In 1804, Vice President Aaron Burr killed former Secretary of the Treasury Alexander Hamilton in a duel. They were bitter enemies, but that's not an issue for their descendants, Alexandra Hamilton Woods and Antonio Burr.
Woods is the great great great great great ganddaughter of Hamilton. Antonio Burr is a descendant of a cousin of Aaron Burr. Both are psychologists in New York City. They met by chance several years ago and found a mutal interest in kayaking and canoeing. Now the pair paddle around together as members of the Inwood Canoe Club of Manhattan. The New York Post quotes Hamilton's descendant:
“I used to tease him about our respective history,” Hamilton Woods says. “We’ve had a number of interesting conversations. But I have great fondness and respect for Antonio.”
Both of them are members and officers in their canoe club. Although they sometimes have disagreements, they resolve them without bloodshed:
The two friends now find themselves in their own political situation. Hamilton Woods sits on the Inwood Canoe Club board as treasurer, and Burr is the president emeritus. They might have the occasional disagreement, but they settle things peacefully.
“We do a lot of negotiating,” says Hamilton Woods. “But he and I find ourselves usually on the same side.”
-via Jonah Goldberg
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It appears to be geared with the main rotor, but is likely pitched such that it doesn't provide any thrust to the left or right during flight. When the pilot wants to turn, he pitches the tail rotor blades to provide thrust.
If the tail rotor failed, the helicopter would be just fine, although it would have no ability to turn on its emergency descent.
actually it would start to spin uncontrollably with out the tail rotor, just because there is no powered axle between the main rotor and the main body of the helicopter doesn't mean that the friction from the rotor and where it is connected to the body isn't enough to cause it to start spinning. We don't live in a world with frictionless bearings. Also the fuel delivery system to the rockets probably add's a lot more friction to the main rotors axle.
It might not happen as quickly and violently as a normal heli would if it lost it's rotor, but if he were high enough, by the time he got the heli to the ground he could be spinning like a tea cup.
I like the noise of that thing- While most chopperbuilders work frantically on reducing or even cancelling the noise of their rotorblades as best as they can to make their choppers more useable in crowded areas, these guys come up with a system that wakes up the whole valley when they start up their machine. :-D
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8jhpUJLhQfs
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nederlandse_Helikopter_Industrie_(NHI)
And an American prototype:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/YH-32_Hornet
All designs failed...
The difference with friction as a force is two fold. First, obviously, is that it would be in the direction of the rotors, not the opposite direction. Second, we're talking an incredibly small amount of the output of the engine being transferred via friction (easily as low as .01%). Third, it takes much more energy to spin the heavier body of the helicopter than the rotors.
So it would take very, very little to cancel it out.