How do Pacific Rim Helicopters work?

[Elheru Aran]

1. How do you know Jaegers weigh thousands of tons? Sure, using real world physics they should, but what's your canon information they do?

Jaegers don't float.

Ever hear of ballast?

[Q99]

Ever hear of ballast?

That's just a way to make them heavy!

It should also be noted, something that weighed mere few thousand tons, at that volume, would float like a cork (I'm pretty sure). They've gotta be really really heavy....

... and of note, Kaiju have gotta be less dense, since unlike Jaeger they can swim.

[Simon_Jester]

Yeah. Also, good-sized ships weigh many thousands of tons. Gypsy Danger uses such a ship as a club, meaning it's got considerably more mass than a ship. No matter how strong you are, you can't swing something like a baseball bat, or even a sledgehammer, if its weight is a significant fraction of your own weight.

[Q99]

Yeah. Also, good-sized ships weigh many thousands of tons. Gypsy Danger uses such a ship as a club, meaning it's got considerably more mass than a ship. No matter how strong you are, you can't swing something like a baseball bat, or even a sledgehammer, if its weight is a significant fraction of your own weight.

It'd be hilarious if one tried, they'd be swung around too ^^

[Feil]

Numbers!

Gipsy Danger is about 80m tall and built roughly like a human, so she displaces about 7000 tonnes fully submerged. If she were made of cork (since it was mentioned) she'd mass about 1700 tonnes. She is clearly heavier than water, but not so much heavier that she sinks into the seabed, so she probably masses around 8000 tonnes.

The ship she swings around is about 60m long and fairly narrow; it would probably mass about 500 tonnes, nowhere close to many thousands. The momentum interchange, assuming an 8000-tn jaeger, would be similar to that of a man swinging around a 12-pound sledgehammer, which matches the on-screen effect.

Just to move, let alone fight, Jaegers require magically powerful motors. Just to move without shredding themselves like tissue paper, let alone take and dish out hits like they do, they need to be made of materials so strong they might as well be magic. I don't mind having magic helicopters, too. There are certain concessions of logic that have to be made to get giant robots fighting giant monsters.

Ta da doo du da ta! da! ta! da! ta!

(Boooong!)

[Sea Skimmer]

It's a very small product tanker from the looks of it

The ship would have to be pretty damn light, and built very strongly for its bulk to be useable as a bat. Ships are not designed to be unevenly supported like that thing was, it should break in half.

[Archinist]

So why do the helicopters look so mundane and plain? If they were supposed to be that powerful, shouldn't they have some FTL-capable thrusters on them, or millions of flashing lights so bright they evaporate the ocean into nothingness, or maybe no helicopters at all, just floating hooks and ropes?

[Lord Revan]

You're joking right? I mean it's not like multiple people have told you several times that fantastical=/="anything goes". Using helicopters is not that far from what we're capable in real life (you've heard of that right?) to remain consistent with the theme the movie was going for (essentially modern earth with few fantastical elements like giant robots) going outright scifi or magical would break the suspension of disbelief. Oh and FTL stands for "faster then light" it isn't just "cool scifi engine" there's a specific meaning for the acronym.

[Laughing Mechanicus]

For what it's worth I'm pretty sure the Pacific Rim art book had concept art for some fictional ultra heavy lift helicopter designed for carrying the Jaegers, but the design was dropped in favour of an off the shelf model to save money on CG.

[Vendetta]

So why do the helicopters look so mundane and plain? If they were supposed to be that powerful, shouldn't they have some FTL-capable thrusters on them, or millions of flashing lights so bright they evaporate the ocean into nothingness, or maybe no helicopters at all, just floating hooks and ropes?

Because the helicopters aren't important.

People understand "military helicopter lifts heavy thing" and neither know nor care how, how much, or whether they can fly close together etc.

Ergo having helicopters drop the Jaegers off works within the audiences expectations and allows them to do the big splashy deployment scene for the purposes of Drama.

You could have a giant future helicopter, but you don't need one for the scene to work for the audience.


(Also if your response to "giant robits fight godzillas" is "I am concerned about the helicopters" you may have missed the point.)

[Q99]

I pulled out my copy of the artbook, and there's normal-looking helicopters left and right (with the cradles that allowed multiple of them to lift together), so, unless I missed it in my flipthroughs, no advanced superlifter in sight.

In some of the paintings of kaiju attacking places, there's some oddly-designed normal helis (not lifters of any sort, single rotor ones), but I think that's just the artists messing around.

[Kojiro]

Just asking how they work? I've never actually watched the film, but I thought it was about modern-day USA with giant robots and generic godzillas?

While they may look like helicopters, those were actually the engines of the Avengers Helicarrier after they were replaced with giant repulsors.

It's movie physics. 'Nuff said.

[Simon_Jester]

So why do the helicopters look so mundane and plain? If they were supposed to be that powerful, shouldn't they have some FTL-capable thrusters on them, or millions of flashing lights so bright they evaporate the ocean into nothingness, or maybe no helicopters at all, just floating hooks and ropes?

Because doing any of those things would be a random distraction from the things the movie is supposed to be about. You're not supposed to notice the helicopters. They're only even in the story as an excuse for the giant robots to be moved around quickly- a bad excuse. If there were gigantic lights or magical rockety things or if they were invisible, then normal people watching the movie would focus on them. That would be bad.

