Fixed Wing vs.

Rotary Wing Aircraft

Syeda Faiza Sajjad
I. ABSTRACT
A brief summary of information is presented on
the differences between fixed wing aircraft such
as airplanes and rotary wing aircraft such as
helicopters in this paper. Both the structural and
operational differences of the two types of
aircraft will be explored. Their advantages and
disadvantages based on their versatility and
usage limitations are also highlighted.
Index Terms--- Aerodynamics, airplanes,
aviation, helicopters.

II. INTRODUCTION
For centuries, man has observed the birds
flying, soaring the sky by spreading out their
wings in the air and has dreamed of flying ever
since. As man realized that fastening sheets of
cloth on his back and jumping from towers with
his arms spread out and flapping like a bird was
just not how nature planned for human to go
airborne, he began his struggle to make a
contraption that would take him into the air. After
enormous contributions from men like Sir
George Cayley and Otto Lilienthal [1] and
countless fatalities and failed experiments,
history was made as the Wright-I flyer made its
12-second flight over the windswept dunes of
Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Soon after this
flight, the first successful helicopter flight was
made on 13th November, 1907 by Paul Cornu
which lasted 20-seconds. Though the flight was
untethered, it was not until Igor Sikorskys VS300 that helicopters were put into mass
production.
An airplane is a machine that moves in the air
with the help of its engine and its wings. The
wings are responsible for creating the lift by
overcoming the force of gravity which pulls the
aircraft downwards and the engine is
responsible for its translational motion through
the air.

Figure 1 An Airplane
A helicopter is a machine which moves
through the air with the help of its horizontal
power-driven propellers [2] which are rotating
wings, rotated with the help of an engine. In a
helicopter, the rotors are responsible for
overcoming the drag and the force of gravity and
produce the required lift and thrust to move the
aircraft through the air.

Figure 2 A Helicopter
A wing is the basic surface in an aircraft which
provides lift. A wing utilizes the Bernoullis
principle which states that a fluid flowing moving
with high speed over a surface creates an area
of low pressure on that surface. The structure of
a wing is designed such that air has to cover a
longer distance over the wing surface. As the air
speeds up over the surface, an area of low
pressure is created over the wing surface. The
pressure under the wing is now greater than the
pressure over the wing. Thus, the air under the
wing pushes the wing upward resulting in lift.
Both the fixed wing and rotary wing aircraft are
used for a wide variety of purposes which differ
from each other. Both have many differences,

some very obvious while others not-too-obvious

but all of their differences and advantages and
disadvantages will be explored in detail over the
next few pages.

III
A

DIFFERENCES

Structural Differences

The first structural difference between the two

types of aircraft is the most obvious one i.e.
airplanes have fixed wings whereas a helicopter
does not. In a helicopter, the wings are replaced
by a rotor which consists of rotor blades which
move about an axis. The rotors function as
moveable wings as they are responsible for lift.
The rotor assembly consists of the rotor blades
connected to a hub through the blade grips. The
hub is mounted on a shaft via the Jesus Nut.
The shaft is further connected to the engine
which enables it to move at varying speeds in
order to provide lift.

Figure 3 Rotor Assembly of a Helicopter [3]

Another unique feature of a helicopter is its back
rotor. The idea, first utilized by Igor Sikorsky,
provided a mechanism to counteract the torque
produced by the main rotor of the helicopter thus
effectively earning it the name, anti-torque rotor.
Another one of the most obvious difference
between the two types of aircraft is their cargocarrying capacity. An airplane has considerably

more space than a helicopter and can carry

hundreds of passengers at a time. Although,
there are airplanes which carry only two people
at a time but in the broadest terms, an airplane
can carry more people and more cargo.
An airplane has control surfaces such as the
ailerons, elevators and the rudder which control
its motion about the three axes and many other
surfaces which help these three primary control
surfaces. However, a helicopter does not have
any of these surfaces and makes use of its main
and back rotors for movement along different
planes.
Helicopter rotors usually have symmetrical
airfoils i.e. the airfoils in which the mean camber
coincides with the chord. These symmetrical
airfoils best suit the rotary wing aircraft because
their centre of pressure does not vary during
flight which provides the best lift-drag ratio for a
large range of velocities. These airfoils provide
less lift and have undesirable stall
characteristics but they have an upper hand
over the asymmetric airfoils because they do not
produce a twisting force on the rotor blades
which would be produced in case of the
symmetric airfoils. Asymmetric airfoils are better
suited for airplanes as airplanes need to fly at
considerably high altitudes. As they need more
lift to accomplish this, the fixed wing aircraft
generally employ asymmetric airfoils. [4]

Figure 4 Asymmetrical and Symmetrical Airfoils

Another structural difference between the two is
the different construction of their tails. An
airplane has a vertical as well as a horizontal tail
on which the rudder and the elevators are
mounted respectively. The horizontal and
vertical tails are collectively termed as the
empennage. The elevators control the pitching

motion or the motion of the aircraft about the

lateral axis whereas the rudder controls the
sideways motion of the nose of the aircraft which
enables it to change directions [5]. The
helicopter has a longer tail as compared to an
airplane. This tail consists of a tail boom which is
the long, hollow part of the tail. At the end of the
tail boom, the anti-torque rotor is mounted which
moves in a vertical plane and produces
horizontal thrust.

