicopter S-46. He abandoned the full calculations of the machine and made changes right during the tests. The helicopter had a simple design: the fuselage was a steel pipe truss, the pilot's seat was open and was located in front of the 65 hp engine. With. The rotation was transmitted by means of a belt drive to a gearbox driving a three-bladed main rotor. The steering single-bladed propeller was mounted in the tail on a box-shaped beam.

Tests showed the imperfection of the design. Due to incorrect calculation, the swashplate did not work well. This led to poor controllability of the helicopter. At one test, he capsized and crashed. After that, Sikorsky applied a scheme with three tail rotors. This machine was well controlled and in May 1940 Sikorsky showed it to the pilots. The helicopter moved freely in different directions, hovered motionless and turned around in place, but did not fly forward. After identifying and eliminating the shortcoming, the flight performance of the machine improved significantly. For two years, Sikorsky changed the design using various control systems. This helped him in the creation of new helicopters.

After the war in the USSR, the design bureaus of M.L. Mil and N.S. Kamov. In the first one, single-rotor helicopters were developed, in the second - helicopters operating according to a twin-rotor coaxial scheme. In addition to them, A.S. Yakovlev. The first Soviet production helicopter was the Mi-1, the production of which began in 1951.

Modern helicopters are equipped with piston and jet engines. For a short-term increase in power during takeoff and landing of a helicopter, a rocket engine can be used. Some helicopters used aircraft single-shaft turboprop engines and twin-shaft turboprop engines with a free turbine. It is also possible jet drive of the main rotor, in which the circumferential force is created by autonomous jet engines located on the main rotor blades, or by the outflow of gas from the nozzle holes located at the ends of the blades.

Helicopters are used in the armed forces for the transport of troops and cargo, fire support for ground forces, reconnaissance, search and destruction of submarines. In the national economy, helicopters are used to transport passengers, cargo, destroy crop pests, fertilize fields, and perform assembly work.

The mass use of helicopters became possible due to the fact that two main problems were solved - the necessary level of flight safety was achieved and rotorcraft with high flight characteristics and technical and economic indicators were created.

Flight tests and research are the most important final stage in the development of helicopters and their introduction into mass production and operation. Domestic and foreign experience in helicopter construction shows that flight tests and research make it possible to acquire such information that cannot be obtained by other methods.

Based on the results of flight tests, scientifically substantiated and reliably tested in flight methodological guidelines are developed, which allow obtaining reliable and comparable data to determine all flight performance characteristics, develop recommendations for piloting, flight mode restrictions in various conditions. Flight research also makes it possible to obtain unique recommendations for solving a number of scientific and technical problems at the stage of helicopter design.

The expansion of the range of problems solved in a full-scale experiment leads to the fact that the complexity of flight tests, and, consequently, the timing of their implementation is steadily increasing. In terms of cost and time of work, flight tests have become comparable with other stages of the general process of theoretical and experimental development, design of an experimental helicopter.

A significant place in flight tests is occupied by the determination of the aerodynamic and flight characteristics of helicopters, for which it is necessary to solve the following tasks:

to identify from the whole set the necessary minimum of flight characteristics, which allow to fully determine the transport capabilities of the helicopter, taking into account flight safety;

determine the rational methods of piloting, in which the best flight characteristics are realized;

obtain, with a limited scope of tests, flight characteristics in the expected operating conditions;

determine the indicators of fuel and transport efficiency of the helicopter and the best flight modes for these indicators.

In addition, since the refinement of a helicopter is an integral part of flight tests, the problem arises of a reliable quantitative assessment of the effectiveness of various design measures aimed at improving the flight characteristics of a helicopter.

The complexity of solving these problems lies in the fact that flight characteristics depend on a large number of atmospheric and operational factors, and therefore their determination under random conditions of a full-scale experiment by simply varying these factors is practically impossible, since this would require huge expenditures of flight time.

Extensive experience in aircraft flight tests has shown that methods for determining their flight characteristics in flight must be developed taking into account the characteristics of the power plant.

Currently, helicopters with gas turbine, so-called turboshaft engines, are most widely used.

Methods based on the theory of similarity of flight regimes proved to be very effective in flight tests of aircraft with gas turbine engines. Knowledge of the generalized flight characteristics also makes it possible to significantly simplify the methods for finding the most advantageous flight regimes.

Aircraft test methods could not be directly applied to flight tests of helicopters, since due to fundamental differences in the aerodynamics and power plants of these two types of aircraft, the criteria for similarity of flight modes are also different. However, the methodological approaches used to create a set of practical methods for determining in-flight flight characteristics of aircraft with gas turbine engines proved to be very useful in developing methods for flight testing of helicopters with turboshaft engines. helicopter piloting screw

An important place in the flight tests of helicopters is occupied by the issues of determining their takeoff and landing characteristics (TLC). Along with determining the required takeoff and landing distances in various operating conditions, it is also very important to find rational piloting methods that provide the best performance.

