How Helicopters Work

a flutter of the sales and was at rest. Okay, yeah, so um, First of all, if you are wondering why I am to Chris's right as opposed to across from him, it's because we have an interesting setup for a different kind of podcast which may or may not happen. So if if it sounds like this podcast is disjointed, as if we had started one, stopped it, and then picked it up later, that's why that's I think that's an mystery. Right, Sure, why not? So let's talk about what we're actually covering today,

because has nothing to do with that. No, no, and I think we should stop hovering around the topic. We gotta get through the chop. Yeah, we're gonna talk about helicopters today. Yes, and it's kind of surprising that we haven't talked about it before. Yeah. Well, when you start looking into what is involved in making a helicopter work, I can see exactly why we haven't done it before. Well, you know, the helicopter business does have it have its ups and down. Yeah. Nice, I like how you did that.

Um yeah, So so let's talk about helicopters. So, I'm sure all of you are familiar with the concept of a helicopter, But when did these things? How did how did we come up with this idea? When did this originally spring to mind? Okay, well, uh, you know, it is something that has been on my mind since I

was a kid. I've always loved helicopters. So the other day, Jonathan sent me a video that I couldn't watch because my current bandwidth was too low on my internet connection, and it took me two days to actually watch it. But it was a video of some very tiny quadricopters. Yeah. They were called nano quadricopters in the video itself, although that is a misnomer since nano typically means one billion and they were not that small. The fact they fit

on the palm of someone's hand. Yeah, they're about the size of the palm of your hand. And uh, I was thinking about how, uh, how unusual the quadricopter is because it doesn't have a tail rotor like a traditional helicopter does. Um. Yeah, they're very very maneuverable. Um and uh. And I thought, you know, hey, Jonathan, why don't we talk about helicopters because we never really talked about them before. So right, So that's how it came to mind. Yeah,

that's how it came to mind. Now, how how the idea of a helicopter actually came to mind for human beings in general? That dates back pretty far in human history, and it all begins with a toy. Yeah, you know, and I think just about everybody who's gone to their school fair or whatever is one one of these little you know, uh stick with a propeller on it, and you spin it in the palm of your hand and let go and it then crash down to the earth.

But they weren't always made from plastic, no, No, they were. The Chinese had a little top that they used where the top was had feathers on it, yes, and it did the same sort of thing you would put. They put the stick between your hands, the feathers will be at the top. You spin the stick very quickly. The feathers would spin and it would create some lift and the stick would fly up in the air and then come back down. Pretty simple, yep. And as it turns

out to the concept is is pretty simple. Basically, you're you're creating an air foil. Yes, Um that instead of like an airplane wing where you're going forward, Um, it's going straight up simply because um, the the air that that moves over the air foil, it creates lift is taking it, uh right up. So I guess to to really kind of discuss this, we should probably talk about a little bit about the parts of a helicopter, so that way we can explain what these these parts actually

do and how they achieve flight. So the blades that we talk about, that's a rotor, right, So the rotors are affixed to a rotor mast. That's the part that actually creates the the turning motion that makes the blades go round in a circle. And the blades themselves are angled and they can that angle can change depending upon a control. Um there are different control rods that can change the the um the attitude of those blades so you have, uh, two of them. Actually, there's the cyclic controller,

which can control them individually. Yes, that's also known as the stick, right, Yeah, that's the that's the stick. And then there's a was it the collective one, right, yes, the collective pitch lever. What that does is it actually it changes the attitude of all of the rotors, the main rotors at the same time. Um and that. Both of those are important for various maneuvers with the helicopter. But we'll get into that in a second. There's also

with the rotors, there's a stabilizer. Because you've got these long air foils that are extending out from a shaft, and they're turning around and around. There's a chance that they're gonna start, you know, flopping around a little bit, causing some issues, you know. So the stabilizer is there to help add some rigidity there so that these blades will will maintain the right shape so that you can fly.