Controls

LIFT
A fixed wing aircraft uses its wing for producing
lift by creating a pressure difference above and
below the wing. Due to the aerodynamic shape
of the wing airfoil, the air on the top has more
distance to cover, thus it speeds up and causes
a drop in pressure in accordance with Bernoullis
principle. The increased pressure at the bottom
of the wing exerts an upward force on the wing
which ultimately overcomes the force of gravity
as the air speed increases.

An airplane uses numerous control surfaces

which enable it to move along the three axes in
the air by overcoming or utilizing the primary
aerodynamic forces of lift, drag, weight and
thrust. A helicopter on the other hand, makes
use of its moveable parts which control its
movements about the axes.
YAW
An airplane controls the yawing motion or the
motion about the vertical axis through the
primary control surface mounted on its vertical
tail, namely the rudder. To move the nose of the
airplane sideways, the rudder is deflected into
the air stream. The air on the side the rudder is
pushed to exert a force on it in the opposite
direction which cause the nose of the airplane to
move in the direction of deflection of the rudder.
However, in a rotary wing aircraft like the
helicopter, direction can be changed using the
Cyclic Pitch Control. Using this joystick sort of
control, the pilot varies the angle of attack of
each rotor blade as it advances forward such
that each blade has a specific angle at a specific
point its cycle. This changes the thrust on the
rotor blade and the air pushing on the rotor
blade exerts a force on it in the direction where it
is titled downwards. Thus, the cyclic pitch control
enables the aircraft to move about 360 degrees.
This yawing is further controlled by the tail rotor
which, when its pitch angle (the angle between
the rotor blades and their plane of rotation) is
changed by pressing the anti-torque pedals,
varies the thrust produced by it causing the
aircraft to yaw in the direction of the pressed
pedal.

Figure 5 Bernoullis Explanation of Lift [6]

The lift can be varied by using the flaps which
when inserted into the airstream produce drag
which can be used to either increase or
decrease the lift. Another method of varying the
lift of an airplane is to change the angle of attack
of the wing which is the angle between the chord
and the relative wind or the oncoming wind. The
lift has a direct relation with the angle of attack
and increases up to a certain point with the
increase in the angle of attack after which the lift
decreases because the air can not flow under
the wing.

cyclic control is pushed forwards to move the

helicopter forwards.

Figure 6 Angle of Attack vs. Lift Co-efficient [7]

A helicopter utilizes its rotor blades to
produce the lift. The same principle is embedded
in its operation. The air moves downward as the
rotor blades move horizontally and this exerts an
upward directed force on the aircraft according
to Newtons Third Law. This lift can be
manipulated using the Collective Pitch Control.
This instrument changes the pitch angle of all
the rotor blades at once by the same amount
thus equally affecting the lift produced by each
rotor blade. This helps the aircraft to rise
vertically into the air (Vertical Take-Off and
Landing/ VTOL), a feature unique only to rotary
wing aircraft.
THRUST
Thrust is produced in an airplane by the power
plant or the engine of the aircraft. The engine
sucks in the oncoming air and spits it out
backwards with a force which propels the aircraft
forward in accordance with Newtons Third Law.
A helicopter, unlike an airplane, uses its rotors to
produce thrust. The rotor blades are identical to
the wings of an airplane [8]. After rising into the
air vertically, the pilot uses the cyclic controls to
pitch the helicopter nose downwards. This
causes a decrease in altitude and an increase in
airspeed. The air from the back of the helicopter
pushes it forward which implies that some of the
lift of the helicopter has been converted into
thrust. The swash plate is also tilted forward
using the collective pitch control and then the

Maneuverability

HOVER
One of the most distinguishing features of a
helicopter is its ability to hover i.e. its ability to
remain stationary at a point in the air. A
helicopter pilot performs this complex maneuver
by making the lift force supplied by the rotor
equal to the weight of the aircraft which
effectively cancels both the forces and allows
the aircraft to remain still for a considerable
period of time. The equality of lift and weight is
achieved by keeping the rotor assembly parallel
to the ground (no wind condition). This enables
the aircraft to neither move sideways nor
backwards or forwards. This difficult maneuver
requires constant pilot input and cannot be
performed on airplanes.
BACKWARD FLIGHT
A helicopter can fly backwards, unlike an
airplane which can only move forwards. The
backward movement can be achieved by tilting
the swash plate assembly backwards using the
cyclic control. This causes each rotor blade to
produce maximum lift at a certain point its cycle
which leads to thrust in the direction the swash
plate assembly is tilted; in this case, backwards.
The cyclic control changes the angle of attack of
the rotor blades in such a way that the blades
are pitched lower at the back of the rotor
assembly than its front. This creates more lift in
the front and less lift at the back and as a result
of this unequal lift, the aircraft is pushed
backwards.

