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A helicopter may spin out of control when the anti-torque system is unable to counteract the torque being created by the engine. When the torque of the engine is greater than the thrust being produced by the anti-torque system, the helicopter will begin to spin.
Jun 5, 2019 · Normally, an extra line prevents the basket from spinning out of control, but in this case—possibly because of strong winds—the line failed, and “eventually broke,” according to Derek...
If the tail rotor flies off to do its own thing, there's nothing to counteract the horrible spinny force acting on the helicoprer, and it starts spinning the opposite way from the main rotor.
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Most helicopters do fit your description but there are coaxial rotor and tandem rotor helicopters. By having an even number of rotors with half spinning one direction and half spinning the opposite direction you can cancel out the rotational force without a tail rotor.
If this torque isn’t controlled, the helicopter would just spin round wildly out of control. So to beat the reaction of the torque, the tail rotor is used and is connected by gears and a shaft to the main rotor so that it turns whenever the main rotor is spinning.
That is the reason why helicopters have tail rotors. It transfers the angular momentum from the accelerating rotor into the air flowing over the tail. Without the tail rotor the helicopter will start spinning out of control.
The tail rotor provides yaw / heading control and prevents a helicopter from spinning out of control, particularly at low speeds. Unfortunately, there are a few phenomena that can reduce tail rotor thrust in exactly these low speed conditions where it’s most needed.
