First Flight

[jdalexa]

The inspector from Sacramento FSDO came out and I got my airworthiness certificate yesterday (wednesday). SAC FSDO is really a pleasure to work with.

Then I had to wait till this evening for the howling winds to die down. It flies really well, except for wanting to fall off to the left. How do I fix that? If I let go of the stick it goes left pretty hard and pitches up. I know how to fix the pitch part. There is a also slow stick shake, but that'll just take work.

[GyroRon]

you got to put a trim spring on one side of the rotorhead to offset the pre rotator bits, especially if you got a hydro pre rotator.

[jdalexa]

Ummm... I'm a little confused then. The pre-rotator is on the right side. Wouldn't putting a spring on the left side make it worse?

[Chuck Irby]

John, I had the spring on the left side on my Dom and it worked very well.

[GyroRon]

then you got a problem somewhere... I suggest calling Ernie Boyette first and posting pictures of your machine here second.

[barnstorm2]

Congratulations John!

I can't wait until I get my AW cert for the 2-place.

[jdalexa]

The rear trim spring attaching tab was slotted. All I had to do was to move it a tad to the right and it fixed up the problem most nicely. That was pointed out by one of the gyro guys out here. Sometimes it just takes someone else looking at the problem.

[Chuck Irby]

I'm glad it worked out well for you, John.

[Doug Riley]

Moving the rear trim spring to one side is one way to cure the "roly-poly" tendency. However, the amount of roll correction then varies with fore-aft stick position. The roll tendency may only really trim out at one fore-aft location of the stick. You might want to check on this issue.

A separate spring for roll trim, located so that movements of the head in the pitch axis don't change its tension, would allow you to adjust each axis of trim independently of the other.