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This paper reflects the design characteristics of helicopters and how each addresses the requirements of efficiency in operation and the ability to perform these operations effectively.

The basic requirements of a helicopter are discussed. A survey of the various rotorcraft configurations follows. A brief perusal of possibilities for the future concludes the paper.

The helicopter appears in various guises. Each version is designed to a particular brief and fulfils its own particular purpose.

The paper content is generally available from the various rotary wing texts both in print and within libraries. The originality comes from the assembly of these items within one paper which attempts to highlight the particular difficulties faced when designing rotary wing aircraft.

The engineering industry is facing a shortage of suitably educated graduates for the future. In order to find reasons why and how this problem could be overcome, a series of related investigations has been carried out by academic staff and undergraduates. The investigations covered a wide age range from young schoolchildren to final year undergraduates. Extensive consultation with the aerospace industry has provided information on what is now required of the education process. Recent developments in the engineering industry have resulted in new skills being required where the conventional, and well‐known, core disciplines must be integrated in order to create the entire aerospace vehicle. This paper describes what the investigations found and how the results and recommendations can be implemented.

Explains the origins of rotor aerodynamic limits for helicopters including retreating and advancing blade limits. Examines the compounding of a helicopter for higher forward speed and reports the conclusions of a student project to design a rotorcraft capable of 300 knots and carrying a payload of 30 passengers.

The concept of the design process is not well understood by the general public. Indeed industry is now looking for graduates with the core skills of mathematics and science but enhanced by a firm grounding in the engineering design process. At Southampton a number of initiatives have been implemented in teaching practices and further activities are being constructed to increase the undergraduate's awareness of the order and execution of the modern design process. The demands of manufacture on design and the abilities of the undergraduate to use high grade CAD/CAM computer packages to perform these tasks is the focus of the developments. The exact package that is being used is not important, more so the thinking processes required in using them to their best advantage. The paper will describe the concepts behind these initiatives and how the engineering education process must itself become an example of the integration of disciplines.

The helicopter has been in existence, in its present form for over 50 years and it possesses a wide variety of operational use. This paper focuses on the development of the shipborne helicopter which requires controlled flight in a very complex and potentially dangerous atmospheric environment surrounding a ship's flight deck. This type of helicopter requires dedicated design features to enable appropriate missions to be successfully achieved. It is an interesting feature of the shipborne helicopter that operational problems are as important with the aircraft in contact with the deck as to flight above it. Also there are problems, which begin with extracting the aircraft to the hangar to its eventual reinsertion. The avoidance of unfavourable characteristics has, over the years, resulted in an air vehicle where the aeroelastic properties of the rotor blades govern the operation. The magnitude of the wind speeds over a ship's deck, coupled with the varying rotor speed during the engage and disengage parts of a sortie, expose the rotors to dangerous blade deflections which have, in the past, resulted in damage to the aircraft and, in severe cases, fatalities.

IThis review has been sponsored by the Office for Scientific and Technical Information and the end product of the complete research will be a thesaurus of management terms. Parallel research in the business management area and also supported by OSTI is being conducted by David Dews, Librarian of the Manchester Business School, and K. D. C. Vernon, Librarian of the London Graduate School of Business Studies. As Mr Vernon is at present engaged in the construction of a faceted classification scheme for management, this investigation has concentrated on the possibility of utilizing faceted techniques to construct such a thesaurus.

A helicopter tail rotor is required to provide yaw control and essentially that alone. However, it is expected to achieve that role when placed in an aerodynamically difficult location on the aircraft and to operate in a severe aerodynamic environment. This paper describes the pedal travel behaviour caused by aerodynamic interaction between the main rotor wake, the sideways velocity and subsequent forces generated by the tail boom noticed in Sea King helicopters, operating in extreme conditions during the Falklands war. Using earlier research which showed the effectiveness of a modification – a strake – to interrupt the air flow over the tail boom, conducts tests to examine the flow, the effects of the modification, and the side suction force. It also finds that the strake provides a simple and cost‐effective solution to the problem.

To provide a brief introduction to the special section of papers.

The paper outlines the themes of each of the four papers.

The four invited papers deal with various aspects of operational efficiency in aviation. Each paper, either explicitly or implicitly, treats the current concern in the aviation industry with improving this efficiency, although no universally‐accepted definition can be found easily in the extensive literature.

Introduces the papers which deal with the various aspects of operational efficiency in aviation.