During flight tests, considerable attention is paid to the features of helicopter flight modes in case of engine failure. The piloting methods being developed at the same time make it possible to ensure a safe landing of the helicopter during operation in autorotation modes and with a partial loss of available power. The results of flight research make it possible to correctly take into account the flight altitude and speed limitations necessary for safety, associated with the nature of changes in aerodynamics at low speeds, near the ground and with the presence of the so-called "vortex ring" regime. As a result of such studies, the foundations were laid for the correct choice of the optimal take-off and landing trajectories, which has become especially relevant in connection with the development and implementation of helicopter engineering into practice.

For the first time, a helicopter prototype appeared in China, around the 400s of our century. It was a stick with a small propeller. In order for the structure to fly, it was necessary to hold a stick in the palms of your hands and twist it slightly. As a result, the toy soared into the air, but did not last long, quickly fell.

Later, in 1475, the famous artist from Italy, Leonardo da Vinci, drew a drawing that was associated with the idea of ​​\u200b\u200bcreating a helicopter. The picture depicted the design of the apparatus, capable of soaring up in a vertical position with the help of a propeller, which began to work thanks to a person, his muscle strength. Of course, Leonardo is not the creator of the first helicopter, so his drawing cannot be ignored.

The first steps towards the creation of a modern apparatus

The predecessor of the helicopter was the aerodynamic machine invented by Lomonosov in 1745. The scientist built and tested the invention himself. In the Lomonosov model, one can recognize many of the basic elements of a modern aircraft. The next time the idea of ​​creating a helicopter was returned only in the 19th century in 1875 by Bienvenue and Lonoy (scientists from France). In parallel with them, many engineers were involved in the development of the helicopter, as a result of which many different projects were born. Most distinguished: Forlanini, Peno, d'Amecourt, Caylee.

Developments of the 20th century

At the beginning of the 20th century, another Frenchman managed to enter his name in the list of the creators of the aircraft. M. Leger managed to develop a helicopter with 2 propellers rotating opposite to each other, started by an electric motor. The product managed to break away from the surface for a short period of time. This is the world's first working helicopter model.

In the USSR, the first helicopter was demonstrated by B.N. Yuriev at an exhibition in 1912. The aircraft of Professor Zhukovsky's student was highly appreciated - the creator was awarded a gold medal. This helicopter was the first to use a helical blade swashplate, which is used to this day. An aircraft capable of moving in a horizontal, and not only in a vertical direction, was built by an engineer from Argentina, Raul Pateras Pescara.

The first helicopter flew 736 meters. This record was broken by the Italian machine designer d'Ascanio in 1930. The Italian was the first to create a helicopter that managed to fly more than one kilometer. In addition to them, many scientists attempted to create helicopters, so with each new project, the aircraft became better and better.

The first Sikorsky helicopter took to the skies only in 1939 on September 14th. The first devices were built by Igor in 1908 and 1909, but they were low-powered and unable to lift the pilot, so Sikorsky lost interest in them and began to deal with airplanes. Serial domestic production

The first production helicopter of the USSR was produced in 1950, was called the Mi-1. Mil and Baikalov were engaged in its development. Test flights were made at forward speed.

Advantages of helicopters

The advantages of rotorcraft are obvious. They are much more maneuverable and compact than airplanes, they are able to fly where other vehicles cannot. Helicopters are used in many spheres of our life, but they have received the largest scale in the armed forces. There are many facts that indicate that at first the aircraft was developed for the army, and then it began to be used for peaceful purposes.

Long backstory

Probably, it will sound strange, but mankind thought about creating a device that could take off vertically in ancient times. In China, around the 5th century BC, a toy appeared in the form of a stick with feathers attached to it. Feathers were attached to the end of the stick on four sides, forming a screw. Having untwisted such a toy in the palms, the person released it, and the stick flew up exactly like modern helicopters.

"Helicopter" Da Vinci. (wikipedia.org)

Drawings of such devices were created later, for example, in the Renaissance and Modern Times. It is curious that many attribute the invention of the helicopter to Leonardo da Vinci, but this is a mistake.

Leonardo really completed the drawing of a certain aircraft. This device was never built, and researchers of the da Vinci legacy are still arguing about how the device drawn by the great thinker could get off the ground. However, now there is an opinion that Leonardo's car cannot be considered a helicopter. By the way, da Vinci's drawings were discovered much after his death. Mikhail Lomonosov, who also tried to create an aircraft, did not know about the works of Leonardo and, developing his project, relied solely on his own knowledge and experience. Lomonosov's idea was to build a machine that would take off vertically and be driven by two propellers. The project was never completed. By the way, Lomonosov did not work on an aircraft at all. His car did not involve a manned flight, its task was meteorological measurements. More precisely, they would have been her task if Lomonosov had completed the project and created such an apparatus.

Helicopter project of Ponton d'Amercourt. (wikipedia.org)

The French engineer Ponton d'Amercourt advanced even further. He worked on a project for a machine that was supposed to be controlled by a person from the inside. According to the project, such a unit should have been driven by two screws. Amerkur, who worked in the middle of the 19th century, came very close to the goal, and it was his works that formed the basis of future successful research.

