Very cool!
Lots of fun that. I tells ya and I tells ya, helicopters are magic, they make no sense. 
Seriously. I flew in one for three years and I’m still not completely sure how they work.
I’m going with pixie dust.
It’s a Hind. The helicopter so ugly it repels the ground.
Or the Earth repels it.
Even more fun are the comments below that video.
“um that’s a Russian hind, it was made in the late 70’s, its not new with jet boosters. and its so obvious that its a toy on a string with background sounds, because if it was real, why would the Russians risk wasting a multi million dollar gunship to say “hey our helicopter can fly without rotors” who gives a fuck, then its not a helicopter. its a jumpjet”
Lordy, lordylordylordylordy.
Damn, there’s just no variation in that rotor speed, is there?
I’d’ve thought the changing load when climbing or turning would cause a little drop in rpm. Must be one hell of a powerful engine on that thing.
I have to say that reading even the first page of the almost 5000 comments on that video make me really, Really, REALLY appreciate what we have here on the SDMB.
I know it’s not dramatic, but there are little shifts in the speed–you can see at some points that the blade slowly begins to rotate backwards. Your point still stands, though.
The stupid! It burns!
Actually, many comments are jokes. But what confounds me is that after several more-or-less correct explanations* people still seem to wonder how it can fly without its rotors turning.
I have to say though, that this is the first time I’ve seen ‘camera’ spelled ‘cammrer’. :dubious:
*****I say ‘more or less’ because some details are wrong. For example, one guy says it’s a poor camera and the frame rate is too slow. You actually need a fast frame rate to get the effect. But the gist of the answer, that the image is the result of the speed of the shutter and the speed of the rotor, is essentially correct.
I hate to be pedantic (well, actually, I don’t), but the the frame rate is actually not important other than it needs to be an integer fraction of the RPM of the rotors. The shutter speed needs to be fast to prevent blurring of the blades, but that’s a different issue.
The chopper has a constant speed governor, if you think about it, from an efficiency point of view is desirable to maintain the speed of the rotor constant, any changes involve accelerating or slowing down the mass of the rotor. So the governor adjust the engine power and collective pitch of the blades to maintain a stable RPM rate. Less energy needed, less stress on the rotor, better all around.
Still, a bloody good governor. 
Witch[air]craft!
You are correct. That’s why I used ‘shutter speed’ in the title. But I was typing (paraphrasing) what the guy wrote, and ‘frame rate’ was in my head.
How hard would it be to make that video? Is it just a trial-and-error exercise, making and watching videos using different shutter speeds, or is it a matter of having some knowledge of the rotor rate?
My first thought is that it’s a coincidence and someone just happened to catch a quirky video.
I understand how it works, but it’s still neat.
My son flies what he calls “fixed wing big metal”.
He says that helicopters are crazy-ass to fly, and that their pilots are just as crazy-assed. He has a lot of respect for them, though.
I resemble that remark!
Indeed. Every once in a while I wonder if I should waste less of my precious free time on The Dope and pursue some other equally unproductive venues on the internet. And then I come running straight back.