Today I Learned @lemmy.world Flying Squid @lemmy.world 5mo ago

TIL India had a tradition in the 1970s of making military helicopters look like animals

www.peepultree.world Is It a Bird, Is It a Plane? It’s a ‘Flying Elephant’!

Here’s something we bet you didn’t think was possible – an elephant that could fly and dance in the sky. In the 1970s, the Indian Air Force discovered a creative way to showcase its Chetak helicopter. See for yourself.

41 comments

Did they ever make a helicopter look like a squid?
- If they did, I'll sue.
  
  ............your entire existence on Lemmy has been waiting for this moment. And I got to see it.
  
  Neat.
  
  It’s only right
  
  you have fulfilled your destiny
- Splatoon 3 leaked footage
  
  Splatoon 3 is already released
- They did, but had to stop because they were attracting illithids.
The world would be much less funny place without Indians.
- Youtube would also have far fewer technical tutorials.
- feather or dot?
Fuck aerodynamics that is why
- It's a helicopter, it's not like it glides nicely through the air anyways; it beats the air into submission
  
  Helicopters are famously safe to fly and operate with random non functional bits attached.
  
  fair enough
Is that dangerous? I was under the impression helicopters were designed with specific balance in mind
- Only if you are pushing boundaries of the performance of the helicopter. Yes, they are designed with a specific balance in mind, but that balance is an envelope not a single number. They need to have capability to add people as well as have those people move around in flight. Some are designed to carry payloads/cargo, too, which can be variable in weight and shape. Have you ever seen a rescue helicopter flying with a gurney dangling by a line, swinging in the wind with a patient strapped to it? Same thing.
  
  flying with a gurney
  
  Military helicopters can fly with all sorts of stuff slung under them. It's how we got our radar around sometimes when I was in the army.
  
  I used to fly on the company helicopter pretty regularly. It would go around to the different sites in the broader area, picking up and dropping off. One time, we stopped at a site and a very, very large man got in and sat in back on one side. He was about as heavy as you can imagine a person being and still walking around on his own power. The pilot went straight up from the pad a couple hundred feet, played with settings on the stick, dropped maybe twenty feet, played some more, up and down a couple more times, then flew away like normal. I'd never seen them do that before or after. I assume he must have been getting the settings right for the unusually unbalanced load.
- I‘m not a pilot but i‘m assuming for slow manouvers this wouldn‘t be too much of a problem? I‘m thinking if you go over a certain speed there are also huge aerodynamic consequences.
  
  Also, military helicopter pilots are very highly trained and can probably handle a helicopter with a change in weight distribution just fine in those slow maneuver situations.
Oh man. What if Hannibal crossed the Alps in these?
All countries should do this lol
- Especially on their regular attack helicopters. It would make war slightly more fun!
  
  This is your username's time to shine.
  
  It would confuse the hell out of drug users.
  
  "Did I just see an elephant fly by? Holy shit! Either Dumbo is based on a real story, or that acid I took 2 weeks ago is STILL working!"
Had

😢
The pilot:

41 comments