Vertical flight

The first successful vertical flight in history was made by the brothers Louis and Jacques Breguet, as well as Charles Richet who worked with them. By the way, this flight was not manned, and the device itself took to the air on a leash. Nevertheless, it is August 24, 1907 that can be considered the birthday of the helicopter.

The Breguet brothers' car weighed over 500 kilograms and was equipped with two engines and four wide propellers. The device took off from the ground by half a meter and stayed in the air for about a minute.

Charles Richet. (wikipedia.org)

A month later, the brothers repeated the experiment and their apparatus rose to a height of one and a half meters. Breguet and Richet were not the only designers. Simultaneously with them, their compatriot Paul Cornu worked on the helicopter project. He was destined to become the first pilot of a vertically taking off apparatus.

Cornu made his flight on November 13, 1907. He stayed in the air for 20 seconds, and the flight height was 52 centimeters. The idea of ​​a manned flight caught on, and it was in this direction that the followers of the French pioneers began to work.

Paul Cornu. (wikipedia.org)

Another breakthrough occurred in 1911, and this breakthrough was made by our compatriot Boris Yuryev. He created a blueprint for a swashplate, a mechanism for controlling a helicopter rotor. A drawing of a single-rotor aircraft with a tail rotor has been published. By the way, the mechanism developed by Yuriev is still used on most modern helicopters. Boris Yuriev was not the first of our compatriots who thought about creating a helicopter. The first, in all likelihood, was Mikhail Lomonosov. Back in the 18th century, he created a model of an aircraft with a main rotor. The machine proposed by Lomonsov was generally very similar to modern helicopters, but the time for these devices had not yet come.

And it came in 1932. It was then that the first Russian helicopter, designed by engineer Alexei Cheremukhin, took off. This car climbed to heights of more than 600 meters - for that time it was an absolute record.

Boris Yuriev. (wikipedia.org)

Helicopters

At the beginning of the 20th century, the planet experienced an aviation boom. It was difficult for a helicopter to compete with the popularity of the aircraft. Moreover, the former were already plowing the heavenly expanses with might and main, while the latter existed only on paper. Many helicopter projects simply did not receive the financial support they needed. In 1922, however, the mechanic Georgy Botezat, a Russian emigrant living in the United States, was very lucky. The United States Army commissioned him to produce a stable, controllable VTOL vehicle. And Botezat created such a machine. She was able to lift to a height of five meters and stayed in the air for several minutes. From the point of view of science, this was certainly a breakthrough, however, this was not enough for the army.

Further development

On April 24, Argentinean Raul Pescara proved that the idea of ​​helicopters is not at all unpromising and that such devices can stay in the air for a long time. A mechanical engineer flew 736 meters in his car. The success of the Argentine was widely reported in the press and became known far beyond the borders of South America and gave impetus to the development of the helicopter industry.

"Pescara-3". (wikipedia.org)

Within a couple of months, the Frenchman Emile Emishen was in the air for more than seven minutes, flying in this time in a circle of 1100 meters. In 1930, a group of Italian inventors designed a helicopter that flew the same distance, but in a straight line. In our country, the first flight was made in 1932 by Alexei Cheremukhov. On a 1-EA helicopter, he took off 600 meters into the air. Three more years have passed and Louis Berge, the one who can be considered one of the fathers of the helicopter, will create an ultra-fast (at that time) device. This device will be the first in history to overcome the speed limit of 100 kilometers per hour and once and for all confound the skeptics. After that, no one doubted that helicopters really have a future. The military, by the way, stopped doubting before others. By the beginning of the 1930s, many engineers and mechanics received serious orders from them for the development of such machines.

Current state

It is difficult to imagine the modern world without helicopters. They are used not only for military purposes, but also for rescue operations, for medical transportation and, of course, for the entertainment of tourists.

The leading place in the world is occupied by Russian-made helicopters. They are produced by the Russian Helicopters holding, which is part of the Rostec State Corporation. Thus, the State Corporation managed to unite the enterprises that worked in the industry and revive the Russian helicopter industry. One of the most famous Russian helicopters created by Rostec is the famous Mi-8. This car is more than 50 years old, but the demand for it is still not decreasing. Well, the most important achievement of recent years has been the creation of the Mi-28N helicopter, which is also known as the Night Hunter. This is a combat helicopter capable of hitting targets at a distance of more than 8 kilometers. "Night Hunter" is highly rated in the world. In terms of a number of combat characteristics, it surpasses the well-known American Apache helicopter.

On January 13, 1942, the Sikorsky helicopter took off for the first time - the world's first helicopter designed for military purposes. The development of helicopters, the aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky, began back in pre-revolutionary Russia, and implemented them while already in exile in the United States. Today in our review of the ten most famous military helicopters.

Light multi-purpose helicopter Sikorsky R-4 "Hoverfly"

The first Sikorsky VS-300 helicopter took off in 1939. The designer personally piloted the car. The view of the VS-300 was completely primitive, and the fuselage did not even have a skin. The pilot was sitting in a small chair quite openly, directly in front of the engine. Initially, the helicopter was equipped with a Lycoming engine with a capacity of 65 horsepower, which set in motion a three-bladed propeller. The helicopter was heavy to control, vibrated heavily and lasted only a few seconds in the air.

