DmitriKozlowsky Posted October 6, 2021 Posted October 6, 2021 Please set me straight if I am wrong on this point. But blade damage from blade strike is unbelievably forgiving. Granted all I have to go on is You Tube videos. When a rotor blade strike an object, the whole rotor hub comes apart, followed by helicopter fuselage basically disassembles in double-quick order. It is a catastrophic event. But not in DCS: Gazelle, which is my fave DCS rotary module. In DCS a Gazelle rotor strike causes outer portion of blade to rip away, leaving helicopter with short blades , which simply causes a faster settle . At low, IGE, at hover height , if blade strikes a tree or structure, helicopter lands . Maybe a little rough, but not catastrophic .At base or FARP If you bork up a T/O or landing and strike ground with blades, you can just ask ground crew by requesting repair. Takes 5 minutes, and you are good to go. That can't be right! The damage model is too forgiving. No helo is that tough. Or perhaps real world military Gazelle has special rotors , designed to rip away partly due to strike. But every helicopter crash video on YT , of which there are many, shows that main rotor strike is the worst of the worst of mishaps. If helo suffers LTE, pilot just auto rotates. Unless it an MI-28 when suffering LTE, it spins into ground. MD-500 crash from Mexico shows MD-500 tail rotor strike a wire, causing such shock that main rotor blades fold in flight, and it's all she wrote for the unfortunate victims. Training videos from Robinson R-22/44 and Bell Ranger, state in case of LTE , collective down and enter auto rotation to ground. If possible cyclic to point nose into the wind. That seems to be SOP for conventional main + tail rotor types.
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