Insight into the factors affecting the safety of take-off and landing of the ship-borne helicopter

Abstract

Despite the important role and highly frequent appearance of the helicopter in modern ship operations, the flight mission with take-off and landing of helicopters to ships, especially ships with small-sized decks, could be very challenging and potentially hazardous. Many researches on ship-helicopter dynamic interface (DI) have been conducted, and significant progress has been made. In this paper, a comprehensive and systematical review of the factors affecting the flying qualities of ship-borne helicopter and pilot workload during taking off and landing is derived from these efforts to date. The factors from two aspects, including the ship environment and the pilot-helicopter interface, are covered to address how these factors affect the helicopter handling qualities and pilot workload, primarily focusing on aerodynamic issues. The insight into these factors is not only of great significance for conducting take-off and landing tasks safely but also helpful to establish suitable fidelity criteria and guidelines for the modelling and simulation of the ship-helicopter DI environment.