Sikorsky continued his development and in January 1942 introduced the R-4 Hoverfly helicopter. The helicopter could reach speeds of up to 120 km / h and fly 180 km, climbing with one pilot to a height of 3650 meters (2800 meters - with two pilots). The purpose of the first military helicopter is communications and rescue work. The Sikorsky R-4 "Hoverfly" has been in service with the United States since 1942 and in service with the UK since 1945. Military aviation operated this helicopter in Alaska and during the war in Burma, where the R-4 ensured the advance of American troops in the jungle, delivering supplies and messages and evacuating the wounded. The R-4 was withdrawn from service in the late 1940s.

The first Soviet production helicopter was the MI-1. In terms of flight performance, the Mi-1 resembled the famous American Sikorsky S-51 helicopter (1949). But if the American helicopter was produced in a small series and was not built for long, then the Mi-1 helicopters were widely used in the national economy and in the armed forces of the USSR, as well as other countries where the helicopter was exported.

Since 1954, Mi-1 helicopters have been produced in Orenburg, later in Rostov, and since 1957 they have been produced under license in Poland. In total, more than 2.5 thousand Mi-2 helicopters were built. In the period from 1958 to 1968, 27 international records were set on this helicopter, including a speed record (141.392 km / h), an altitude record (6700 m) and a flight distance record (1654.571 km). Mi-1s are still in operation in many countries around the world.

Mi-8 - the most popular helicopter in the world

The Mi-8 helicopter was put into production in 1965. The history of this machine began in 1958, when Nikita Khrushchev summoned designer Mikhail Mil to the Kremlin and offered to go to the USA to purchase several Sikorsky helicopters, and most importantly, to inspect production and find out the capabilities of American machines.

The Mi-8 helicopter was equipped with two 1500-horsepower engines with a 12-stage compressor, with an annular direct-flow combustion chamber and a 2-stage axial turbine. In case of failure of one of the engines, the other automatically went to increased power, due to which the machine performed vertical flight without lowering the height. In addition to 3 crew members, the helicopter could take on board 24 paratroopers or 28 passengers and transfer them to a distance of up to 425 km at a cruising speed of 225 km / h. The maximum speed of the Mi-8 is 250 km/h.

In June 1965, the USSR presented the Mi-8 at the international air show in Le Bourget, and the helicopter became a real sensation.

Over the 50 years of the existence of the machine, more than 12 thousand Mi-8s of various modifications have been produced. The latest military modification of this helicopter - the Mi-8AMTSh "Terminator" is designed to combat armored surface, ground, mobile and fixed small-sized targets, to transport troops, military cargo, the wounded, to destroy enemy personnel, as well as for evacuation operations and search and rescue work.

In November 1986, the Soviet Ka-31 helicopter took off, which has no analogues in the world helicopter industry. Its main feature is the ability to conduct a radar patrol. The helicopter can be based on ships, or it can be used in the land version to solve air defense tasks for ground forces.

A radio-electronic complex is installed on board the Ka-31, which makes it possible to conduct an automated helicopter flight in any climatic and weather conditions along a programmed route, to detect and take up to 20 targets for auto tracking. At the same time, the helicopter transmits information about targets to control points via a telecode communication channel.

The helicopter today has no analogues in terms of its combat characteristics. It is capable of detecting air targets of the "aircraft-helicopter" type at long ranges at extremely low flight altitudes. A helicopter is also used to detect surface ships and their escort. The ship-based helicopter Ka-31 is capable of protecting formations of warships operating outside the zone of AWACS aircraft and coastal radars from air strikes. The Ka-31 is currently in service in Russia and India.

Ka-50 "Black Shark"

The Soviet Ka-50 helicopter, the prototype of which flew into the air in the summer of 1982, became the world's first helicopter with an ejection seat, providing pilot rescue in any flight modes. The safety of the pilot in this car was given a special place: the cockpit is fully armored using spaced metal plates, the total mass of which exceeds 300 kg. Tests have shown that the protection of the pilot is guaranteed when bullets of 12.7 mm caliber and fragments of 20 mm shells hit the side of the car.

Tests of this helicopter were kept in the strictest secrecy. Tests were carried out not far from Moscow, in full view of many curious people. Therefore, the Design Bureau specialists took original camouflage measures: they turned the combat vehicle into a transport vehicle, adding additional windows and doors to the sides of the fuselage with bright yellow paint.

The first baptism of fire of the Ka-50 helicopter took place during the anti-terrorist operation of the Russian army in Chechnya in January 2001. The machine is capable of performing combat missions in the most difficult mountainous conditions, demonstrating power-to-weight ratio and maneuverability in battle.

