IAF Chopper crash in Coonoor recently has killed 14 people including CDS Bipin Rawat and Group Captain Varun Singh. Helicopter and Chopper are two different words but are used synonymously. There is little or no difference between the two terms.
Let us in the article below, check if there is some difference between these terms below.
Helicopter:
It is a winged aircraft that has rotating wings on its top which are moving. The rotating wings allow the aircraft to take off, land and hover around in the air. This is the biggest difference between aeroplanes and helicopters. Helicopters are also smaller in size and are meant for carrying a lesser number of passengers than aeroplanes.
Also, helicopters are meant for carrying passengers in the air in congested places, while aeroplanes are meant to fly on higher altitudes. Helicopters do not need any airports or are not meant for general public transport purposes. The aeroplanes are used for common man transportation.
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Difference between Helicopter and Chopper:
The difference between a helicopter and a chopper can be seen below. The word helicopter is interchangeably used for chopper by many people across the globe. In armed forces or the defence industry, the helicopter word is reserved for an aircraft.
It is derived from the French helicopter which stands for 'helix' meaning twisted and 'pteron' meaning wings.
Laymen who do not know about the working of any machinery refer to helicopters as choppers.
Chopper is just a casual word for the heavy technical machine - Helicopter. It is American slang for the formal helicopter. A chopper is a device that cuts something with a sudden blow. Helicopter rotors chop the air to produce the required lift and the name of the helicopter is justified.
The word chopper is also used for many other devices like semiconductor devices named thyristor as it can hop the sinusoidal waves at any desired location.
The chopper can also be used to denote motorcycles. Many people around the USA can be found saying that they have parked their choppers in the parking lots.
To sum it all up:
The helicopter is an aircraft with rotating wings on top of the body that has the capacity to take off and land without a runway.
Chopper refers to the same helicopter though it is casual; rather slang words are used more by media and laymen than those who are pilots or personnel from the US army.
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