[LAMEY]

Link


Damn I wished I lived in the States

[sg]

That is seriously awesome!!!

[CHassan]

Youtube bites! (can't see the videos at work)

[sg]

Is it youtube, or your work blocking the youtube.com???

[CHassan]

work blocking it

[sg]

Do they block google video too?

[CHassan]

Nope, at least not yet. They block youtube for "Personal Pages;Streaming Media"
YouTube is the only one I have found that gets blocked. Maybe because it is not monitered, where as google the videos are "checked for content" before they are available online.

Most likely IT just hasn't got to it yet.

[LAMEY]

No I dont think so, youtube is very thorough.

ive gone to look at robot chicken or some SNL Celebrity Jeopardy that was only upped no more than a day ago, and NBC take it away straight away.

its a bummer it doesnt work cause its a pretty good clip, try it at home?

or you could just change the firewall settings, however at work that might cause a bit of problems...

[CHassan]

aye, I do enough un authorized surfing, I don't need to go messing with the firewall.
Not that I know enough to go doing that anyway.

I did watch it at home, reminds me of the gyro copter one of the locals has. (i.e. wouldn't catch me in either of the two, I guess I just don't like spinning wings.)

[sg]

I really like those gyrocopters. If you lose the engine, you just glide it in like a plane. I know helicopters have autorotation, but I just dont trust that as much for some reason

[LAMEY]

Yeah i've got my Aviation Technician handbook here right now and ill tell ya about those gyrocopters.

So basically all rotor aircraft are fitted with an autorotation system, its basically a freewheeling hub (kind of like a clutch on a manual transmission) which detaches the weight (and torque) of the engine to allow the rotors to spin freely.

In normal flight air is being drawn from above the rotor and exhausted downwards. In Autorotation however, airflow enters the rotor disc from below as the helicopter descends. So this upward airflow allows the rotors to rotate at their normal operating speed, in effect, the blades are "gliding" as you said, in their rotational plane. Although to successfully change the downward flow of air to an upward flow, the pitch angle of the main rotor blades must be reduced by lowering collective pitch. Pretty much the same as lowering the pitch attitude of a fixed wing aircraft to establish a glide.

Phew. that was bearly scratching the surface, but pretty much thats the principle on which gyros fly, I've considered them before, but as you say they are fairly dangerous, and funny looking too.