It’s very hard to land a helicopter safely on a highly non-horizontal surface.
It can be harder still to hold it there, especially if the surface is moving -as in the sloping deck of a sinking ship, during a rescue mission.
Today’s invention is a set of rotor blades which have a larger than usual variation in their angle of attack.
This allows them to be electronically controlled, during the last stages of descent onto some slope, so that the blades, still rotating in the same direction, begin to supply downforce, rather than upthrust.
The aircraft would thus be pinned securely to any surface, making the exchange of material easier. Personnel would have to battle with airflow away from the machine, but in an emergency, that shouldn’t be impossible.
This approach could be modified to allow eg helicopter drones to attach themselves to vertical surfaces if required.