It's kind of funny too, because apparently it was just one of those things that someone added to the helicopter um uh and uh as As it turns out, it it made a major improvement in the stability and and flyability of helicopters. Yeah, the early helicopters when they were flying, it was a pretty bumpy ride, and it was definitely a challenge for a pilot to maintain control because it just you know, without that stabilizer, it just like you

were saying, it just wasn't as fliable. So it was definitely a good addition to the parts of a helicopter. There's a there's a there's two plates that are on the rotor mast, all right, that that also are a big part of the helicopter. It's called the upper swash plate and the lower swash plate. And despite what you

might think, they are not joined by a swash buckle. Instead, if you imagine that, they imagine two plates to two round plates, right, and they're both they both have the The shaft of the motor of the rotor rather goes straight through these two plates. The lower plate is stationary, it does not turn. On top of the lower plate are ball bearings. And then on top of the ball bearings is the upper swash plate, which does turn. The ball bearings are wattle allow it to turn over. The

lower swashplate. Now the swashplate. The reason that's important is remember when I was talking about the collective the collective control that changes the attitude of all the blades at the same time. Yes, that what that actually does is it allows that plate to tilt either forward or backward, or however you need it to, so that you can make the helicopter veer in the direction you want it to go. Yeah, because really, up until this point, what

we were doing was going up and down. We weren't going left or right or over that way or back this way. Because if you try, if you have one of those toys that we were talking about before, with the blade on the stick, you point it straight up and it goes straight up, and then it'll drift off a little bit to the side, but you don't really control that. If you pointed it, you know at your friend,

it's going to go in his or her direction. And that's what the swashplates allow the pilot of the helicopter to do it. It helps tilt the blades and and the Hello copter starts flying in that direction. Yes, because it adds it adds a second element. Right, you first have the first element you have is lift. The second element you would have is thrust. So when you start to change the attitude of the blades. You have both

lift and thrust. Now, there is a point where if you were to tilt that beyond a certain threshold, you would no longer have enough lift to counteract the weight of the helicopter itself, and it would start to lose altitude. It might be moving forward, but it's going to be going lower and lower until you correct that. And that's one of the reasons why, uh, piloting a helicopter is

so challenging. In fact, when we get into the different controls, you'll find out you're using both your legs and both your arms to try and maneuver a helicopter, and so it takes a lot of concentration. Yeah. That's also why you don't see a lot of people flying helicopters and loop to loops. Yeah, that's use their air wolf right. Yeah, But then no, that is true because once you get beyond that certain threshold, you no longer have the lift

necessary to keep you in the air. Uh. Yeah. And these blades are connected to that rotor mast through blade grips, that's the technical term for where the blades fit into this rotor mast and on the very top of the rotor mast, you have something that's that's got an interesting name. Yes, the Jesus Nut. Yes, it really is called that. It's called the Jesus nut. And uh, there are various theories as to why it's called that, and I don't know what any of I don't know the truth of any

of them. Yes, the one that we have an article on the site. Yes, it's a it's a really good article too, with lots of really helpful illustrations. So if you are interested in helicopters and you really want to get a look at what these different parts look like, I highly recommend you check it out because it's it's one of the more exhaustive articles on the side. I would say, yeah, I would. I would agree with that, and very very illustrative what you're doing here when you're

flying a helicopter. Um. So yeah, we were talking about the tail roter just a moment ago. Yes, UM, very important in the in the design of a helicopter. So here's another thing about helicopters. You've got this blade turning around and around, this creating lift, and when the lift gets strong enough to counteract the weight of the helicopter is going to rise in the air without a tail rotor. Yeah,

if you've ever wondered why that's there. Yeah, Without a tail rotor, which is that little, that little smaller propeller that's on the end of the tail of a helicopter. Without it, the body of the helicopter itself would start to spin in a direction opposite that of the rotors. So if the rotors are spinning in a clockwise direction, then the helicopter will start to spin in a wider

Shan's direction. You just want, yes, I did so badly counterclockwise For those of you who do not speak archaic English, Hey, where are my Shakespeare home? He's at? So anyway, yes, the the helicopter would spin. Without any other other force to counteract this, the helicopter would start to spin in the opposite direction, which would probably be an unpleasant experience

for anyone inside that helicopter. Yes, yeah, so the rotor What that does is it helps to create thrust to counteract the spinning motion so that the helicopter stays stationary. And by controlling the speed of that rotor, you can actually turn the helicopter to the left or to the right, not banking it. But actually, if you're if you're hovering in place, you can change the speed that that rotor turns and then turn your helicopter so it's facing an

