chuter
10-02-2004, 08:38 AM
Had a pretty good week with Ron Menzie in Arkansas. The gyro passed airworthiness inspection on Wednesday, no problems or hang-ups there, took about 1.5 hours, mostly paperwork.
I got in 8 hours of lessons in his AAI modified RAF. We flew in some pretty turbulent air that he said he wouldn’t have taught in before the modification. It seemed to be more stable in taxiing to me too.
Thursday morning Ron tried taxiing my gyro, he got out on the runway and got the blades spinning up, he said the tail started slowly wagging after the rotors got loaded, about 230 rrpm, while still on the ground. He said he couldn’t tell exactly what was causing it; he backed off because he didn’t want to take a chance on it getting way out of control.
After he brought it back to the hangar, I noticed that with weight on the gyro the tailwheel spring flexed and allowed the steering chain/springs to go slack. I tightened up the steering chain/springs that afternoon.
Friday morning Ron tried it again; he said it was much better, but the wagging still started, this time it was after he had the blades spun to about 240 and started moving the stick forward to gain speed. He said he thought it was speed related.
If it’s some problem with the tail wheel I feel certain that it can be worked out. I just hope it’s not some type of air flow problem over the tail. :cool:
I’ll probably be going back in a few weeks to work on the wagging problem, and if we get it solved, take a few final lessons in Ron’s tandem open-frame.
I got in 8 hours of lessons in his AAI modified RAF. We flew in some pretty turbulent air that he said he wouldn’t have taught in before the modification. It seemed to be more stable in taxiing to me too.
Thursday morning Ron tried taxiing my gyro, he got out on the runway and got the blades spinning up, he said the tail started slowly wagging after the rotors got loaded, about 230 rrpm, while still on the ground. He said he couldn’t tell exactly what was causing it; he backed off because he didn’t want to take a chance on it getting way out of control.
After he brought it back to the hangar, I noticed that with weight on the gyro the tailwheel spring flexed and allowed the steering chain/springs to go slack. I tightened up the steering chain/springs that afternoon.
Friday morning Ron tried it again; he said it was much better, but the wagging still started, this time it was after he had the blades spun to about 240 and started moving the stick forward to gain speed. He said he thought it was speed related.
If it’s some problem with the tail wheel I feel certain that it can be worked out. I just hope it’s not some type of air flow problem over the tail. :cool:
I’ll probably be going back in a few weeks to work on the wagging problem, and if we get it solved, take a few final lessons in Ron’s tandem open-frame.