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SIFT Army Aviation Information
Section Exam Questions and Answers
A Helicopter - ✔✔Is a type of rotorcraft that is able to takeoff and land vertically, hover,
and fly forward, backward, and side to side (laterally).
Thrust engine - ✔✔an engine that produces power and delivers it to overhead and tail
rotors (on most helicopters) via one or more transmissions and drive shafts.
Fuselage - ✔✔Main Body of the helicopter
Mast - ✔✔Shaft protruding from the top
Cowling - ✔✔On the upper part of the fuselage of many helicopters, it covers the
aircrafts engine and transmission.
two to six rotor blade - ✔✔How many rotor blades are attached to the mast via a rotor
head?
Flybar - ✔✔also called a stabilizer bar.
upper and lower swashplates, blade grips, control rods, pitch and scissor links, teeter or
coning hinges, pitch horns, and counterweights - ✔✔Rotor systems consist of what
components?
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
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enhance flight stability by keeping the bar stable as the rotor spins, and to reduce
crosswind thrust on the blades - ✔✔What is the Flybars Function?
cyclic collective, throttle and pedals - ✔✔what are the pilot's flight instruments and
controls?
Avionics - ✔✔what are electronics used for navigation, communications and aircraft
systems term?
Weapons controls - ✔✔How does the pilot use weapons from a military helicopter
cockpit?
weight, lift, thrust, and drag - ✔✔what are the four aerodynamic forces that act on a
helicopter when it is airborne?
Lift - ✔✔what is the force that counteracts an aircrafts weight and causes a helicopter to
rise into the air and stay aloft.
Lift - ✔✔is produced by airfoils - rotor blades, in the case of helicopters - that move
through the air at a speed sufficient to create a pressure differential between the two
sides of the airfoils.
Thrust - ✔✔is an aircraft's forward force, which is created by one or more engines, and
is transformed in the case of helicopters into rotary motion via the components
mentioned. Generally, _______ acts parallel to the aircrafts longitudinal axis, but not
always.
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
, 3|Page
Drag - ✔✔opposes thrust; it is a rearward- acting force caused by airflow passing over
the aircraft's structure and becoming disrupted. ________ acts parallel to the relative
wind.
Profile, induced and parasite - ✔✔what are the three types of drag?
Profile drag - ✔✔Drag created by the blades' frictional resistance increases. Consists of
skin friction created by surface imperfections and form drag.
Induced drag - ✔✔Drag created by air circulating around each rotor blade as it spins
and creates lift; the circulation causes a vortex behind each blade.
Parasite drag - ✔✔Drag created by helicopter components and attached equipment that
do not contribute to lift, including the fuselage, tail section, skids or wheels, externally
mounted engines, sensors and weapons.
Bernoulli's Principle - ✔✔Scientific Principle that energy cannot be created or
destroyed- only its form can be changed - and a system's total energy does not increase
or decrease
Conservation of energy - ✔✔Bernoulli's principle is based off this. It says that in a
steady flow the sum of all forms of mechanical energy- a fluids potential energy plus its
kinetic energy - along a streamline is the same at all points.
Potential energy - ✔✔what kind of energy would be left in the helicopter if it were
airborne when it ran out of fuel?
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
SIFT Army Aviation Information
Section Exam Questions and Answers
A Helicopter - ✔✔Is a type of rotorcraft that is able to takeoff and land vertically, hover,
and fly forward, backward, and side to side (laterally).
Thrust engine - ✔✔an engine that produces power and delivers it to overhead and tail
rotors (on most helicopters) via one or more transmissions and drive shafts.
Fuselage - ✔✔Main Body of the helicopter
Mast - ✔✔Shaft protruding from the top
Cowling - ✔✔On the upper part of the fuselage of many helicopters, it covers the
aircrafts engine and transmission.
two to six rotor blade - ✔✔How many rotor blades are attached to the mast via a rotor
head?
Flybar - ✔✔also called a stabilizer bar.
upper and lower swashplates, blade grips, control rods, pitch and scissor links, teeter or
coning hinges, pitch horns, and counterweights - ✔✔Rotor systems consist of what
components?
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
,2|Page
enhance flight stability by keeping the bar stable as the rotor spins, and to reduce
crosswind thrust on the blades - ✔✔What is the Flybars Function?
cyclic collective, throttle and pedals - ✔✔what are the pilot's flight instruments and
controls?
Avionics - ✔✔what are electronics used for navigation, communications and aircraft
systems term?
Weapons controls - ✔✔How does the pilot use weapons from a military helicopter
cockpit?
weight, lift, thrust, and drag - ✔✔what are the four aerodynamic forces that act on a
helicopter when it is airborne?
Lift - ✔✔what is the force that counteracts an aircrafts weight and causes a helicopter to
rise into the air and stay aloft.
Lift - ✔✔is produced by airfoils - rotor blades, in the case of helicopters - that move
through the air at a speed sufficient to create a pressure differential between the two
sides of the airfoils.
Thrust - ✔✔is an aircraft's forward force, which is created by one or more engines, and
is transformed in the case of helicopters into rotary motion via the components
mentioned. Generally, _______ acts parallel to the aircrafts longitudinal axis, but not
always.
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
, 3|Page
Drag - ✔✔opposes thrust; it is a rearward- acting force caused by airflow passing over
the aircraft's structure and becoming disrupted. ________ acts parallel to the relative
wind.
Profile, induced and parasite - ✔✔what are the three types of drag?
Profile drag - ✔✔Drag created by the blades' frictional resistance increases. Consists of
skin friction created by surface imperfections and form drag.
Induced drag - ✔✔Drag created by air circulating around each rotor blade as it spins
and creates lift; the circulation causes a vortex behind each blade.
Parasite drag - ✔✔Drag created by helicopter components and attached equipment that
do not contribute to lift, including the fuselage, tail section, skids or wheels, externally
mounted engines, sensors and weapons.
Bernoulli's Principle - ✔✔Scientific Principle that energy cannot be created or
destroyed- only its form can be changed - and a system's total energy does not increase
or decrease
Conservation of energy - ✔✔Bernoulli's principle is based off this. It says that in a
steady flow the sum of all forms of mechanical energy- a fluids potential energy plus its
kinetic energy - along a streamline is the same at all points.
Potential energy - ✔✔what kind of energy would be left in the helicopter if it were
airborne when it ran out of fuel?
Katelyn Whitman© 2025, All Rights Reserved.