Basically, when you write or create a story, you're not just throwing in every random thing you can think of. You have a purpose, a goal. The audience's attention is part of your goals- you want them thinking about ABC, and not about XYZ, because ABC is the GOOD part of your story.

The principle here, as in many other areas, is "form follows function." The form of a thing, the way it looks and what it is made of, comes from how it is intended to function, from what it has to do.

Suppose you were designing a car. You'd give it wheels, an engine, headlights, windows. Would you add a bathtub? A flowerbox? A pile of rocks? No, you would not. You would add none of those things. Only a complete fool would add those things. Because none of those things would improve the function of the car. They wouldn't help it be a good car. At best they would achieve nothing and be a waste of your resources. At worst they might make it impossible for the car to do its job at all.

Things happen for reasons. Things in stories happen for reasons, not because "lol that would be awesome" or because "im so random" or whatever. And anything you don't WANT people to focus on in your story, should either not be in the story at all, or should be as dull and ordinary as possible.

[Cykeisme]

Is there an upper limit to lifting capacity that can be attained using helicopter rotors, if variables like rotor radius (blade length), air density, and air viscosity are given? I'm assuming there is, but tbh I was too lazy and/or dumb to look up/understand the basic physics involved, and thus should be taken out back and shot.

Regardless, I'm just going to assume that those helicopters far exceed realistic physical upper limits to carry a non-floating Gipsy Danger (as Feil pointed out), and are therefore crazy magitech, just like the giant robits.


That said, the best move to appease realism (even if it isn't one of their goals), and also increase the rule of cool (which, apparently is one of their goals) would be to simply increase the number of choppers and cables, spread over a larger horizontal flight pattern.

[Khaat]

Jetskis (is that the brand name? Dammit!) Watercraft. Jaeger-sized personal watercraft.

[Q99]

Is there an upper limit to lifting capacity that can be attained using helicopter rotors, if variables like rotor radius (blade length), air density, and air viscosity are given? I'm assuming there is, but tbh I was too lazy and/or dumb to look up/understand the basic physics involved, and thus should be taken out back and shot.

Yes, and I can assure you, a Jaeger waaay surpasses it

That said, the best move to appease realism (even if it isn't one of their goals), and also increase the rule of cool (which, apparently is one of their goals) would be to simply increase the number of choppers and cables, spread over a larger horizontal flight pattern.

Someone did the math on this and it'd be, like, several dozen iirc. Enough that it'd look almost silly, I think.

[Terralthra]

The maximum lift of a rotor is strictly limited by the speed of sound. If the tips of the rotors have an angular velocity approaching the speed of sound, supersonic air vortices spring up and ruin the aerodynamics generating lift. The only ways to get more lift are to make a longer rotor (increasing the tip speed), to spin the rotor faster (same) or to increase the angle of attack, which lowers the critical speed at which vortices form and stall out the airflow.

All of these limits are way way way below what it would take for helicopters to carry a Jaeger.

[Elheru Aran]

There have been a number of fancy ways explored of making helicopters that can lift more... but, basically, they're pretty much dead ends because either we don't have the technology, the materials science, or the physics necessary to pull them off. From what I understand, you can't just use a bigger engine either because diminishing returns come into play.

[Batman]

The problem is physics. As you make the rotor blades larger/have them rotate faster the blades approach/exceed the speed of sound which does not good things to their performance and magnifies the already not insignificant lift differential issues WRT the forward/backward turning blades. You simply can't scale helicopters up arbitrarily far.

[Khaat]

There have been a number of fancy ways explored of making helicopters that can lift more... but, basically, they're pretty much dead ends because either we don't have the technology, the materials science, or the physics necessary to pull them off.

Hybrid airship/helos ("helistat", like the Piasecki PA97) are one such heavy-lift (failed, experimental) option, but that would have been a) too slow for the movie, and b) distracting. And they didn't work out in real life as well, either

[Q99]

Giant jaeger-lift zeppelins or blimps would've been amusing, but also probably detract from the focus.

[Cykeisme]

That said, the best move to appease realism (even if it isn't one of their goals), and also increase the rule of cool (which, apparently is one of their goals) would be to simply increase the number of choppers and cables, spread over a larger horizontal flight pattern.

Someone did the math on this and it'd be, like, several dozen iirc. Enough that it'd look almost silly, I think.

Ah, I suppose you're right, at a certain point, increasing the numbers of the helicopter swarm is going to look odd.. the sheer number of cables alone would evoke the image of an airborne version of Gulliver and 21st Century Lilliputians, or something.

Hybrid airship/helos ("helistat", like the Piasecki PA97) are one such heavy-lift (failed, experimental) option, but that would have been a) too slow for the movie, and b) distracting. And they didn't work out in real life as well, either.

Distracting? Hell, Anti-Kaiju Zeppelins might be the way to go!

[Q99]

Ah, I suppose you're right, at a certain point, increasing the numbers of the helicopter swarm is going to look odd.. the sheer number of cables alone would evoke the image of an airborne version of Gulliver and 21st Century Lilliputians, or something.

And it'd certainly be the bigger presence on the screen than the Jaegers.

Distracting? Hell, Anti-Kaiju Zeppelins might be the way to go!

Not so good against those who fly or have ranged attack!