The rotor head is a crucial helicopter component that houses the main rotors and consists of a wobble plate, pitch change rod, rotor hub or shaft, vibration damper, and rotor blades. The blades constantly change pitch and angle to maintain flight.
A rotor head is a helicopter component that houses the main rotors of the aircraft. The rotor head consists of a wobble plate, pitch change rod, rotor hub or shaft, vibration damper, and rotor blades. These parts make up the large rotating mass found at the top of a helicopter.
The wobble plate is a large metal disc that connects the pilot’s controls to the rotor head. Pilot controlled cyclic and collective mechanisms are connected to the rotor head via the wobble plate. The wobble plate actually rotates with the rotor head, but the cyclic and collective mechanisms do not.
Camber shift rods connect the wobble plate to the rotor shaft or hub. The function of the pitch change rods is to alter the angles of the blades during rotation according to changes in the pilot’s controls. When looking at the rotor head, the camber shift rods will line up vertically while most other components are horizontal.
The blade is bolted to the spindle or rotor shaft; the pitch shift rod is also attached to this component. The hub not only rotates with the head of the rotor, but also rotates on its axis, hence the term “spindle”. The spindles translate input from the pilot controls to the blades via collective and cyclic mechanisms, wobble plate, and pitch change bars.
The vibration damper is normally a mechanical, hydraulic and pneumatic component that absorbs mechanical and harmonic vibrations. Although very small, without vibration dampers, the rotor head will likely fail due to metal fatigue. Vibration dampers vary greatly in size and design between helicopters.
Rotor blades are rotating wings. Since helicopters do not have wings, the rotating blades are the wings. The profile of a rotor blade resembles a wing on an airplane. Rotor blades can be considered the most important part of the rotor head, as they have the wing-shaped design that allows an aircraft to fly. An interesting fact about any airplane is that the tip of the propeller blade cannot exceed the speed of sound.
The entire rotor head assembly is connected to a main gearbox or drive through gears. Each part of the piece, except the collective and cyclical mechanism, rotates as a single unit. The rotor head is a very busy unit and must be fine tuned to achieve flight. It may seem like a helicopter’s blades are spinning like a house fan, but the truth is that the blades must constantly change pitch and angle to maintain flight.
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