Shake, Rattle and Roll

What in the world can tear a perfectly good helicopter apart, ground resonance can. There have been 34 34 incidents in the United States since 1990.

“I was standing right next to it,” says Frank Robinson, founder of the world’s leading helicopter company, describing a close call he had during a 1961 test of a gyroplane. “I had to grab hold of it and hang on and ride the damn thing down. You don’t want to be standing out there when it starts to jump around — it can jump on you. And there’s not a good way to get out of it. Just cut everything, hang on and hope.”


Fly on over to Air & Space Smithsonian to lean more about this bizarre phenomenon that literally shakes some types of helicopters to pieces.