Can helicopter rotors fly apart this way or is it just a movie?

Question

I saw part of a James Bond flick where he was being chased by bad guys in a helicopter. It looked bad for Mr. Bond until he grabbed about a six-inch diameter piece of wood (like a bit of a downed tree limb) and tossed it up at the nearby hovering chopper. When the big stick hit the big rotor, the blades disintegrated and Bond was saved...again.

Would a chunk of wood really destroy a helicopter in the air? If so, are there any dangers from large birds getting swept up in the blades?

Answer 1

No. This could not happen. If a large bird was swept into the blades, it would be thrown back out by the force of the blade. (Dead, of course)

Answer 2

The James bond thing is completely fake because nobody would be able to throw a hunk of wood up against the incredible downward airflow that the rotor creates.

But, shattered blades could happen. Think of spinning a weight around on a string, the string would be under tension and if the string isn't strong enough it will break. The portion of the rotor closest to the center is under tension because it is holding the rest of the blade from flying off. Since the rotor spins so fast, the tension in the blade is very high. If anything impacts the blade enough to cause a crack, the crack will immediatly grow and split the blade completely apart.

However, the blades are designed to be strong enough that it takes more than a bird to crack them.

Take a look at this picture of a helicopter in flight, and a puff of feathers that was a bird about 1 second before the picture was taken.

Answer 3

Yes and No.

Anything thrown UP to the rotor would get blow down by the down ward air flow.  But yes if it got hit by something solid like a piece of wood, the rotor would definitely fall apart.

And as for the birds, yes they can kill a helicopter (or a small plane).  Luckily they have ears and they usually fly AWAY from noise planes and helicopters.

Good LUCK...

Answer 4

A piece of foam brought down a space shuttle.  It's a matter of dynamics of trajectory and integrity of the impact point.  Compromise in aviation is not a winning solution.

Answer 5

You betcha. And justme, even small birds have brought down helicopters and other large aircraft.

Answer 6

If you could manage to get it past the rotorwash it could cause the rotors to fly apart depending on what they are made of. There are rotors made of wood, fiberglass, aluminum, carbon fiber, and different combinations of all of them. The wood blades would explode into a shower of toothpicks, the aluminum might fold up depending how heavy they were. The composites could shatter, depending on how strong they were.

  As far as the birds, they almost always avoid blades but in the few instances I've heard of them hitting aluminum blades, they haven't fared well and the blades were OK. I Haven't heard of any wood blade/bird strikes.

Answer 7

in fact yes. - the construction of blades using the +-glass fibre composite / the one my helicopter is using/ is especially vfulnerable to such occurence - virtually any solid object is able to inflict damage to the blade, which progressivelly spreads the damage /rapid delamination/ resulting in cloud of chips.

one of examples was the accidental collision of a rescueman's head and rotor in Poland. after they recovered the casualty and took off for hospital, the main rotor virtually dissintegrated inflight, resluting in the death of all crew members.

other types of construction /iron beam, full composite/ are more tolerant to the spot damages of the blade.

of course it is more likely that the object causing damage would fall downwards through the rotor dish, rather than upwards against the downwash.