You buy one of those remote control toy helicopters. You bring it into an elevator. The elevator goes up. Does the helicopter hit the floor or does the floor of the elevator push the air up into the bottom of the helicopter so that it maintains altitude relative to the elevator? The same question can be reversed. If the elevator goes down will it hit the cieling? If the elevator is air-tight, would it make a difference?
[Physics] Helicopter in an Elevator
aerodynamicsforces
Best Answer
The air in an elevator does tend to move with the elevator, because it has relatively little inertia. However, thinking about the problem in these terms seems, to me, misleading. The simplest way to think about this is to consider the acceleration of the elevator as and addition to the normal acceleration due to gravity.
In this light, it would be as if the helicopter were momentarily heavier wen the elevator accelerated upwards, and momentarily lighter when it accelerates downwards. This would inevitably cause changes in the height of the helicopter above the floor of the elevator, but I expect that most real-world elevators would not accelerate fast enough nor long enough for the helicopter to be smashed to the floor.
Of course, toy helicopters are not all alike, so your mileage may vary!