Gareth Harvey Battle for the Title… In the brief but brilliant “Age of the Helicopter,” there have been many contenders for the title of “Super Copter.” The CH-47 Chinook, the UH-1 “Huey,” which transformed the very nature of warfare in Vietnam, and Eurocopter’s Ecureuil AS350, which has carried out some of the highest altitude rescues in history. But one of the newest copters that brings it all home is the EH101. Recently chosen to be the next “Marine One”—the Presidential Helicopter, the EH101, will be specially outfitted as the new Oval Office in the sky. It was a tight race with Sikorsky’s S-92, and the competition between the two copters isn’t over yet. Though the EH101 is the president’s vehicle of choice, both of these state-of-the-art flying machines are now vying for a multi-billion dollar contract to supply the U.S. Air Force with their new generation of search and rescue helicopters. Seeing From New Heights Helicopters are a monumental human achievement, a technological feat that’s become so common place we don’t blink an eye at them anymore. But National Geographic’s Explorer takes you for a ride on the EH101 to see why you might want to take a second look. In reality helicopters are among the most complex flying machines ever created. And for three weeks this past summer, we rode with the AgustaWestland EH101, and captured the most spectacular footage I’ve ever seen of helicopters in flight. On location with the British Royal Navy, the Royal Air Force, and the Italian Navy, we quickly discovered that the EH101 – and other cutting-edge helicopters like the Sikorsky S-92 and NH Industries’ NH90 – have taken the science of rotary flight to a whole new level. What Makes Them Fly? What’s keeping them in the air? Their main rotors, for one thing. The EH101, for example, is a fusion of high-tech composite materials – including carbon fibre – built around a core of honeycomb paper and foam. But it’s more durable and more battle-worthy than an all-metal blade – like those used on the famous Hueys in the Vietnam War. Put a bullet through a composite blade and the fibres around the bullet hole remain undamaged – whereas a metal blade fractures around the impact site. Rotors are essentially ‘spinning wings’ that provide a helicopter with lift – but they also have to propel the aircraft through the air. Main rotor blades twist, flap, and move independently of each other to achieve both lift and thrust simultaneously! By using composite materials, designers of the new-generation Super Copters have far more flexibility in the shaping of rotor blades, and thus far more ‘control’ over the air they move through. The EH101 has a special ‘winged tip’ on its main rotor, which according to its pilots gives it the airborne capability of a much smaller aircraft. Life-Saving Features: No More Brown-Outs And the Royal Air Force pilots operating the EH101 in Iraq discovered a life-saving feature of its main rotor blade which even its developers hadn’t counted on. They found a solution to a pilot’s worst nightmare when flying in the desert—“brown out”—which is a dense cloud of swirling sand and dust, virtually blinding pilots as they’re trying to land. To counteract this, the EH101’s ‘winged-tip’ rotor blades create what its pilots call the “donut effect” – a circular window of clear air inside the dust storm that allows them to see the ground as they come in to land. Engines with Ten Times the Power But perhaps the most remarkable component of the new Super Copter is its state-of-the-art engine. You’d think that ‘jet powered’ helicopters achieved their forward thrust through their jet-engines – but in reality all the power generated by the jets (they’re really ‘gas-turbine engines’) goes into driving the main and tail rotors though an incredibly complex gear-assembly. The latest breed of helicopter engine, while about the same size as the internal-combustion engine of the average family car, develops about ten times the power. The secret is a metal-alloy turbine whose blades exceed their melting point as they spin – forcing air through the chambers of the engine. Each blade is a single crystal of metal, drilled by laser beams, which allows them to be encased in a sheath of air as they whirl around – preventing them from melting. The power generated by this turbine (and transferred through the engine to the rotor blades) is an incredible two thousand horsepower. It’s the sort of power that allows today’s Super Copters to hover rock-steady in high winds – a critical advantage in search and rescue operations. It’s all a long way from the Chinese-rotored flying toys – or from Leonardo da Vinci’s ‘aerial screw’, which many credit as Man’s first inspiration for what would become the ‘helicopter.’ Inventing New Rotors As with fixed-wing flight, the development of helicopters went hand-in-hand with the invention of the internal-combustion engine – light enough and yet powerful enough to lift a heavier-than-air craft off the ground. But the complexities involved in successfully creating a rotary aircraft, as opposed to one with fixed wings, were immense. The primary problem that early helicopter designers – like Igor Sikorsky, the ‘father of the helicopter’ – had to solve was how to stop the airframe from spinning around the main rotor. One solution was the use of twin rotor blades – each spinning the opposite direction. The most famous twin-rotored helicopter is probably Boeing’s CH-47 Chinook – the massive aerial workhorse of armies and air forces around the world. The invention of the tail rotor not only solved the inherent problem of rotary-winged flight, but gave the helicopter its unique manoeuvrability in the air. What became the accepted model for all modern helicopters also quickly became an indispensable tool of war, rescue, and emergency services. Today’s breed of Super Copters are on their way to marking new benchmarks in the helicopter age. Already their superior engines and rotor systems are setting new records in range and reliability – leading to some remarkable rescues and mind-boggling military strategies. Witnessing the capabilities of this new generation of helicopters, and meeting the pilots and the engineers who are making it all possible, it was like flying higher (and steadier) than Cloud Nine. It was truly the ride of our lives!