opposite direction. So if it started facing north, you can maybe face west, that kind of thing. And of course, for for this, we have a guy named Igor to thank for that. Yes, Igor did a great job. Of all the people who experimented with the idea of being able to levitate a person, I mean there were there were many, including a our our friend Leo, Yeah, Leonardo

da Vinci. Ye. He tried to create something that he called the air screw, which was a screw shape, and the idea was that with four people powering this man powered, of course back in Leo's day, that if you were able to turn this air screw fast enough, it would be able to create enough lift to lift the machine off the ground. Now, he never got this to work, but it was sort of the basis of the idea of what would eventually become a helicopter, although it changed

dramatically by the time the helicopter actually appeared. Yep. Now, Igor Sikorsky, if you've spent any time at all paying attention to helicopters, that name is going to be very familiar to you, Um was a Russian who experimented with the idea of helicopters and then kind of moved away to get into other types of airplane flight and then

sort of came back to it later on. Yeah, his early attempts were not met with very much success, so he decided, hey, you know what, let's just put this on the back burner and look at something that I know will work. And then eventually, once he felt more confident,

he revisited this idea of the helicopter. Yeah, back in the around the nineteen thirties, I think is when when he started really having some luck with it, and he realized that he was going to need something to prevent the helicopter body from spinning like that without any kind of force. So he decided to mount a tail roader on his helicopter too. And basically it's it's creating force in a sideways manner that that is resisting the force

that that would naturally cause the helicopter to turn. So Um, you know, hats off to Igor And that was a brilliant idea. It was the nineteen thirty nine when he created the VS three hundred, which was based off these early designs and it actually worked. It lifted him up into the air. It was a bit of a bumpy ride. But then he ended up trying to uh, you know, he refined the design of it and then um actually

had broke a record. On May six ninety one, he broke the world helicopter endurance record and stayed in the air for one hour, thirty two minutes and twenty six point one seconds. And yeah, that's that's pretty impressive. I mean, for for an invention that people had played with for centuries really but no one had really cracked it. It

was a big jump. And speaking of jumps, we should say that between the time of the the top toy that was invented in ancient China and the time that Sikorski created the first working helicopter, there were a lot of other people who were involved in trying to make

this work, and some of their contributions led into Sikorski's work. Yes, but a lot of these early inventions that were created we call them hoppers because they could they could lift off the ground briefly, but they couldn't really sustain flight for any length of time, and they didn't really have any way of changing the direction of that flight. It just would go up and down. I mean, apart from being pushed around by whatever wind happened to be in

the area. Yeah, being pushed around by wind, that's not a problem. But then so he breaks the record. It turns out that, you know, the helicopters would become really important in warfare. That actually became a very uh well, the United States in particular really dependent upon helicopters in conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. Heysh yeah, yeah, it starts off with one yes through early morning fog I see, uh yeah, And this was this was a pretty interesting development.

I mean, you see a lot of of the experimental aircraft from the era just became oddities. Yes, yes, which you can still find autogenres. And we should explain what the difference between an autogyro and a helicopter is. So with a helicopter, those rotors were talking about, those are powered that that rotor mast turns under power. There's an

engine and a transmission. The engine provides powered transmission converts it over into the mechanical energy that the rotors need in order to turn, and that is what makes the the blades turn fast enough to create the lift. Autogyros have unpowered rotors, so there is a there there is a set of rotors on top of an autogyro, so in a way it kind of resembles like a miniature helicopter. But then there's a propeller that's either in the front

or the back of the autogyro. It all depends on the design of a specific autogyro, which what that's what provides thrust, and what happens is it generates an air flow that is directed up at the rotors that are above the autogyro, and that that upward flowing amount of air is what makes the blades start to turn. And you just keep increasing the air flow, which again makes the blades turn faster until that helps counteract the weight of the autogyro, and that's what allows the autogyro to fly.

