Monday, July 23, 2018

Touching Down With A Heliport

By Catherine Reynolds


For all of its technological progress and innovative prowess, humankind is still subject to such rules, is still unable to transcend reality. Sure, it can be done in virtual worlds, but those worlds are the products of imagination. In the real world, what goes up must always inevitably come down, either to lack of fuel or gravity simply acting upon it enough that it can no longer sustain flight or hovering. It such cases, the thing that is in flight needs to land. For birds, landing is easy, they can land anywhere as long as there are no threats nearby. But for the machines that humans use to go up into the sky, landing is a little more complicated. Generally speaking, such machines are only allowed to land in specific spots, designated beforehand as either an airport or a heliport.

A helistop is a place for helicopters to land and then takeoff again. In general, they are flat surfaces. They can be placed basically anywhere.

Reality dictates that what goes up must eventually come down. As such, the entities that own and operate helicopters will need places to put them down, as simply jumping out and abandoning them in the sky can result in machines that weight tons crashing to the ground. Also, just putting a chopper down anywhere is illegal in some jurisdictions and is a safety concern basically everywhere.

Building a helipad can come cheap. The truth of the matter is all that is required is a flat surface, so a chainsaw and some concrete is all that is actually necessary. Actually, nothing is really necessary other than the flat surface. Helicopters often land in less than desirable conditions, so a concrete surface is not really all that necessary. But, any entity in possession of a helicopter is likely not going to have a hard time scrounging up the funds to build a place for it to land.

Helipads can appear anywhere. Businesses will often have them on the top of their respective office buildings, or, if they have a campus instead of a singular skyscraper, there will be one on the ground. An air capable ship used by the military will often have a designated flight deck for all types of aircraft.

Helicopters have a great practical use. Their vertical takeoff and landing means they can be in the air and back on the ground in the time it takes a plane to get in position to start taxiing off the runway. Their ability to fly means they can cover long distances while also bypassing obstacles such as traffic.

But private civilians with money are not the only entities that make use of a helicopter. Militaries all over the world use them quite extensively. There are few vehicles that can ferry troops and supplies quite like a chopper can, in terms of speed. The drawback is that choppers are often a target for enemy artillery.

Nothing in life is free. A chopper is extremely expensive. Even a basic model with no amenities will cost millions of dollars for a new one.

Human imagination has no real limits. But the technologies created by humans do. Reality dictates that the laws of nature must be followed to the letter. For every single action performed, there must be an equal, yet opposite, reaction.




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