Helicopters are actually really neat. If they suffer a loss of power, they can spin up the rotor while falling, and then reverse the blade pitch and turn all that momentum into lift and make a soft landing. Or something like that. Smarter Every Day can explain better: https://youtu.be/BTqu9iMiPIU

[–] Rivalarrival 7 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Check out "gyrocopters". They look kinda like helicopters, but their rotors are not connected to the engine. Instead, they use a propeller to drive the aircraft forward, and airflow drives the rotor disk.

They operate on the same basic principle as autorotation, but for normal flight rather than arresting an emergency descent.

[–] eatCasserole@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

Those are so weird! Brilliant.

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