But there's no motor turning those blades. It's all just from the flow of air. Yeah. As a matter of fact, some now some of the more modern helicopters also have a second engine which can help you know, of course if in the case of the first engine and going out, um, but you know, there there's some redundancy there, uh, now in the more modern helicopters, especially for military helicopters that

might be affected by enemy fire. Right sure, yeah, if you have an engine failure, then you can switch over to a second engine and h hopefully prevent catastrophe. So let's talk a little bit about the controls that are inside a helicopter. Of course, you have lots of different um uh dials and indicators that give you information about

the environment and uh information about your helicopter's performance. Those are all there's they're too numerous to name really, but the actual controls when we were talking about using both your hands and both your feet, well, one hand is gonna be on that psych like pitch lever. So this is the lever that controls the angle of each of the rotor blades individually. And uh this one is used mainly to tilt the craft at either side or forward

and backward. But it's it's done in uh very it's not it's it's not the one that changes the swashplate. That's the collective pitch lever. So that's you know, that's your second one that you're holding with your other hand. Um. It's mainly used in things like take off and landing. It's used to increase or decrease the pitch of all the rotor blades at the same time, and it's mostly

responsible for up and down movements, not things like forward, backward, left, right. Uh. Then you've got your foot pedals and these are what control the tail rotor, and so using the the tail rotors, this is how you can turn the the helicopter so it faces a different direction. You're not banking it, but you're turning it um or you're using it just to keep it steady. Uh. And and if you're wondering, you know, well,

what about hovering? Isn't that easy? No, Hovering is actually pretty difficult to do because you have to you have to get everything in a neutral position, and then you have to keep making minor adjustments in order to maintain the position that you're in. In fact, pilots will have to pick a spot that they can look at and try and maintain their attitude and altitude uh by by

referencing where that spot is and making minor adjustments constantly. Yes, yeah, it helps to uh to have um uh an experienced pilot on board, just because uh, not only is there the matter of looking at the electronic components in the craft itself, but to orient him or herself with the land around, just to to give a visual representation of what's going on. And that's that's one of those things

that's especially important. UM. But as the wind does blow helicopters around, you have to take these things into into account and UM one of the best ways to do that is to use that visual orientation to make sure that you haven't drifted off to some degree. Now, let's talk really quickly about what the process is like if

you are taking off helicopter. So there's several steps. First, what you would have to do is you have to open up the throttle so that you can speed up these rotors so that they start turning out a speed fast enough to create the amount of lift you need. UM. You do this by actually twisting the handle of one of the levers you're holding in your hands and twisting it one way opens the throttle and twisting it the

other way closes the throttle. So that's you know, that's essentially like sitting stepping on the accelerator of a of

an automobile. UM. So the next what you would do, once you've got the the rotors moving at the right speed, you'd start to pull back on the collective control and that's what's going to raise the swashplate assembly, and that's going to change the pitch of the rotor blades, and then that's what's going to let you direct that lift in the right direction so that you can actually get

off the ground. Then you would start to press down on the left foot pedal because you would need to get the tail rotor spinning so that you could counteract that torque we were talking about the the the tendency for the chassis to spend in the opposite direction of the rotors. Right as soon as you're lifting off the ground, you're going to be it's going to be much easier for the rotors to start to spin the body of

the helicopter, the fuselage. Yes, so if you weren't, if you were not making that rotor tail rotor spin, you would start to go on a little spinny spinny ride yourself, which would most likely end in disaster. So yeah, you you then would start to actually add a counteractive thrust through the tail road or by pressing down that left pedal. Now, if you got to a point where you needed to turn or you need to slow that down. You could stop pressing down the left pedal and start pressing down

the right pedal, and that's what would counteract that. UM. Then you keep pulling back on that collective control while holding down the left foot pedal, and once the correct amount of lift is created, your helicopter will leave the ground and you'll be flying over the air and delivering

traffic reports like nobody's business. Yeah it's um, it's pretty interesting. Uh. And there's even other challenges to flying a helicopter, right, I mean, not only is it requiring a lot of coordination, but even just the way that the air flight works. When you start traveling, say forward, you're moving forward at around UM fifteen to twenty knots of airspeed, you have to end up transitioning, transitioning from hovering, which is more or less staying fairly stationary, to moving at a full

forward flight phase. And there's that's where you have the effective translational lift or et L. And at that point, the pilot would start to ease up on that left foot pedal and move closer to a neutral setting, and there's gonna be a shutter that you feel through the rotor system. Because you are going to fly out of what is called rotor wash. And rotor wash is not where you go to a place where people start pouring sud sea water all over your rotor blades and then

squirt them down. It's not that's not a rotor wash. Rotor wash is actually turbulence which is created by these rotor blades turning so quickly, and you fly through your own turbulence. Then once you get to a certain angle, that turbulence is not no longer directed in your flight path, and you end up having this much more smooth experience.

