I came across the video below the other day. It shows a hind-d gunship fly around and perform loops without the main rotor actually moving. Sounds fake and unreal right? The video and plausible explanations after the jump.
When I first saw this two explanations came to mind, 1) This was fake or 2) the video was in sync with the blades of the rotor. A quick Google search revealed that number 2 was indeed very much possible. In fact it has been recorded many times before. The frame rate of the camera is a perfect multiple of the speed of rotation of the main baldes. This gives the illusion that the blades were not spinning and the heli was just flying around with no source of thrust. The tail rotor which acts to counter the rotation produced by the main rotor is spinning at a different velocity and is therefore seen to move. Further more the blades of the helicopter are seen to be stiff and up right rather than drooping (the case if it was actually some trickery).
Even though the explanation is plausible I still find that the above video is unreal mostly because the helicopter just doesn’t look real. What do you guys think?
Btw sorry for the Metal Gear reference =P
