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The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
61–68 of 68 posts
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
what helicopter do you expect EXCEPT a navy helicopter to be flying through the fallout from a nuclear explosion? especially with all the nuclear tests they were doing for decades?
Ambulance and rescue helicopters, if there are any left, and the crew didn't just take the helicopter and run as far as possible...
Which will almost certainly be military, because civilian helicopters and staff aren’t equipped or trained for that kind of environment except for perhaps a every couple of years hazmat/mass casualty training.
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#63This definitely come from the same category as F-16 potentially releasing hydrazine when it crashes, as it is used to power its auxiliary power unit in an emergency:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrazine#Gas_producers_and_pr...
https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC12542269/
https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/23417/why-is-hy...
First you usually go "WTF, why would they do that ?" but on a second look it usually makes perfect sense & is quite an elegant, if unorthodox engineering solution.
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#64The article is very vague on how the radioactivity allows detection of leaking gas. The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
Radioactivity has nothing to do with it. Was solved in Mi-6/Mi-8/Mi-26 blades without it.
Would be actually interesting to know how other helicopters solved this. :)
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#65Earlier quoted context omitted.
Hackaday isn't the end-all, be-all authoritative source for anything. It's a blog that, for the most part, links to neat stuff with a summary write-up. If something interests you then it's on you to follow the links. This is how the web used to work.
I miss those days.
Sorry, all out of the good old days. All we have are people working in tech too ashamed to admit they're a willing and complicit part of the surveillance state under the auspices of working in something they also won't admit is marketing or advertising tech, but is 100% just that.
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#66Wait until the general public learns about the tech behind most of the currently fielded smoke detectors.
Also, this has long-since been obviated with active acoustic/vibration detection in modern rotor drive-trains.
All that said, every registered civilian and military chopper has high duty-cycle manual inspection of rotor blades too. They use both their Mark I eye-balls and ultrasonic transducers.
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#67 Safe for humans as long as they do not breathe it.
Re: The Helicopter with Radioactive Blades
#68The article is very vague on how the radioactivity allows detection of leaking gas. The video at the bottom explains from 7:50 in. Gas pressure pressing on a spring holds a radiation shield in place. If the gas leaks the shield moves and the radiation can be detected.
Radioactivity has nothing to do with it. Was solved in Mi-6/Mi-8/Mi-26 blades without it.
I saw they moved to composite blades but why don't they need such a warning system?