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how do they work...............?

Daveroo

Daveroo

Members +
ive been wondering about something..how do carrier helicopter rotors fold?.....does a sea going MH-60's (ok a blackhawk in Navy clothes)rotor blades fold back in the same manor as a seastallions would?(again the navy version of the big H-53)

and i seem to remember seeing some rotors fold automatically on some helicopters...are they all auto?..or was i seeing things?...
 
I'm sure there are folks here that have real hands on experience with folding rotors but I've been around them a bit. The Sikorsky navy birds have hydraulicly folded rotors. The rotors slowly rotate to an index position. Once there the blades fold in a predermined sequence. Looks a bit like Frankenstein trying to move his limbs (jerkily) at some times.

The Osprey is even more amazing to me as it folds.

Norm
 
I'm sure SkippyBing will be able to answer that if he pops by this thread, as he has RL experience as Lynx aircrew in the Royal Navy.

Andy
 
As mentioned the Lynx and indeed the Wildcat are manually folded, bigger stuff tends to be automatic although you normally (in the RN at least) have blade walkers handling the tips for safety anyway so it doesn't really save on manpower.
With the Lynx I can see why they didn't bother as it would just add another maintenance issue and the blades aren't that hard to handle so it probably wouldn't be any quicker. Bigger stuff needs it if only because things are that much heaver and if you've got a fully articulated head like on a Sea King or CH-53 it probably helps lock things in place as well.
 
19yrs with both Army and Navy H-60 helos. In the Navy (cue music), SH/HH uses a blade fold mechanism powered by small motors and screws, completely automated although we did use wing-walkers for the blades as they retracted. In the standard Army version, no such luck. I vividually remember my 1st OIF deployment after transitioning from the USN to the Army and how it took us hours to manually fold the blades on our all our Black Hawks, vice minutes on the Navy versions (if they worked, but there is a cheater box for that too) ie above video. Seahawks use manually folded stabs and tail pylon (special couplings and hydraulic lines) , not hard to do with a good crew. In the Army we have to completely remove the stab (on A-L models), pull the tail rotor paddles apart for transport on C-5/17. The Aerosoft Sea/Jayhawk model has this system.

A good Army crew can do what you say in the vid in about 30 mins with a forklift. Once the blades are back, the crutches are installed to secure them in place.
 
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