Little wing slinger

[giro5]

Shiprock airport - paved, 5190 x 75 feet elev 5270 ft. Made 25 flights up and down the runway today on a boom tow. Wind 10 mph at 45 deg. Neal Carnes rotor head and rotorhawk blades baby but smooth no shake at all. Perhaps a little too much rpm if my rotor tach is correct 405 rpm at about 35 mph. But I set them at minus 1 deg to help them start easier by hand.

What an interesting time flying something you have built from scratch.

Nearly an 8 ft wide main gear with casters easily took care of the few times I didnt set it down straight. It is easy to see why beginners tip their gyros over. I wonder why this idea isn't on more or all student flown gyros.

[animal]

Cool any pics of the machine?

[giro5]

Not having any luck posting a pic. I'll try again tomorrow. I think I got it sized ok but I cant get it to upload or paste in.

[TomCarlisle]

I was in Shiprock last week inspecting a boiler for the Tribe. I went on over to Farmington to have some BBQ Ribs. Wish I had known you were there. We could visit. E-mail me your phone and location, maybe we can get together. I would sure like to fly that boom trainer.

[giro5]

This is a pic of the boom trainer.

[giro5]

That finally worked. Going to check and see if I have any better pics showing any detail.

[mcbirdman]

I don't get it ... where is the Little Wing?

[giro5]

Maybe these will show a little more detail. The caster wheels are in one but you can't see the setup well. These pics were the first day I took the gyro out of my living room after building it.

[okikuma]

I've often wonderd how well the boom trainer flies compared to a line towed gyroglider. It seams to me that the boom trainer is flying well within the turbulant air flow created by the tow vehicle, where as the towed gyroglider is out and away from the tow vehicle's turbulant airflow. Perhaps that is the reason why the rotor was rotating at 405 RPMs would be my guess.

I understand the reasoning for the design of the boom trainer. With the positive tow link, the boom trainer will always be the speed of the tow vehicle and perhaps safer to operate than a line towed gyroglider.

I'd like to hear some comments on this.

[EI-GYRO]

Glad to see you are building your gyro in your living room.
Shows the right attitude.
Let me know if you plan to gyroglide on a towline.
I can give some hints on that.
Your rotor rpm should be in the region of 320 assuming 22footers.

[EI-GYRO]

Okihuma, Craig Wall said boomtrainers could 'hunt' a bit behind the vehicle.
I think the guys in Texas had a rollover due to this problem, but I think they
were using a large vehicle.
I never had this problem on the gyroglider with 75 foot rope.

[Doug Riley]

I towed with ropes as short as 30 feet and also had no weird experiences. A tow vehicle does have a pair of trailing vortices, but they shoudn't be too bad at gyroglider speeds. There's not much reason to go faster than that.

[giro5]

On the boom with the casters your position behind the tow vehicle can be off to the side
slightly if you have a side wind. You have no control till the blades come up to speed.
The rudder has no effect. My Tach is a bicycle tach and I may have it set slightly wrong
according to some other posts. The blades are 23 footers. I believe the main advantages
and according to the bensen manuals is the boom tow limits the height you fly and of
course helps with directional control greatly. In my case I only brought the plane up
enough so I could see the end of the runway over the cab of the pickup or about 2 feet.
Control was quite positive and very small movements were required with the control stick
to bring the plane up or down, or move it from side to side. If fact i was surprised that
there did not seem to be any noticable time delay between control input and reaction. It
reminded me of driving a sports car. As for turbulance, I do not notice any buffeting at
all. We are using a ford ranger pickup for towing and the blades start out above the cab
height.

Next time out I will have changed the calibration on the tach but I think this will only
change the rpm reading by about 15 rpm. But I want to get a comparison. Then I will
change the pitch to 0 degrees on the rotor blades and see what that does to the rpm.
According to Neal C. I should strive to be about 320 -350 rpm range.

But the weather turned snowy and cold here and i caught a bad cold right after I test fit
the engine so nothing has been done on the gyro for a week and the snow isn’t melting
very fast so not much may happen for a while. I have a nose wheel setup ordered from
Starbee and will probably order the tow hook release from Wag Aero. Rope towing is
planned for the spring or summer including towing with the engine on. But then I will
have to make new rotor cheek plates and do hang tests. At that time I may adjust the seat
position and pedal controls to get things near CLT.

My two biggest problems at the moment are an engine exhaust and an empanage I am
happy with. I have the Little Wing plans and may have to try building the empanage from
them. My current plate setup weighs 20 lbs and the HS is probably too small. I have a
Ken brock factory rudder and verticle stabalizer and it is really sweet and light (8 lbs) but
there aren’t any provisions for the HS.

[giro5]

Hum, when I reviewed the reply is looked normal as I typed it in MS word. Didn't post that way though.