NASA Tests Flying Airbag

coondoggie writes "NASA is looking to reduce the deadly impact of helicopter crashes on their pilots and passengers with what the agency calls a high-tech honeycomb airbag known as a deployable energy absorber. So in order to test out its technology NASA dropped a small helicopter from a height of 35 feet to see whether its deployable energy absorber, made up of an expandable honeycomb cushion, could handle the stress. The test crash hit the ground at about 54MPH at a 33 degree angle, what NASA called a relatively severe helicopter crash."

Re:Anonymous Coward

[jimbobborg]

No, that would be a flying douchebag.

Re:Anonymous Coward

[LOLLinux]

The term you were thinking of is "windbag".

This is the only thing keeping me...

[TheModelEskimo]

...from becoming a helicopter pilot. In fact, just last night my wife said, "sure honey, you can become a pilot just as soon as they invent the deployable energy absorber."

C'MON NASA!!!

Re:how often would this actually help?

[slinches]

every one that I've seen video of involved a main rotor or tail rotor failure

The more spectacular helicopter crashes happen this way, but loss of power events are more common. The most severe of these occur at low altitudes as there isn't enough time to successfully autorotate. So this type of device should improve survivability in the most common crash/hard landing scenarios.

Video

[e4g4]

This site has a video [nasa.gov] and some more information.

Re:Severe Crash?

[The_Wilschon]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autorotation_(helicopter) [wikipedia.org] Au contraire, mon bon sieur.

Re:Apparently NASA does not obey the laws of physi

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you need to go back and study some more physics. In earth gravity of 32ft/s^2 it would take about 2 seconds to hit the ground from 35 feet falling straight down. 2 seconds of earth acceleration has you moving at 64ft/s, which is just over 43mph. Even the lackluster summary states the impact was at 33 degrees, which implies the helicopter was guided in along a slope, rather than being dropped. So using a bit of trig, 35ft/Sine(33) = 64.26ft is the length of slope the helicopter descended, at 33 degrees to the ground, to impact at 54mph, which would then imply that it was actually falling slower than gravitational pull would account for, largely due to the friction of the guide cable. This is likely the same rig used to test reentry mechanisms for many other NASA vehicles, which has the ability to vary impact angle, while maintaining repeatability between each test in a given configuration.

"Relatively Intact"?

[trygstad]

I really don't know what the heck they mean by "Relatively Intact". In my 3300+ hours of piloting helicopters the only valid criteria was "Could you walk away from it?" That's the standard pilots (and I assume passengers) really care about.

Re:Severe Crash?

[SoupIsGoodFood_42]

If you're flying too slow and low to the ground, there is less time to recover and perform an autorotation. In a heli's flight envelope, this is often referred to as the dead man's curve [wikipedia.org].