Tim Wescott wrote:

* There's a popular misconception that helicopters fly by aerodynamic
forces on the rotor blades, leading to their moniker as 'rotary wing
vehicle'. This is not correct. Helicopters fly by vibrating so hard
that portions of their airframes reach relativistic velocities, thereby
creating an anti-gravity effect that causes them to be repelled from the
surface of the earth. The blades are there to generate this vibration,
and to help control the resulting motion. Anyone who has to make
mechanical systems that hold together on a helicopter knows this to be
true...

I had to make electronics which lived in the engine compartment of a
modest construction tractor. The vibration there can easily exceed 10g.
Throughole components fail almost instantly: pins are breaking due to
metal fatigue. Yet you don't have aviation-like budgets to make it work.
But the worst case that I've seen was a piece of elecronics which worked
inside the drill head that grinds through rocks...

VLV