So before you hit that that flying in that helicopter might feel a little well, pardon the pun, but choppy, because you just you know, you're actually flying through turbulence

that you have created through the helicopter itself. Um. By the way, I don't know if you've ever heard this, but I have friends who were in the Marines, and they said that the way the Marines would explain helicopters, as they say, helicopters fly by beating the air into submission, which is a very Marines kind of thing, simper five. So the yeah, it's a it's a pretty interesting method of flight. It's amazing to me even seeing them now. I mean you can see them helicopters outside the windows

of our office fairly frequently. We're in a part of

Atlanta where we'll see traffic helicopters or news helicopters fly overhead. Um. And in fact, when the article was being written for the site, Marshall Brain, the founder of How Stuff Works, had contacted a company in Atlanta that did helicopter tours and helicopter pilots worked for him and managed to get the president of the company to agree to fly a helicopter so that we could get some video, which led to one of the more famous incidents and How Stuff Works,

where this helicopter pilot uh flew relatively close to the building and anyone who was on our floor knew what was going on, well not even everyone here. Most of the people knew what was going on, but anyone on any other floor had no idea. And I'm pretty sure we terrified half of an office building. Sorry about that, but it was Marshall Brain who did that, um, so not us, not us, But yeah, we've got some pretty

cool footage from those videos. I mean, how could you not We have some pretty cool footage from those videos that are part of this article. So if you want to see what I'm talking about in action, go to how stuff works dot com look up how helicopters work. And we have other articles about helicopters as well, including specific ones like how the Apache helicopter works, which goes into more detail about other systems besides the flight control system.

It's also got weapons systems and its role in military applications, where of course just really focusing on the basics of helicopter flight. But let's also talk now, do you have anything else you want to talk about specifically about helicopters before I move on to quadrocopters. Um, no, go ahead, Okay, So quadricopters, Now, if you haven't seen one of these, these tend to be these little uh unmanned aerial vehicles that have four rotor systems on them. Yeah. The ones

I've seen have been primarily for models for entertainment purposes. Yeah, our C controlled ones or sometimes that you can control them through a smartphone. In our RC episode we talked a little bit about them. What what are you when are you grinning out? Someone's going to write in about RC controlled I'm sorry control can stop by over my a t M machine with my PIN number. And I've got an r C controlled helicopter. How about that? How

about them apples? Anyway? Yes, I okay, so anyway, Yes, there's all the ones that you can control your smartphone. The parrot a r drone which was at c E S the first time I think was maybe three or four years ago, and that was very impressive to see. That was the first time I had ever seen a four rotor copter, a quadricopter. And uh, you might wonder, well, how did these things work? They don't have a tail rotor. There's no tail rotors, so how do they counteract that

torque we were talking about. It's actually pretty clever. Two of the rotors on a quadricopter turn in one direction and the other turn to turn in the other direction, and they cancel each other out, yes, the opposite. They both produce enough torque so that you can keep the quadricopter from turning in place, either one way or the other.

And when I say you, I don't really mean you, because most of these have some pretty sophisticated microprocessors on board that really register measure the amount of torque and all the other elements here so that they can make adjustments to the speed of each of those rotors in order to maintain the proper attitude and altitude of that device.

So all you have to do is say I want you to go over there, and then all these other microprocessors do everything that they can to make that happen while keeping it nice and safe, which is pretty cool. I mean you you know, you think about all the work that they have to do in order for that to to turn out that way. Well, there are lots of different kinds of quadricopters, and if you do want to make it turn like if you want to make

it bank one way or the other. Again, what happens is it the quadricopter adjust the speed at which certain rotors are spinning, so the lift changes exactly, Yes, the lift changes and the torque changes, so the two together can make you straight feit to the left or to the right, or forward or backward. I've even seen, I mean we've seen some that can do flips, because what will do is they'll is one side will spend very

very quickly while the other side stopped spinning. It'll lift up into the air and then they'll switch the directions of the rotors so that it flips it in mid air and lands back, you know, right side up, with

