Tail rotor

Last updated June 28, 2024

The tail rotor is a smaller rotor mounted vertically or near-vertically at the tail of a traditional single-rotor helicopter, where it rotates to generate a propeller-like horizontal thrust in the same direction as the main rotor's rotation. The tail rotor's position and distance from the helicopter's center of mass allow it to develop enough thrust leverage to counter the reactional torque exerted on the fuselage by the spinning of the main rotor. Without the tail rotor or other anti-torque mechanisms (e.g. NOTAR), the helicopter would be constantly spinning in the opposite direction of the main rotor when flying.

Tail rotors are simpler than main rotors since they require only collective changes in pitch to vary thrust. The pitch of the tail rotor blades is adjustable by the pilot via the anti-torque pedals, which also provide directional control by allowing the pilot to rotate the helicopter around its vertical axis. Its drive system consists of a shaft powered from the main transmission and a gearbox mounted at the end of the tail boom. The drive shaft may consist of one long shaft or a series of shorter shafts connected at both ends with flexible couplings, that allow the drive shaft to flex with the tail boom. The gearbox at the end of the tail boom provides an angled drive for the tail rotor and may also include gearing to adjust the output to the optimum rotational speed for the tail rotor, measured in rotations per minute (RPM). On larger helicopters with a tail pylon, intermediate gearboxes are used to transition the tail rotor drive shaft from along the tailboom to the top of the pylon. The tail rotor pylon may also serve as a vertical stabilizing airfoil, to alleviate the power requirement for the tail rotor in forward flight. The tail rotor pylon may also serve to provide limited antitorque within certain airspeed ranges, in the event that the tail rotor or its flight controls fail. About 10% of the engine power goes to the tail rotor.^[1]

Design

The tail rotor system rotates airfoils, small wings called blades, that vary in pitch in order to vary the amount of thrust they produce. The blades most often utilize a composite material construction, such as a core made of aluminum honeycomb or plasticized paper honeycomb, covered in a skin made of aluminum or carbon fiber composite. Tail rotor blades can be made with both symmetrical and asymmetrical airfoil construction. The pitch change mechanism uses a cable control system or control tubes that run from the anti-torque pedals in the cockpit to a mechanism mounted on the tail rotor gearbox. In larger helicopters, the pitch change mechanism is augmented by a hydraulic power control servo. In the event of a hydraulic system failure, the mechanical system is still able to control the tail rotor pitch, though the control resistance felt by the pilot will be considerably greater.

The tail rotor is powered by the helicopter's main power plant, and rotates at a speed proportional to that of the main rotor. In both piston and turbine powered helicopters, the main rotor and the tail rotor are mechanically connected through a freewheeling clutch system, which allows the rotors to keep turning in the event of an engine failure by mechanically de-linking the engine from both the main and tail rotors. During autorotation, the momentum of the main rotor continues to power the tail rotor and allow directional control. To optimize its function for forward flight, the blades of a tail rotor have no twist to reduce the profile drag, because the tail rotor is mounted with its axis of rotation perpendicular to the direction of flight.

Reliability and safety

The tail rotor and the systems that provide power and control for it are considered critically important for safe flight. As with many parts on a helicopter, the tail rotor, its transmission, and many parts in the drive system are often life-limited, meaning they are arbitrarily replaced after a certain number of flight hours, regardless of condition. Between replacements, parts are subject to frequent inspections utilizing visual as well as chemical methods such as fluorescent penetrant inspection to detect weak parts before they fail completely.

Despite the emphasis on reducing failures, they do occasionally occur, most often due to hard landings and tailstrikes, or foreign object damage. Though the tail rotor is considered essential for safe flight, the loss of tail rotor function does not necessarily result in a fatal crash. In cases where the failure occurs due to contact with the ground, the aircraft is already at low altitude, so the pilot may be able to reduce collective pitch of the main rotor and land the helicopter before it spins completely out of control. Should the tail rotor fail randomly during cruise flight, forward momentum will often provide some directional stability, as many helicopters are equipped with a vertical stabilizer. The pilot would then be forced to autorotate and make an emergency landing with significant forward airspeed, which is known as a running landing or roll-on landing.

The tail rotor itself is a hazard to ground crews working near a running helicopter. For this reason, tail rotors are painted with stripes of alternating colors to increase their visibility to ground crews while the tail rotor is spinning.

Alternative technologies

There have been three major alternative designs which attempt to solve the shortcomings of the tail rotor system.

The first is to use an enclosured ducted fan rather than openly exposed rotor blades. This design is referred to as a fantail or "Fenestron", a trademark of Eurocopter (now Airbus Helicopters) for its Dauphin-series utility helicopters. The enclosure around the fan reduces tip vortex losses, shields the blades from foreign object damage, protects ground crews from potential hazard of an openly spinning rotor, and produces a much quieter and less turbulent noise profile than a conventional tail rotor. The ducted fan uses more numerous shorter blades, but otherwise works in very similar thrust principles to a conventional tail rotor.

