HELICOPTER SIZING BY STATISTICS

The paper summarizes a study of a vast helicopter database that has been collected for the sizing stage of a preliminary design process. The study was aimed mainly towards the sizing design stages, and includes geometry parameters, weight of components and preliminary power and flight performance estimation. The analysis has been carried out using advanced computerized correlation technique which is based on multiple regression analysis that may incorporate large number of independent unknowns. The results are founded on a database for more than 180 helicopter configurations which has been created using data from a vast range of open sources, and is focused on conventional single rotor helicopter configurations. As opposed to first order and relatively simple analysis which are typically used in the first preliminary stages, the paper expose correlations and design trends in existing flying configurations, and therefore contains many design constrains that emerge only in late stages of the design process.