all rotors going, so it goes back into flying. And the video that we were talking about at the very top of this podcast, it was a little unnerving really because we were seeing groups of these quadricopters that were all following the same program, and you could have them grouped into individual little squadrons, like squadrons of four quadricopters, and I think there was something like, uh, they were

using twelve and all. So they had three groups of four and they would send the three groups of four through and through an obstacle course and they would maneuver past each other, but they would all the four quadrocopters would move as a single unit, which was kind of creepy, you know, to see something move like several small things all moving together as one like that was a little odd. And they can make a move through things like windows, which was way griefier. Yeah, I got I gotta these

images of of drones coming into your house. Hello, Mr Smith, Yeah, we have something we'd like to say to you. Oh skynet, Yeah, no, it's a Yeah. The video, So the video we're talking about specifically, and I'll try and link to this when we do some show notes. Is called Precise Aggressive Maneuvers for Autonomous quad quad Rotors quator. I was gonna say quadrocopters but spelled quadrotors and that totally threw me off. But this was done through the GRASP Lab g r

a s P at the University of Pennsylvania. Yeah, that's a general robotics Automation Sensing and Perception. Yeah, so this particular video shows these uh, these tiny quadrocopters moving through various manu overs. What's interesting here is that the one I'm looking at right now, like it's this is one of those videos that just got really popular all of a sudden, right like that. Several of our listeners are

watching listeners um are have seen it. Yeah, but the video that I'm looking at right now was uploaded so two years ago and we're just now starting to catch on it. Sometimes the Internet is a little slow to

catch on the memes, That's what I'm saying. But yeah, this was something that started to make it make the rounds and uh and on Google Plus and on Facebook recently and Twitter as well, and uh, just one of those cool things that it turns out it's been in the works for a few years, but we just started to get the attension of the world in general. But it shows a really interesting approach to programming these quadricopters and showing their capabilities and what they might be used for.

And you might think, okay, well, you know, you put a camera on these and then suddenly you've got a spy plane. But you could also have it for something like first responders. So there's a let's say there's an accident and you send some of these in, uh that to in order to to scan the scene and make sure that one it's safe enough to send in an emergency response teams, and to whether or not it's even

necessary to start send an emergency response teams. You may send in Let's say there's a building that's that's on fire, and you send some of these over to look because I mean, these things, relatively to a human life, are cheap. They're nothing, So you can make as many of these as you like. They're gonna be. They might be a little expensive, but it's less expensive than losing a human life. So you send these things in and take a look around.

It may turn out that well, you know, that building was completely abandoned, there was no one in there, so we don't need to risk the lives of any emergency responders. We can just use the firefighters to try and put this fire out. So that's the kind of idea that we'd be looking at from that point forward. And there's a lot of other possibilities, Um, besides that. I mean, that's traffic, you know, having them look at traffic things

like that. That's these are all possibilities. No, granted, you have to figure out how to supply the power to these things. Most of them are battery operated, and the battery will only last so long. So it's not like if you would send out you know, wake up, punch the clock, send out fifty quadricopters to cover the city and then at the end of the day they all come back. Uh. So you know, it's not like it's a it's a it's not like you can solve all

the problems just by sitting out quatricopters. But it's a cool idea, and the videos are pretty awesome. Also, the the the parrot videos, those are really cool too because those have incorporated smartphone applications. Yes, and you can see through the camera. You can see. Yes, you can use it as you can use as a surveillance tool. Although it is it's whisperer quiet. I've used that. I've used that phrase like eight times on tech stuff recently. But yeah,

it's it's not like it's subtle. It's you'll hear a when you're playing with one of these things. But you can use it to look through the camera. And they've been incorporated games into the drones so that you can if you have one and your friend has one, you're both controlling them with your smartphones. You can play a game where you're essentially kind of like laser tag but with drones. How awesome is that? And then they also have other games where, uh, they'll have targets show up

on your screen. They're not they don't actually exist in real life. It's an augmented reality program where the targets appear on your screen and your job is to fly your drone so that you can use a little imaginary laser to shoot down these targets. It's neat stuff like that, and it really, i mean, beyond the fact that a quadricopter is pretty darn cool by itself. Yeah, yeah, Yeah, as a matter of fact, that one in particular also has some bumpers that it's sort of be a shield