McDonnell Douglas developed the NOTAR (NOTAil Rotor) system, which eliminates having any rotating parts out in the open. The NOTAR system uses a variable pitch ducted fan driven by the helicopter's powerplant, but the ducted fan is mounted inside the fuselage ahead of the tail boom, and the exhaust passes through the tail boom to the end, where it is expelled out one side. This creates a boundary layer which causes the downwash from the main rotor to hug the tail boom according to the Coandă effect. This creates a force which cancels out the main rotor torque and provides directional control. The advantages of the system are similar to the Fenestron system discussed above.

There are at least four ways to eliminate the necessity of a tail rotor altogether :

Tandem/transverse rotors: to use two non-overlapping main rotors which rotate in opposite directions, so that the torque created by one rotor cancels out the torque created by the other. Such configurations are commonly seen on heavy-lift helicopters like the tandem-rotored CH-47 Chinook.

The tiltrotor design, as seen on the V-22 Osprey, is a variation of the transverse rotor design, where the rotors are installed in tiltable nacelles at the ends of fixed wings. This allows the rotors to serve instead as propellers when flying forward at full speed.

Coaxial. Other designs such as the Kamov Ka-50 and Sikorsky X2 use coaxial counter-rotating main rotors, which means that both rotors spin around the same axis but in opposite directions. The complexity of any dual main rotor system almost invariably requires the addition of a fly-by-wire flight control system, which increases costs drastically.
Intermeshing rotors also turn in opposite directions, but the blades rotate into the gaps between the opposing blades so the rotors can intersect each other's path without colliding. Invented by Anton Flettner and used in Flettner Fl 282,^[2] Kaman HH-43 Huskie, and Kaman K-MAX.
Tip jet. Another way to eliminate the effect of torque created by the rotorwing is by mounting the engine on the tips of the rotorwing rather than inside the helicopter itself; this is called a tip jet. One example of a helicopter using such a system is the NHI H-3 Kolibrie, which had a ramjet on each of the two wingtips, and an auxiliary power unit to spin up the rotor before starting the ramjets. Another example would be the Fairey Rotodyne. Also, unpowered rotors used in autogyro, gyrodyne, and derived concepts do not need a tail rotor either, although nearly all models that utilize this concept of propulsion do need a second propeller in one way or another to drive them forward to begin with.

Related Research Articles

In aeronautics, a ducted fan is a thrust-generating mechanical fan or propeller mounted within a cylindrical duct or shroud. Other terms include ducted propeller or shrouded propeller. When used in vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) applications it is also known as a shrouded rotor.

NOTAR is a helicopter system which avoids the use of a tail rotor. It was developed by McDonnell Douglas Helicopter Systems. The system uses a fan inside the tail boom to build a high volume of low-pressure air, which exits through two slots and creates a boundary layer flow of air along the tailboom utilizing the Coandă effect. The boundary layer changes the direction of airflow around the tailboom, creating thrust opposite the motion imparted to the fuselage by the torque effect of the main rotor. Directional yaw control is gained through a vented, rotating drum at the end of the tailboom, called the direct jet thruster. Advocates of NOTAR assert that the system offers quieter and safer operation than a traditional tail rotor.

The Focke-Wulf Triebflügel, or Triebflügeljäger, literally meaning "thrust-wing hunter", was a German concept for an aircraft designed in 1944, during the final phase of World War II, as a defence against the ever-increasing Allied bombing raids on central Germany. It was a vertical take-off and landing tailsitter interceptor design for local defense of important factories or areas which had small or no airfields.

Helicopter flight controls are used to achieve and maintain controlled aerodynamic helicopter flight. Changes to the aircraft flight control system transmit mechanically to the rotor, producing aerodynamic effects on the rotor blades that make the helicopter move in a desired way. To tilt forward and back (pitch) or sideways (roll) requires that the controls alter the angle of attack of the main rotor blades cyclically during rotation, creating differing amounts of lift at different points in the cycle. To increase or decrease overall lift requires that the controls alter the angle of attack for all blades collectively by equal amounts at the same time, resulting in ascent, descent, acceleration and deceleration.

A coaxial-rotor aircraft is an aircraft whose rotors are mounted one above the other on concentric shafts, with the same axis of rotation, but turning in opposite directions (contra-rotating).

On a helicopter, the main rotor or rotor system is the combination of several rotary wings with a control system, that generates the aerodynamic lift force that supports the weight of the helicopter, and the thrust that counteracts aerodynamic drag in forward flight. Each main rotor is mounted on a vertical mast over the top of the helicopter, as opposed to a helicopter tail rotor, which connects through a combination of drive shaft(s) and gearboxes along the tail boom. The blade pitch is typically controlled by the pilot using the helicopter flight controls. Helicopters are one example of rotary-wing aircraft (rotorcraft). The name is derived from the Greek words helix, helik-, meaning spiral; and pteron meaning wing.

