Hazards of helicopter flight
As with any moving vehicle, operation outside of safe regimes could result in loss of control, structural damage, or fatality. The following is a list of some of the potential hazards for helicopters:
- Settling with power, also known as a vortex ring state, is essentially when the aircraft settles into its own downwash, unable to climb out of the condition due to the effect of the turbulent air on the aerodynamics of the rotor.
- Retreating blade stall
- Ground resonance (affects helicopters with rotor systems having lead-lag natural frequency less than the blade rotation frequency).
- Low-G condition (affects two-bladed main rotor helicopters)
- Dynamic rolloer
- Operating within the shaded area of the height-velocity diagram
- Tail rotor failure.
- Brownout or whiteout in snowcondition