• Performance
– Estimation of the installed engine power require for a
given flight operation
– Determination of the maximum level flight speed
– Estimation of the endurance/range
– Since the ability of the helicopter is to hover, this
operation is more important than all the other factors
• Maximum altitude it can hover (in or out of ground effect)
• Notes:
– Valid for rectangular blade
– Hover power is a function of:
• Helicopter weight
• Air density
– With
• hp (pressure altitude) in meters
• 0 indicating sea level
• With
– hρ (density altitude) in meters
– 0 indicating sea level
13% increase
• With:
– Pi the induced power
– P0 the profile power
– Pp the parasite power
– Pc the climb power
• Note that we should also add the Tail Rotor power
Tsin(αTPP-θFP)=DFPcos θFP
T(αTPP-θFP)=Df or
• Since Defining
• Typical values of f :
– Small helicopters 0.93m2
– Large utility helicopters 4.65m2
Large µ
Helicopters / Filipe Szolnoky Cunha Helicopter Performance Slide 26
Forward Flight Performance
• Using the BET the profile power can be
calculated using:
• Among them:
• With
• With:
– Mdd2 is the 2D drag divergence Mach number
– Mdd3 is the 3D drag divergence Mach number (with tip relief
that exceeds Mdd2 by 10-15%)
– ARblade is blade aspect ratio (R/c)
– Where :
• P is the power
• V the velocity
• SFC is the specific fuel consumption
• Induced velocity:
• Induced power:
T1
T2
m(T1+T2)
• T1≠T2
• The induced power for each area is:
• Note that:
Inboard Outboard
• Solving for λc
• Betz suggested:
– Excess power
– Excess thrust
• And therefore
• Potential energy
• Transitional kinetic energy
• Rotational kinetic energy