The Mi-26 is the world's largest multi-purpose transport helicopter, which is used in both civil and military aviation. The first Mi-26 took off in 1977. To date, the helicopter, which the pilots nicknamed the "flying cow", is the largest helicopter in the world. It is capable of lifting up to 20 tons of cargo into the air, and not only on board, but also on an external sling. For heavy loads, a winch was provided that lifts loads up to 500 kg. The helicopter can accommodate 82 paratroopers or 60 stretchers with the wounded. The maximum speed of the car is 295 km / h.

Sikorsky UH-60 "Black Hawk"

The helicopter of the 21st century is considered by many to be the Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter, created 40 years ago. With a carrying capacity of 1,500 kg on board or up to 4,000 kg on an external sling, it takes 14 fighters on board. Today there is a basic land version of the UH-60 and 2 anti-submarine versions - SH-60F "Ocean Hawk" and SH-60B "Sea Hawk". There is also a line of carrier-based helicopters, fire support helicopters, special operations vehicles, ambulance versions and jammers. Sikorsky UH-60 is used as a headquarters helicopter for generals and high-ranking officials. Today, this helicopter is actively exported.

Attack helicopter Boeing AH-64 "Apache"

The iconic Apache helicopter gained fame in Operation Desert Storm, where, as NATO officials said, it successfully fought tanks, and became the prototype of a whole class of modern combat helicopters. This helicopter is regularly used by the Israel Defense Forces Air Force. The helicopter is equipped with 16 Hellfire anti-tank missiles, Stinger missile systems for air combat and a 30 mm built-in automatic cannon.

Experts say that today an open challenge to Apache in terms of flight performance characteristics was thrown by the Russian Mi-28N Night Hunter. And in 2002, the export version of the Mi-24 with modern avionics of the DPRK Air Force shot down a South Korean Apache from an ambush. South Korea recognized the loss and demanded that the United States conduct a free park of its Apaches. The dispute has not been resolved to date. American helicopters even became a source of inspiration for the designers who created the collection.

"Huey" (Iroquois) - a symbol of the Vietnam War

The Huey helicopter, along with napalm, became a symbol of the Vietnam War. These helicopters were "home" for the American military - they delivered them to their positions, supplied them with provisions and ammunition, brought equipment and evacuated them from the battlefield.

According to statistics, over the 11 years of the war, the Hueys made 36 million sorties. If we take into account that 3 thousand vehicles did not return to the base, it turns out that for 18 thousand sorties there was 1 irretrievable loss. The result is unique! And this despite the fact that the Huey did not have a reservation at all.

Mi-24 "Crocodile" - hybrid helicopter

Mi-24 is a transport and combat Soviet helicopter, the first flight of which took place in 1969. In NATO, he received the code name "Hind" (Hind), and American experts issued a verdict: the Mi-24 is not a helicopter.

Although outwardly the Mi-24 looks like a helicopter and is used as a helicopter, from a technical point of view it is a hybrid. He cannot take off from the "patch". Its visually disproportionately large pylons are actually wings. Mi-24 was created as a "flying infantry fighting vehicle". And the designers managed to turn a heavy armored helicopter into one of the fastest combat helicopters in the world (speeds up to 320 km / h).

"Crocodile" took part in the fighting in the Pamir Mountains, in the gorges of the Caucasus, in the tropical forests of Equatorial Africa and in the sultry Asian deserts. Military glory came to him in Afghanistan. This unique rotorcraft has become a symbol of that war. One of the Afghan Mujahideen, in an interview with an American news channel about the "Crocodile", said this: "We are not afraid of the Russians, but we are afraid of their helicopters." The Mi-24 is the only helicopter in the world that shot down a combat aircraft (F-4 Phantom fighter) in an air battle.

He reigned supreme in the air. During this time, the speed and carrying capacity of winged vehicles increased many times, which turned from clumsy plywood "whatnots" into powerful jet handsome men, embodying the most advanced technical achievements of human thought.

However, for all its merits, any aircraft has one important drawback - in order to stay in the air, it must constantly and at a sufficiently high speed move in a horizontal plane, because the lift of its wings directly depends on the speed of movement. Hence the need for takeoff run and landing run, which chain the aircraft to the airfield.

Meanwhile, there is often a need for such an aircraft that has a lifting force that does not depend on the flight speed, can vertically rise and land, and, in addition, is able to “hover” in the air. This niche, after a long design search, was occupied by a rotorcraft - a helicopter.

Possessing all the flying qualities inherent in an aircraft, a helicopter has, in addition, a number of remarkable specific properties: it can take off from a place without a preliminary takeoff run, hang motionless in the air at the desired height, move progressively in all directions, make turns in any direction as in time of forward movement, and during hovering; finally, he can land on a small platform without a subsequent run.

The creation of an apparatus that possessed a complex of these qualities turned out to be an extremely difficult task, since the theory of a helicopter is much more complicated than the theory of an airplane. It took years of hard work of many designers before the helicopter began to feel confident in the air and was able to share air transportation concerns with the aircraft.

The first rotorcraft (helicopters and autogyros) appeared almost at the same time as the first aircraft. In 1907, the four-propeller helicopter of the French Breguet and Richet for the first time was able to get off the ground and lift a person above it. After that, various designs of helicopters were proposed by many inventors.

