My aeroplane pilot father says that helicopters fly because they're so ugly that the ground repels them.
And he still does this.
this post was submitted on 06 Aug 2026
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I thought they beat the air into submission.
They just shake so hard that physics gives up and throws them in the air.
Is that why they're so loud? To hide the source engine clipping sounds?
He's not wrong.
I live near an army base, the state police HQ, and a hospital with an emergency chopper and I can tell which one it is just by the sound of the rotors.
My favorite are the Chinooks that go wumpa wumpa wumpa.
According to my friend Sam, the helicopter noise is "soi soi soi..." though.
Sounds like a 4chan discussion
me if it's a cop helicopter: 😡
me if it's any other helicopter: 🤩
(disclaimer not a guy but helicopter cool)
I'm technically a man and I can't stand helicopters. They ruin the the natural soundscape, especially police helicopters. I draw the line of my disdain at medical helicopters however, those can do what they need to do.
I feel exactly the same way, at my old house there was a police helicopter that would buzz the house every single night at 2 AM this went on for almost 10 years before we moved. At our new house we still hear helicopters every day.
In my city police helicopters are constant. I swear they burn the fuel simply to justify the next year's budget.
How often do you see them?
Probably every 5 or 10 minutes.
In Los Angeles helicopters are part of the natural soundscape
Helicopters are the bumblebees of the mechanical world; with so many forces working against one another just to keep them aloft and being aerodynamically inefficient for flight (no wingspan for glide etc..) its a miracle each time one doesn't crash.
And then there's the whole thing with the Jesus nut.
Fucking exactly. Feels like we're taunting physics instead of elegantly working with it hahaha
I'm an engineer. I've studied aerodynamics. I know how helicopters work. I know the blade is a wing that generates lift. I can even explain it all in detail.
Yet if we came across some alien antigravity technology and we started making antigravity aircraft, I'm sure that would make more sense to me than helicopters because what the hell. My brain just refuses to believe they can fly.
Helicopters bludgeon the air into submission and fly by sheer violence.
At least, that's the fun way to imagine it until you have to think about how gyrocopters work. Then it's back to being magic.
With the fires across Europe on the news i repeatedly see videos Chinooks. They were invented before i was born, but when I see one I still think that the future is now.
When I was a kid, there used to be a military airfield near where we lived, that had normal helicopters and tandem-rotor helicopters that they flew by with daily. The noise was quite distinct.
Now we have ambulance helicopters and police helicopters flying directly overhead from twice a week to twice daily. I stopped looking years ago until I one day heard a different sound, yet oddly familiar somehow, that sounded like something was punching the air aggressively with fists. I had to go out and saw that ancient dark green monstrosity of a tandem-rotor helicopter again. And then another. Last year they seemed to have daily exercises for a week with them during defense training operations. Didn’t want to complain about them online since it would be inappropriate to share pinpoint locations and times, but was very grateful when they stopped.
Eh, unless you're close to an actual frontline, they shouldn't give two shits about someone posting, "wao, chinooks". Though if you are... yea good idea.
Tandem rotor helicopters like Chinooks?
As I said to another commenter:
No idea, I can’t even tell a Boeing apart from an Airbus until the doors come popping off mid flight.
Then they mentioned huey something and I looked it up. Closer to chinook maybe. The noise was so way more different from Vietnam movies compared to these though. On the other hand, shots from pistol, gun, machine gun and rifles don’t sound in RL like they do in movies either.
Hueys?
No idea, I can’t even tell a Boeing apart from an Airbus until the doors come popping off mid flight.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_UH-1_Iroquois
The one you see in all the vietnam movies
Thank you for providing a reference, but no, bigger and bulkier. Not important anyhow, but thank you for trying to check with me.
looks at helicopter Helicopter repair man: "there goes my entire week"
I used to want to build one,or at least the mechanism for coaxial counter rotation
I mean, who didn't?
I did. In Besiege! Also a steam engine plane.
I've been told I'm wrong and being irrational, but I kind of hate helicopters and am low-key terrified of flying in one.
My logic is this: planes turn into gliders when the engines go out. A helicopter is just like a falling stone.
Now I've been told that I'm wrong and that apparently that horrifying death spin they often do on the way down will slow the descent.
Which is cold comfort lol
They're way more dangerous. The last time I was in a helicopter, the pilot kept trying to get us over a mountain ridge, but the low air density at that elevation kept causing the blades to be ineffective and would drop us. After a handful of tries, he gave up, and we went around.
I'll probably never fly in one again.
That sounds like a waking nightmare
My dad never told me much about his past, but I once heard him telling the neighbor that he was driving to college one day, and saw a helicopter that had been travelling the same direction as him fall out of the sky after its tail rotor failed.
Said he swore never to ride in one after that, and I could see why.
They be watching us