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Seaking question

S

Sospan

Flight Sergeant
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Having only ever worked on fixed wing, this one is bugging me, after watching the coverage of the floods on sky news, my inquisitive younger brother asked "why do RAF Seakings have one yellow blade". Can of you rotary types tell me why ?

(expecting an answer I should really have know)
 
C

Cake or Death

Flight Sergeant
1,072
2
38
i beleive its to combat strobascopic effect and that you can see that the rotars are turning.
 
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M

MrMasher

Somewhere else now!
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The yellow blade is actually the same as a grey blade apart from the paint on the top surface.
As the primary operating area is low level in and around coastline and cliffs it aids vision from above.
It is easily distinguishable although its the same colour as the airframe because you are seeing one yellow blade out of five going around. It does stand out as you probably saw on the news.
 
S

Sospan

Flight Sergeant
1000+ Posts
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MrMasher said:
The yellow blade is actually the same as a grey blade apart from the paint on the top surface.
As the primary operating area is low level in and around coastline and cliffs it aids vision from above.
It is easily distinguishable although its the same colour as the airframe because you are seeing one yellow blade out of five going around. It does stand out as you probably saw on the news.
Click to expand...

Cheers, I had a feeling Mrmasher would come to the rescue !

We are quits now....
 
B

born free now trapped

Guest
Tell the truth did you work in the blade bay or just attend!?
 
A

auchtermuchty

Guest
I used to work on SAR and was so observant I cant remember a yellow blade!:raf:

Was always too worried about how far we could get on Halo on the big screen in the briefing room.:PDT_Xtremez_28:
 
B

born free now trapped

Guest
After much deliberation in the crew room here at search and rescue up at lossie weve came to the educated conclusion that there are two main reasons for the seaking to have one yellow blade it is to give a visual indication from distance that it is infact a search and rescue aircraft and it could move in any direction at anytime without warning. And also a visual aid to give the crewman an indication of distance of the blade from surrounding obstacles,, eg rockfaces,,, when in the hover.
 
S

Sospan

Flight Sergeant
1000+ Posts
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born free now trapped said:
After much deliberation in the crew room here at search and rescue up at lossie weve came to the educated conclusion that there are two main reasons for the seaking to have one yellow blade it is to give a visual indication from distance that it is infact a search and rescue aircraft and it could move in any direction at anytime without warning. And also a visual aid to give the crewman an indication of distance of the blade from surrounding obstacles,, eg rockfaces,,, when in the hover.
Click to expand...

I'd like to think the people who work on that particular aircraft would not have to deliberate and come up with "educated conclusion"....:PDT_Xtremez_42:
 
M

mad_mo

Guest
auchtermuchty said:
I used to work on SAR and was so observant I cant remember a yellow blade!:raf:
Click to expand...


Heres one!

SK3.jpg
 
B

born free now trapped

Guest
thats an old photo though, been through a few mods since then
 
H

Harry B'Stard

Flight Sergeant
1000+ Posts
1,484
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Possible reason!

Possible reason!

Read an article once about camoflaging aircraft and colour schemes, (I know what you are thinking but I was bored at the time!) and it may have had a good reason for the one blade yellow on the SAR sea kings.

It's all to do with the human eye being attracted to movement (like when you're walking down the street and an attractive woman with large breasts comes towards you, you can't help yourself can you) :PDT_Xtremez_19:

Anyway, I digress. They tried painting all the blades the same, as on most helicopters. This formed a large disc shape when the rotors were turning. This is fine on a normal helicopter moving from one place to another as your eye is attracted to the movement of the aircraft as a whole.

Unfortunately SAR helicopters spend a large chunk of time in the hover and although a brightly coloured set of blades was visible, it didn't have the same effect as something that was moving.

So they painted just one blade yellow... which gave a strobe effect that was about 30 ft across (or however big a seaking rotor disk is!). Even when the helicopter is in the hover, it still has a large moving component, thus drawing even the most doziest of pilots eyes to it!:raf:

Anyway, you can wake up now..:PDT_Xtremez_06:

HTB
 
W

Wanderer

LAC
38
0
6
A few years ago a female on a parachute course at Weston on the Green jumped from an A/C and went through a rotor disc of a helicopter without the single painted blade and ended up a little bit deeeed. After that the single painted blade was introduced to give a broken disc effect when viewed from above..

Now the only burds that go through the disc are feathered ones..
 
M

MrMasher

Somewhere else now!
Subscriber
5,053
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born free now trapped said:
After much deliberation in the crew room here at search and rescue up at lossie weve came to the educated conclusion that there are two main reasons for the seaking to have one yellow blade it is to give a visual indication from distance that it is infact a search and rescue aircraft and it could move in any direction at anytime without warning. And also a visual aid to give the crewman an indication of distance of the blade from surrounding obstacles,, eg rockfaces,,, when in the hover.
Click to expand...

But seeing as the crewman tends to view the blades from the underside.....:PDT_Xtremez_30:
Thats why the last foot or so on the underside of each blade is coloured yellow.
Now then, I wont say anything about the flighties at having time to sit in the t bar and discuss this subject!!!:PDT_Xtremez_15: He he he......

Harry B'Stard has it spot on.........
 
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