All of them had a complex multi-rotor scheme, in which several screws served to keep the device in the air, and several others to push it in the right direction. The single-rotor scheme (to which 90% of all helicopters belong in our time) was not seriously considered by anyone at first.

And was she real? Raise the device into the air with a single screw - still, wherever it went. But how give it a horizontal translational motion? How to manage it? Those inventors who were quite well versed in aerodynamics pointed out another major drawback of the single-rotor scheme - the presence of a reactive moment. The fact is that when the main rotor was driven from an engine rigidly connected to the gondola, the latter had to rotate not so much the propeller itself as (in the opposite direction) the body of the apparatus.

It seemed that it was possible to paralyze the jet moment only when several main rotors rotating in opposite directions are used in the design of the helicopter. Moreover, these screws could be located both separately from each other (longitudinal and transverse schemes), and on the same axis - one under the other (coaxial scheme). Other advantages of the multi-screw scheme also came to mind. After all, having several control screws, it was easier to direct the car in the right direction.

But it soon became clear that the more propellers a helicopter has, the more problems it has - calculating an apparatus even with one propeller was a very difficult task, and it turned out to be impossible to take into account the mutual influence of many propellers (at least in the first quarter of the 20th century, when aerodynamics took only the first steps, and the theory of the propeller was just beginning to take shape).

A significant contribution to overcoming many of these problems was made by the Russian inventor Boris Yuryev. He made his most important discoveries back when he was a student at the Moscow Higher Technical School and was an active member of the Aeronautical Circle of the famous Russian scientist Zhukovsky.

Interested in a single-rotor scheme, Yuryev, first of all, asked himself the question: how to tell the helicopter forward movement in the right direction? Most of the inventors at the beginning of the 20th century, as already mentioned, were sure that for this it was necessary to equip the apparatus not only with rotors, but also with propellers. However, by experimenting with many different models, Yuryev found that by tilting the main rotor axis, one could obtain good horizontal flight speed without making a special horizontal thrust propeller.

The translational motion of the helicopter can also be achieved by tilting the body of the apparatus forward. In that In this case, the force of the large propeller is decomposed into two forces - lift and thrust, and the apparatus begins to move forward. And the greater the inclination of the apparatus, the greater will be the flight speed.

The next problem was how to balance the reactive moment acting on the nacelle. Yuryev suggested that this could be most easily achieved with a small propeller located on the tail of the helicopter and driven by a light gear. Due to the fact that the force created by the tail rotor was applied to the long arm (relative to the center of gravity of the apparatus), its action easily compensated for the reactive moment.

Calculations showed that this would take 8-15% of the engine power. Yuryev suggested further making the blades this variable pitch propeller. By increasing or decreasing the angle of inclination of these blades to the plane of rotation, it was possible to increase or decrease the thrust of this propeller. With high thrust, the tail rotor had to overpower the reactive moment of the main rotor and turn the gondola in the right direction.

But the greatest difficulty was the creation of a reliable control system. The pilot had to have at his disposal devices that allowed him to quickly change the orientation of the machine relative to all its three axes: that is, turn it in any direction relative to the vertical axis, tilt the body up and down, and also roll it to the right and left. The turning problem was solved with a small tail rotor.

For this, as already noted, it was enough to make its blades turn and connect mechanism for turning them with rudders. But how to ensure controllability relative to the longitudinal and transverse axes? The simplest means would be the device of two more tail rotors, placed on the consoles at some distance from the center of gravity of the machine and turning the helicopter in the direction necessary for the pilot.

Here, screw 1 serves to compensate for the reactive moment, and also acts as a rudder; propeller 2 rolls and is similar in its action to the ailerons (warping planes of the wings of an aircraft), and propeller 3 serves as a kind of elevator. But this system, in addition to being overly complex, also had the disadvantage that it made the helicopter very unstable in flight. Yuryev began to think about the question: is it possible to arrange the main rotor in such a way that he himself creates the two moments necessary for controlling the helicopter? The search for it ended in 1911 with the invention of one of the most remarkable devices in the history of a helicopter - the creation of a swashplate.

The principle of operation of this machine is very simple. Each propeller blade describes a circle during rotation. If the main rotor blades are made movable relative to their longitudinal axes, so that they can change the angle of inclination to the plane of rotation, then the movement of the helicopter can be very easily controlled.

Indeed, if part of the circle outlined by it passes through the blade with a large installation angle, and the other part - with less, then, obviously, the thrust on the one hand will be greater, and on the other less, and the main rotor (and with it the whole machine) will turn in the corresponding direction.

The swashplate just provided the necessary installation of the blades. To do this, a ring was installed on the main rotor shaft on a gimbal suspension, to which, with the help of hinges, leashes were attached to the levers that turned the blades. The ring rotated along with the propeller shaft. From two sides it was covered by a fixed ring freely sitting on it. This last ring could be freely rotated by means of steering rods and given any tilt in two planes.

