Have you ever noticed that American helicopters have skis under the fuselage for landing, and our helicopters have wheels? Why is it so? In fact, this choice has very specific reasons. We will talk about them today. You will have to start from afar.
The fact is that the Cold War between the USSR and the USA is to blame. Sometimes, albeit rarely, but the helicopters still had to catch up with the enemy moving along the ground! Our Soviet designers knew that things were going very well in America with the roads, therefore, in preparation for the Third World War, they equipped all the helicopters with wheels. The insidious Americans knew that the roads in the USSR and Russia were all "not very good," to put it mildly, so they equipped their helicopters with runners so that they would chase the Soviets and Russians like sledges! And yes, it was all a joke. And now Seriously.
In fact, the country of origin has nothing to do with which type of chassis is chosen for the aircraft: runners or wheels. Today, Americans are quite successful in making most of their wheeled helicopters. To be convinced, it is enough to look at some "McDonnell Douglas AH-64 Apache" or "Sikorsky UH-60 Black Hawk" sung by the cinema. In turn, helicopters on skids are sometimes made in our country, for example, some kind of "Ansat". The designers choose the chassis strictly for two reasons: production and operating conditions.
Pros and cons of runners
Pros. The main and, in fact, the only advantage of helicopter runners is their low cost in production. After all, in fact, these are just metal tubes. Despite the fact that runners are extremely cheap (relative to wheeled chassis), they are also a fairly compromise solution with aerodynamic point of view, since they prevent the helicopter from flying much less due to its small size and specific forms.
At the dawn of the formation of helicopters, machines with skids were indeed characteristic primarily of the American design school. This is because, going to start the mass production of combat helicopters for the army, the Pentagon wanted something good, but not astronomically expensive. Well, they are also easy to maintain, there is nothing to break in the runners ...
Minuses. Cheap and cheerful is always cool. However, helicopter runners have very specific disadvantages. First, it's the same aerodynamics. The runners still cannot be removed, which means that the streamlining of the car will suffer, even though the skis are smaller and lighter than almost any wheeled chassis. Secondly, transporting helicopters with runners on the ground from one place to another requires the use of special trolleys. Which is not very convenient.
Pros and cons of wheels
Pros. Wheeled helicopters have a number of important advantages. At the dawn of the formation of helicopter technology, wheeled vehicles were indeed characteristic primarily of the Soviet design school. It affected the fact that at first we saw the helicopter as a purely vehicle, and not a combat vehicle. The helicopters were heavy, and it was quite difficult to put such a colossus on the runners.
The first and foremost advantage of wheeled systems is the possibility of horizontal take-off and landing. Those. the helicopter goes up into the sky or lands on the ground almost like an airplane. This is useful primarily from the point of view of fuel economy: vertical takeoff and landing gobble up a monstrous amount of fuel. Wheels tend to create more aerodynamic drag when moving in the air. But, unlike runners, they can be made retractable. It's expensive, but much better. In addition, wheel systems have to be equipped with many "side" mechanisms such as shock absorbers and brakes. All this further increases the cost of the aircraft. On the other hand, a wheeled helicopter does not need carts for transportation at the airport.
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Minuses. There are three main disadvantages and they stem directly from the advantages of the wheeled chassis. First, wheeled chassis are more difficult to manufacture. Second, wheeled chassis are more expensive. Moreover, when it comes to retractable chassis, it is much more expensive. Third, wheeled chassis are more difficult to maintain. The reason is obvious: this is a much more complicated mechanism from a technical point of view than several welded pipes of the required stiffness.
If you want to know even more interesting things, then you should read about 7 best attack helicopters, which are in service with the strongest armies in the world.
A source: https://novate.ru/blogs/260821/60301/
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