A Design Handbook for Helicopter Transparent Enclosures

Sikorsky Aircraft has prepared under USAAMRDL sponsorship, a comprehensive design handbook for helicopter transparent enclosures. The handbook provides guidance and criteria for the design, analysis, development and testing of all types of helicopter transparencies. As part of the overall program, to substantiate methodology and criteria, numerous analytical and experimental studies were performed. This paper presents an overview of the contents of the handbook, together with results from three associated investigations. Included in the discussion are the findings derived from; a series of NASTRAN finite element analyses conducted to determine the applicability of this type of analysis for helicopter cockpits, ballistic tests used to generate criteria for evaluation of transparency spall, and cost-effective endurance tests suitable for developing windshield reliability.