In one of the recent James Bond films, where he is handcuffed to a girl and they ride a motorbike between them, Bond is chased and cornered by the baddie's helicopter. The helicopter hovers, then slowly drops its nose and raises its tail so that it is at about 45 degrees and still hovering, then slowly advances along the street, still in this attitude. Can a helicopter really do this, or was it some special effects trickery?
Helicopters have four controls....pilot sitting has the stick (cyclic) in his right hand....feet on the pedals which control the rear rotor...and left hand on the collective stick which controls the up and down and has a twist grip which controls the throttle speed of the engine.....so if the pilot controls the hover with the collective then pushes forward on the cyclic then yes he could achive the thing you are describing though it would be a very good pilot with loads of control.
I think that sft42 is referring to model helicopters. The nose-down attitude is something that helicopter pilots will use to adopt greater speed. It is also used when moving from a hover to forward flight. The answer is that helicopters can do this, very easily. It is something that all helo pilots will learn at a very early stage.
Em...no i wasn't....i was refering to the fact that the scene from the film requires the pilot to fly down a alleyway with about 6 feet to spare......that requires a LOT of control.
Thanks sft42 - i appreciate that. However I had thought that what 3s_a_crowd said would apply - when the nose dips, it gains speed due to downdraft from the rotors redirected to push it forward. It seemed a contradiction in the way a helicopter is controlled that they could achieve this dip of the nose and remain in a hover, or a very slow advance