melsman Senior Heliman Location: Atascadero, CA
| Hi WMac,
The CH-53 you're referring to, the CH-53E SuperStallion, is a larger version of the CH-53D. The tail rotor has five blades and is as large as the main rotor of the Hughes 500. As you know with our small scale birds, the tail rotor is used to offset torque, but the horizontal thrust form the tail rotor forces the helicopter to tilt and drift sideways. (With our clockwise rotors, our helis tilt right and drift left. Full size American-made heli main rotors rotate counter-clockwise and tilt left and drift right.)
The torque on the CH-53E is so huge and the tail rotor thrust so great, that the tail-rotor was angled down to the left to impart a slight torque to the fuse to offset some of the left tilt.
It's a big mama.
Ashley |