Kinetics of Loss of Tail Rotor Effectiveness

By Joshua PAUL 29379980 3rd October

Most helicopters use a single large rotor for lift, but this also generates a large torque on the fuselage, which is
counteracted by the tail rotor (figure 1). Therefore, a helicopter suffering loss of tail rotor effectiveness (LTE) is extremely
difficult to control. There are two ways to maintain control in such a situation: the first is to maintain forward flight so that
the physical tail of the helicopter provides enough stability, (figure 2); the second is to throttle down the engine so that it
does not produce an uncontrollable torque, and then auto-rotate down, carefully balancing the torque from the engine
with the torque from the air flowing through the blades (figure 3).

Key:

Torque from rotor

Direction of
travel Tail anti-torque

Propulsion

Aerodynamic drag

Figure 1: Normal operation

Key:

Torque from rotor

Propulsion
Direction of
travel Aerodynamic drag

Figure 2: Using forward flight speed to maintain control

Key:

Torque from rotor

Anti torque from

autorotation

Figure 3: Using the air flowing through the blades to generate antitorque

For the case in figure 2, the angular acceleration can be calculated as shown in the following equation, where T represents
the torque from the rotor, θ is the angle between the direction of travel and the direction that the helicopter’s nose is
pointing, A is the surface area of the vertical stabiliser, 𝑢̇ is the speed of travel of the helicopter, I is the rotational inertia of
the helicopter, d is the distance between the rotor and the vertical stabiliser, and ρ is air density:

𝑇 − 2 ∗ sin 𝜃 ∗ 𝜌 ∗ 𝐴 ∗ 𝑢̇ ∗ 𝑑
𝜃̈ =
𝐼

Using data from the UHA-60 Black Hawk helicopter, where the angle of travel was 80 knots (41m/s), the angle of travel can
be calculated to be 34 degrees, as this is where the angular acceleration is 0. The dynamics of this are complicated, but
seem to approach their final value around t = 5 seconds.

Declaration: This work was compiled by myself, from various internet references such as Wikipedia. It was sanity and
grammar checked by colleagues and family. (256 words)