How to Use rotorcraft in a Sentence
rotorcraft
noun-
The primary way to achieve lift with a rotorcraft in thin air is to spin the blades very fast.
—Jay Bennett, Popular Mechanics, 15 May 2018
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The 4-pound rotorcraft will be the first to explore the skies on another world.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 19 June 2020
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Fortunately for the rotorcraft, the plan worked, and the flight seems to have gone off without a hitch.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 7 July 2021
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On Thursday at 10:12 a.m. ET, the rotorcraft was set to conduct its fourth flight.
—Julia Musto, Fox News, 29 Apr. 2021
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The rotorcraft will then autonomously survey the sands of Shangri-La for a suitable area to touch down.
—Jay Bennett, Smithsonian, 6 May 2012
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But the rotorcraft won’t be deployed and flown until a suitable area on the surface is found.
—Hailey Rose McLaughlin, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2019
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The $85-million rotorcraft was more than six years in the making, and with good reason: Flying on Mars is no easy task.
—Amina Khan Staff Writer, Los Angeles Times, 19 Apr. 2021
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The project will serve mainly as a test of the technology needed to fly a rotorcraft above a world 140 million miles away.
—Washington Post, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2018
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For years now, aerospace firms have been engineering the kinds of drones and rotorcraft that could be adapted for the self-flying taxi role.
—Joe Pappalardo, Popular Mechanics, 19 July 2018
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The rover, rotorcraft, and rocket are standing tall on the launch pad, awaiting the signal to blast off for our planetary neighbor.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 29 July 2020
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The Helicopter Scout will be the first rotorcraft to fly on another planet.
—Hailey Rose McLaughlin, Discover Magazine, 4 Sep. 2019
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The little rotorcraft that could is taking flight for the sixth time next week to explore a new destination on its aerial tour of Mars.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 21 May 2021
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Even without the upgrades, Chinook remains one of the heaviest-lifting rotorcraft in the world—and also one of the fastest, with a cruising speed of 180 miles per hour.
—Loren Thompson, Forbes, 6 May 2021
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Proving that this concept can work could lead to the development of rotorcraft that could act as scouts for both rovers and human missions to Mars in the future.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 20 Feb. 2021
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The autonomous 4-pound rotorcraft is charged by solar panels and has just a month-long window to complete up to five test flights.
—Julia Musto, Fox News, 1 Apr. 2021
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The rotorcraft’s ultralight carbon fiber blades, for instance, have to spin incredibly fast to generate enough lift to get it off the ground.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 18 Apr. 2021
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The small rotorcraft already dangling above the Martian surface (see below).
—Jamie Carter, Forbes, 5 Apr. 2021
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After landing, the rover will deposit its helicopter payload, then retreat to a safe distance while the rotorcraft take off.
—Washington Post, BostonGlobe.com, 15 May 2018
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Before Ingenuity can even try to fly in the Martian atmosphere, the 4-pound rotorcraft must first be deployed.
—Julia Musto, Fox News, 24 Mar. 2021
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The helicopters were the cruisers’ main sub-hunters, but the vessels backed up their rotorcraft with torpedoes and anti-submarine mortars of their own.
—David Axe, Forbes, 15 Oct. 2021
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Black Hawks are considered multi-role rotorcraft because of their use in more than one of these categories, but the one that may surprise you the most is that of an attack helicopter.
—Alex Hollings, Popular Mechanics, 20 June 2021
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Still, the helicopter industry, in comments to the FAA, questioned the level of success for rotorcraft often hugging the terrain.
—Richard Winton, Los Angeles Times, 25 Jan. 2021
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But those rotorcraft are unlikely to help aviation reach its net-zero goals, de Bellaigue says.
—Jaclyn Trop, Robb Report, 6 Apr. 2023
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Instead, the space agency is funding the Dragonfly Mission to Saturn’s larger moon Titan, where a large rotorcraft will explore the planet searching for the building blocks of life.
—Jason Daley, Smithsonian, 4 Oct. 2019
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The data from its experimental flights on Mars this month could inform the design of other rotorcraft to fly on Mars and other planets that can act as scouts for rovers and astronauts alike.
—Ashley Strickland, CNN, 29 Apr. 2021
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Each client can build up to 51 percent of the personal rotorcraft under the close supervision of professionals.
—Rachel Cormack, Robb Report, 13 Apr. 2022
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The computer registered roll and pitch excursions of more than 20 degrees for the rotorcraft, large control inputs, and spikes in power consumption during the perilous part of the journey.
—Chris Smith, BGR, 29 May 2021
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The helicopter’s four carbon fiber and epoxy legs are extremely lightweight and attach to the landing plate with deformable aluminum elements at the hinges that help dampen the force of impact and prevent the rotorcraft from bouncing.
—Jennifer Leman, Popular Mechanics, 20 Feb. 2021
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In some cases, these fire department rotorcraft are even flown by military veterans like Kipp Goding, who rode the Black Hawk into combat.
—Alex Hollings, Popular Mechanics, 20 June 2021
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Dragonfly is a rotorcraft lander that will explore Saturn’s large moon Titan.
—IEEE Spectrum, 24 Jan. 2020
Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'rotorcraft.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.
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