If the Engine Fails

In case the engine fails, an airplane will act like

a glider and with the help of an experienced
pilot, it can land safely in most cases with
minimal damage and loss of life. An airplane that
has lost its engine can keep flying by keeping its
airspeed up [9]. This is done by converting lift
into thrust. The elevators are deflected to pitch

the nose lower than the wing in order to keep

the aircraft airborne as this results in an increase
of speed.
However, a helicopter makes use of the
autorotation phenomenon in order to land safely
in case of engine failure. He reduces the pitch of
the rotor blades causing the aircraft to lose
altitude. As the aircraft still possesses the ability
to move sideways, therefore the pilot can search
for a good landing spot. Once over that spot, the
pilot pulls back on the cyclic to decrease the
forward speed while simultaneously increasing
the collective pitch to slow the descent. If done
properly, the helicopter can land safely. [10]

IV. AIRPLANES OVER HELICOPTERS

An airplane is suited to travel long distances
because it can fly faster and at higher altitudes
than a rotary wing aircraft which is relatively
slow and flies at low altitudes. Helicopters
cannot carry much fuel therefore they are suited
for short term flights.
Airplanes, in most cases, are more comfortable
than helicopters because they have more space.
Especially the airliners are very comfortable and
provide many facilities to the passengers to
make their flight as comfortable as possible. As
helicopters are not meant for long term travel,
they are not very comfortable.
Helicopters have tons of moving parts which
results in vibrations which lead to noise. This
noise also makes a helicopter ride extremely
uncomfortable. The most significant noise is
because of the rotor movement. Airplanes,
though they do make a lot of noise because of
their engines, this noise is damped out because
of the glass windows and one doesnt notice it
much during flight.
Also, unlike the airplanes, helicopters cannot fly
at very high altitudes because their cabins are
not pressurized. The pressurized cabins in the
airplanes enable them to fly at very high
altitudes without causing any inconvenience to
the pilots or the passengers.
Another advantage that the airplanes hold over
the rotary wing aircraft is their fuel efficiency.
Airplanes have separate parts to generate lift

and thrust. The lift is generated through the

wings whereas the thrust is produced by the
power plant or the engine. Thus, the fuel is used
only by the engine. On the other hand, in a
helicopter, the engine drives the rotors, both the
main rotor and the tail rotor, to produce thrust as
well as lift. Thus, a helicopter engine has to do
more work as it has to overcome two
aerodynamic forces, drag and weight, so it
consumes more fuel than an airplane and also
at a higher rate. This is also one of the reasons
why a helicopter is not suited for long distance
travel as it runs out of fuel before it has flown
very far. [11]
Although both the airplanes and the
helicopters have evolved with the passage of
time but its only the airplanes which have
stepped into the supersonic and even
hypersonic regimes. Helicopters are still
considerably slower than airplanes.
Airplanes are inherently stable. They can
continue to cruise once the adjustments have
been made to the control surfaces without
requiring any further input from the pilot. Pilot
input is mostly required during take-off and
landing. An airplane pilot can therefore perform
other tasks during flight. On the other hand, a
helicopter pilot needs to be attentive throughout
the entire flight because a helicopter is generally
not very stable. The main rotor of the helicopter
while rotating induces a torque in the main body
of the helicopter which rotates the fuselage of
the helicopter in the direction opposite to the
direction of rotation of the main rotors. This
torque is counteracted by the tail rotor which
produces a horizontally directed thrust or torque
in the direction opposite to the one in which the
fuselage would move. This can happen at every
point during flight thus the pilot needs to provide
constant anti-torque pedal input to counteract
the torque. The cyclic and collective controls
also need to be monitored by the pilot at all
times therefore the pilot has to be extremely
attentive over the entire course of the flight and
adjust the controls according to his or her needs.

I
HELICOPTERS OVER
AIRPLANES
Helicopters are more versatile than fixed wing
aircraft because of their ability to take off and
land vertically. They can be used to perform
tasks that mere fixed wing aircraft cannot
perform. They can be used to perform
emergency rescue operations to extract people
from places which are unapproachable for a
fixed wing aircraft such as mountains, mines or
jungles. As the helicopters do not need a runway
because of their ability to take off and land
vertically, therefore they can easily access
isolated or congested areas like buildings where
the fixed wing aircraft are unable to land due to
the absence of a runway. [12]
Because of their VTOL ability and their ability
to hover and their handling properties under low
speed air conditions, helicopters are best used
for
traffic
monitoring,
firefighting
and
transportation purposes. However, as an
airplane can neither perform hovering nor the
vertical take-off and landing maneuvers, it is
deemed useless in such cases.
The requirement of a runway for take-off and
landing limits the usage of aircraft for emergency
purposes. On the other hand, helicopters can
serve as ambulances for carrying the injured to
the hospitals in time of crisis.

II

CONCLUSION

In the light of above discussion, it can be

concluded that both the fixed and rotary wing
aircraft are different from each other and both
have a wide variety of applications. Each
contraption has its own advantages and
disadvantages which were explored at length. It
depends solely on human beings on how they
utilize both the machines. With the continued
advancement in technology, both airplanes and
helicopters will surely evolve into more efficient
and even more versatile machines which will
continue to help mankind in its endeavors.

II

REFERENCES

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[1 in Introduction to the Helicopter , pp. 1-7.
2]