In this case, the inner ring also tilted while simultaneously rotating inside the fixed ring. Easily see that in this case the inner ring will make a complete oscillation in one revolution, which in turn will make each blade associated with it oscillate: all of them will change the installation angle from some minimum value to a maximum during the revolution. These angles will depend on the inclination of the fixed ring associated with the control levers.

If the pilot needed to turn his car in any direction, he had to point the outer ring of the swashplate in that direction. In this mode, the angle of inclination of each blade was changed independently of the other blades. But it was easy to make it so that the swashplate, if necessary, could change the angle of installation at once for all the blades at the same time. This was required, for example, in the event of a motor failure in a mode called autorotation, when, under the influence of an air flow, the propeller of a falling helicopter began to rotate spontaneously, acting like a parachute.

At the same time, the helicopter seemed to be planning (in nature, this effect can be observed in falling maple seeds). To do this, it was enough to make the swashplate gimbal sliding along the propeller shaft (from top to bottom). Raising or lowering the swashplate, the pilot immediately turned all the propeller blades in one direction, thereby increasing or decreasing the installation angle or making it negative (that is, capable of rotating in the opposite direction, which was exactly what was required during autorotation).

Thus, by 1911, a 22-year-old student of Moscow Higher Technical School Boris Yuryev developed in general terms the entire scheme single rotor helicopter. He could not patent it, because he did not have the money for it. In 1912, according to the project of Yuryev, students of the Moscow Higher Technical School assembled a full-size non-flying model of a helicopter. At the international exhibition of aeronautics and held in the same year in Moscow, this model was awarded a small gold medal. However, the school did not have the funds to build a working machine. The First World War, which began soon after, and then the Civil War, distracted Yuryev from work on his project for a long time.

Meanwhile, models of multi-rotor helicopters continued to appear in other countries. In 1914 he built his helicopter Englishman Mumford. It was the first to fly with translational speed. In 1924, the Frenchman Emishen flew his helicopter for the first time in a closed circle. At the same time, Yuryev, having taken the post of head of the TsAGI Experimental Aerodynamic Department, tried to implement his single-rotor scheme.

Under his leadership, Alexei Cheremukhin built the first Soviet helicopter 1-EA. This machine had two tail screws and two Ron motors with a power of 120 hp each. every. It was also equipped with a swashplate for the first time. The very first tests in 1930 gave a brilliant result. The helicopter piloted by Cheremukhin confidently took off from the ground and easily soared to a height of several hundred meters, freely described eights in the air and other complex figures.

In 1932, Cheremukhin flew this helicopter to a height of 605 m, thus setting an absolute world record. However, this helicopter was still very far from perfect. He was unstable. The main rotor was made rigid (the blades did not change the flywheel), which made its work unsatisfactory. Subsequently, other models were developed and built. In 1938, under the leadership of Ivan Pavlovich Bratukhin, the first Soviet twin-rotor helicopter 11-EA of the transverse scheme was created.

But in general, in the 1930s, the helicopter industry did not receive state support in the USSR. At that time, the theory became very popular, according to which an airplane is incomparably more perfect than a helicopter both in terms of speed and carrying capacity, and a helicopter is just an expensive toy. Only in 1940, Yuryev, with great difficulty, managed to obtain permission to create a special design bureau, which he headed. Soon loaded with a lot of teaching work, he handed over the leadership of the department to Ivan Bratukhin. A year later, the war began, and the creation of a perfect helicopter was again postponed indefinitely.

At that time, Germany was the leader in the helicopter industry. The talented designer Heinrich Focke created in the 30s several perfect twin-rotor transverse helicopters. In 1937, world records were set on his FW-61 helicopter: altitude - 2439 m, speed - 123 km / h and range - 109 km of flight. In 1939, the new Fokke helicopter reached an altitude of 3427 m, and in 1941 his FA-223 machine was launched in a small series. The war put an end to its development, but the success of the Focke-Wulfs for a long time riveted the attention of designers to the transverse scheme.

The fact that the single-rotor scheme nevertheless established itself in the helicopter industry as the dominant, huge the merit belongs to the American aircraft designer Igor Sikorsky. (A Russian by origin, he emigrated to America in 1919, and in 1923 he founded his company Sikorsky here.) During his life, Sikorsky developed several dozen models of aircraft, but the creation of a helicopter brought him worldwide fame. It was he who first brought to perfection the classic single-screw Yuryev scheme.

Sikorsky built his first S-46 (VC-300) helicopter in 1939. He immediately abandoned the idea of ​​determining all the parameters of the device by calculations and decided to create a helicopter in which design changes could be easily made during flight tests. His car had a markedly primitive appearance: a simple fuselage was assembled in the form of a steel pipe truss, the pilot sat openly in a small chair in front of the engine. Propulsion from a small 65 hp engine. It was transmitted by means of belts up to the gearbox, from which a three-bladed and three-hinged main rotor was driven, which was simple in design. The tail single-bladed tail rotor was mounted on a long box-shaped beam.