for the for the rotors. Yes, yes, so that you can fly at indoors. A lot of the UM model helicopters I've seen are are more traditional and do not have that kind of protection for the rotors, so you you wouldn't want to necessarily fly it around your house, even bang into a lamp or something. Yeah, even I've seen some of the small ones that are pumped sort

of palm sized. Um. But yeah, I mean if if it actually touches something, it could uh damage it or the copter or both, and that that would be you could bang into someone. So but yeah, the a r drone when the little bumpers you're talking about, they look like little discs that fit around like hollow disks. So yeah, they fit right around where the rotors are. And so it kind of makes this a safer device, so that if it were to bump into something, you would just

get bumped, you wouldn't get cut. Yeah, Still you wouldn't want to get it around people or or pets certainly, so yeah, but it makes it a little safer. Yeah, it's kind of neat, and then uh, I've also heard from enthusiasts, people who really enjoy flying r C helicopters and r C quadricopters that if you're interested in this, a quadricopter in general tends to be a lot easier to fly because those microprocessors I was talking about do

a lot of the fine tuning for you. So all you do is you tell it I want you to go up, and it takes care of the controls that needs to to make those different rotors spin at the right speeds and makes it go up or turn left or turn right or straight or whatever. So it's it can be a lot of fun and it can get people into the hobby and it's not incredibly challenging. On the other hand, flying a remote control helicopter requires a

lot of finesse. Not quite the same sort of thing you would need if you were flying a life size helicopter, but still it does require that you control things like the tail rotor and that you're very methodical with the way that you try and turn the helicopter, maneuver it take off and landings. It's it's actually, from what I understand, one of the more challenging r C vehicles to control,

because there's just so much you have to keep in mind. However, that being said, even though it's really challenging, I also hear it's one of the most enjoyable experiences, very rewarding because once you master that, you know, you really have a sense of accomplishment. So if you are interested in that kind of hobby, I recommend you go ahead and you know, check it out. See what, See what it would look. How much it would cost to get into it,

because these these devices can be fairly expensive. Sometimes sometimes a few hundred dollars is on the low end of some of these devices. But it is something that if you're interested in learning more about flight, if you're interested in just kind of getting a new skill, it's kind of a cool thing to get into. And uh, you know, you know what, I've never actually written in a helicopter, have you No, that's one of my goals I really want to do. I want to do a hellic just

a simple helicopter tour. Nothing, nothing terribly you know, exciting. I was thinking about actually doing one in Hawaii because I thought, well, heck, that would be amazing. You know, the landscape and everything, But I happen to be married to someone who finds air travel to be the uh not the most relaxing experience, and so I didn't do that. I did go parasailing, though interesting. Yeah, totally not at

all like flying in a helicopter would. Yeah, I don't even know why I brought it up, all right, So let's let's wrap this up, guys. This was fun. I'm glad we did this because, you know, we like to try and tackle lots of different kinds of topics here at Tech Stuff. We like to talk about the things that are a big social phenomena, you know, things like like social networking sites and how technology affects us personally or as a society. And we like to talk about companies,

and we like to talk about innovators. But once in a while, it's fun to take a specific type of technology and really deconstruct it and talk about the various parts and what makes it go tick or fly in this case. So if you guys have any suggestions for future topics, no matter which category they may be, and

we'll even open it up a little bit. We're hoping this year, and I'm saying hoping because there's guarantee it's ever gonna work out, but we're hoping that we can maybe get a few guests on the show in the future. So if you have any specific guests in technology that you think would be an interesting interview for tech Stuff, let us know and we will try our best to

see if we can arrange something. Now, keep in mind that requires the scheduling of not just the two tech Stuff host you've come to know and love, but whatever amazing person you have come up with. So we'll do our best, but we can't make any promises, but let us know. Send us a message. You can tell us on Facebook or Twitter. Are handled, there is tech Stuff hs W or send us an email. That address is tech Stuff at Discovery dot com and Chris and I

will talk to you again really soon. Be sure to check out our new video podcast, Stuff from the Future. Join how Stuff Work staff as we explore the most promising and perplexing possibilities of tomorrow the house Stuff Works. I Find app has arrived down at it today on iTunes, brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camry. It's ready, are you