A quadcopter, also called quadrocopter, or quadrotor is a type of helicopter or multicopter that has four rotors.

A Fenestron is an enclosed helicopter tail rotor that operates like a ducted fan. The term Fenestron is a trademark of multinational helicopter manufacturing consortium Airbus Helicopters. The word itself comes from the Occitan term for a small window, and is ultimately derived from the Latin word fenestra for window.

A rotorcraft or rotary-wing aircraft is a heavier-than-air aircraft with rotary wings or rotor blades, which generate lift by rotating around a vertical mast. Several rotor blades mounted on a single mast are referred to as a rotor. The International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) defines a rotorcraft as "supported in flight by the reactions of the air on one or more rotors".

A convertiplane is defined by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale as an aircraft which uses rotor power for vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) and converts to fixed-wing lift in normal flight. In the US it is further classified as a sub-type of powered lift. In popular usage it sometimes includes any aircraft that converts in flight to change its method of obtaining lift.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Propeller (aeronautics)</span> Aircraft propulsion component

In aeronautics, an aircraft propeller, also called an airscrew, converts rotary motion from an engine or other power source into a swirling slipstream which pushes the propeller forwards or backwards. It comprises a rotating power-driven hub, to which are attached several radial airfoil-section blades such that the whole assembly rotates about a longitudinal axis. The blade pitch may be fixed, manually variable to a few set positions, or of the automatically variable "constant-speed" type.

A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by horizontally spinning rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forward, backward and laterally. These attributes allow helicopters to be used in congested or isolated areas where fixed-wing aircraft and many forms of short take-off and landing (STOL) or short take-off and vertical landing (STOVL) aircraft cannot perform without a runway.

A powered lift aircraft takes off and lands vertically under engine power but uses a fixed wing for horizontal flight. Like helicopters, these aircraft do not need a long runway to take off and land, but they have a speed and performance similar to standard fixed-wing aircraft in combat or other situations.

Autorotation is a state of flight in which the main rotor system of a helicopter or other rotary-wing aircraft turns by the action of air moving up through the rotor, as with an autogyro, rather than engine power driving the rotor. The term autorotation dates to a period of early helicopter development between 1915 and 1920, and refers to the rotors turning without the engine. It is analogous to the gliding flight of a fixed-wing aircraft. Some trees have seeds that have evolved wing-like structures that enable the seed to spin to the ground in autorotation, which helps the seeds to disseminate over a wider area.

The Cierva W.9 was a British 1940s experimental helicopter with a three-blade tilting-hub controlled main rotor, and torque compensation achieved using a jet of air discharged from the rear port side of the fuselage. The design was not further developed into production, and the prototype crashed in 1946.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Proprotor</span>

A proprotor is a spinning airfoil that function as both an airplane-style propeller and a helicopter-style rotor. Several proprotor-equipped convertiplanes, such as the Bell Boeing V-22 Osprey tiltrotor, are capable of switching back and forth between flying akin to both helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Accordingly this type of airfoil has been predominantly applied to vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) aircraft.

The Nagler NH-160 was an experimental single seat helicopter with counter-rotating blades.

A rotor wing is a lifting rotor or wing which spins to provide aerodynamic lift. In general, a rotor may spin about an axis which is aligned substantially either vertically or side-to-side (spanwise). All three classes have been studied for use as lifting rotors and several variations have been flown on full-size aircraft, although only the vertical-axis rotary wing has become widespread on rotorcraft such as the helicopter.

The Nord 1700 Norélic or SNCAN N.1700 Norélic was a French helicopter with several novel control features. Only one prototype was built, though it was intended to lead to series production.

The SNCASE SE-3110 or Sud-Est SE-3110 was a French two seat experimental helicopter with unusual twin, angled tail rotors, first flown in 1950. After brief tests SNCASE decided to concentrate on a closely related but single-tail-rotor design.

References

^[3]

↑ Dave Jackson. "Flight Dynamics - Definitions & Algorithms Archived 2016-11-01 at the Wayback Machine " UniCopter, 29 January 2013. Accessed: 19 November 2013.
↑ Boyne, Walter J. (2011). How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare. Pelican Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-58980-700-6.
↑ Rotorcraft Flying Handbook (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.: U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. 2000. pp. 1-2 and 5-3. ISBN 1-56027-404-2. FAA-8083-21.

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[1] Dave Jackson. "Flight Dynamics - Definitions & Algorithms Archived 2016-11-01 at the Wayback Machine " UniCopter, 29 January 2013. Accessed: 19 November 2013.

[2] Boyne, Walter J. (2011). How the Helicopter Changed Modern Warfare. Pelican Publishing. p. 45. ISBN 978-1-58980-700-6.

[FAA-3] Rotorcraft Flying Handbook (PDF). U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington D.C.: U.S. Federal Aviation Administration. 2000. pp. 1-2 and 5-3. ISBN 1-56027-404-2. FAA-8083-21.

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