Already the first tests revealed numerous design flaws. The swashplate worked very poorly, as it was incorrectly timed; because of this, the helicopter did not obey the steering wheel well and swayed when lifting. In the end, it capsized and broke badly. Then Sikorsky abandoned the swashplate and introduced three tail screws (thus realizing Yuryev's early scheme, which was mentioned above).

In this design, the helicopter showed good handling. In May 1940, Sikorsky publicly demonstrated his offspring in Bridgeport in front of American pilots. His car made a great impression on those present: the helicopter moved freely up and down, sideways and back, hovered motionless and turned around in place. The helicopter had only one drawback - it stubbornly did not want to fly forward.

It took several months to find out the reason for his "stubbornness". It turned out that the air vortices created by the main rotor had a strong effect on the operation of the tail rotors, so that at high speed they refused to work. With the tail rotors moved out of range of the main rotor, the maneuverability and control of the VS-300 immediately improved significantly. In general, the VS-300 was of great importance to Sikorsky. During the two-year test flights, several control systems, various types of propellers and structures were tested on it, and the very shape of the helicopter was worked out. The number of structural improvements made to the original model was so significant that by 1942 only the pilot's seat, the central fuselage, the fuel tank and two wheels of the main landing gear remained from the previous helicopter. Thanks to these tests, the creation of the following helicopters was much easier.

Soon, the US Air Force command ordered Sikorsky to develop a military helicopter that could it would be used for fire adjustment and for communication. The new sample was named VS-316 (S-47). Numerous failures with the first machine convinced the designer that the swashplate was absolutely necessary for a single-screw circuit. This time the machine was designed with great care, which predetermined the success of the model. In January 1942, flight tests of the finished helicopter began. In April, the car was already demonstrated to the military.

Test pilot Charles Maurice, who was sitting at the helm, was able to demonstrate the enormous capabilities of the rotary-wing aircraft. It hovered over the heads of the astonished spectators, took off and landed again in its old place - right into the recesses from the wheels, moved forward, backward, sideways, turned around in place. Then he lifted the string bag with eggs with a special tube, carried it to another place and lowered it without breaking a single one. Other stunts were also demonstrated, for example, the descent and ascent of a passenger on a rope ladder into a helicopter hovering above the ground.

Now this, of course, is not surprising, but at that time it was a curiosity and amazed to the core worldly-wise generals. One of the high-ranking bosses present exclaimed, "This thing can do everything a horse can do!" And the famous English test pilot Bree admitted: "We were present at the miracle." In the end, Maurice demonstrated cruising speed - about 130 km / h, rose above the ground by 1500 m, and then landed with the engine turned off in autorotation.

In May 1942, the VS-316 was adopted by the US Army under the name XR-4 and put into mass production. A total of 130 such helicopters were built. In 1944, they were first tested in combat conditions in Burma. The war here was in the jungle, and the helicopter was the only vehicle suitable for supplying troops. Japanese fighters launched a real hunt for low-speed "turntables", but could not shoot down a single one - at the slightest danger, the helicopter pressed against the ground, hid between the trees and thus easily evaded the battle.

In 1943, the Sikorsky company released a new XR-5 helicopter, which was distinguished by much greater speed and carrying capacity. For the first time, a special helicopter engine was developed for it. A total of 65 of these machines were built, as the Ministry of Defense canceled its orders due to the end of the war. Meanwhile, in 1944, Sikorsky already had a new model ready - the S-49 (a total of 229 were produced).

After the war, helicopters began to spread rapidly throughout the world. Sikorsky did not long maintain a monopoly on their production, since only in the USA 300 firms began to develop their own models of rotorcraft. However, Sikorsky had important advantages over them - a well-established design and well-established production.

Despite the competition, his company not only prospered, but also expanded production. In 1946, he developed the S-51 model (a total of 554 vehicles were produced), which found the widest application both in the military and in the economic spheres. This helicopter was the first to be equipped with an autopilot, which greatly facilitated control.

However, the biggest success fell on the S-55 Chickasaw (1949) and S-58 Seabat (1954) helicopters. Only at the Sikorsky plant, 1828 pieces of helicopters of the first model and 2261 of the second were assembled. In addition, many firms in different countries has acquired a license for their production. In 1952, two S-55s made the first flight across the Atlantic Ocean (with one refueling on the deck of an aircraft carrier) from America to Europe. S-58 was recognized as the best helicopter of the first generation. It also became the "swan song" of Sikorsky himself. In 1957, the 68-year-old designer stepped down from the leadership of the company.

During these years, the development of helicopters in the USSR was in full swing. After the war, Yuriev managed to organize two new design bureaus: Mikhail Mil, who undertook to develop a single-rotor helicopter, and Nikolai Kamov, who chose a coaxial scheme. The Yakovlev design bureau also joined the work on the design of the helicopter. Bratukhin continued his work on transverse helicopters.

In 1946, his G-3 helicopter appeared. In 1947 he produced his first Ka-8 Kamov helicopter. But when a competition for the best Soviet model was announced at the end of the 40s, it was won by the Mil Mi-1 helicopter, created according to Yuryev's single-rotor scheme. In 1951 it was put into production.