ASA Helicopter Flying Handbook

chapter 2 aerodynamics of flight introduction this chapter presents aerodynamic fundamentals and principles as they apply to helicopters the content relates to flight operations and performance of normal flight tasks it covers theory and application of aerodynamics for the pilot whether in flight training or general flight operations gravity acting on the mass the amount of matter of an object creates a force called weight the rotor blade below weighs 100 pounds it is 20 feet long span and is one foot wide quart accordingly its surface area is 20 square feet figure 2 1 the blade is perfectly balanced on a pinpoint stand as you can see in figure 2 2 from looking at it from the end the airfoil view the goal is for the blade to defy gravity and stay exactly where it is when we remove the stand if we do nothing before removing the stand the blade will simply fall to the ground can we exert