chuter
04-23-2005, 04:53 AM
YeeHawww! The Airborne 200 actually flies! :D
I went to Ron Menzie’s this past week so Ron could help me test fly my gyro, finish my training, get my solo sign-off, and solo my gyro. Got everything done except my solo flight; the weather turned bad just about the time for me to go up………grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Oh well; got my solo sign-off so now I’ll get my test flight area changed on the operating limitations and do my solo flight at my home airport.
Ron took it up 3 separate times, about half an hour each time. He did several take offs and landings each time, with some S turns thrown in on the first couple of flights.
After the first flight Ron said I just needed to adjust the lateral angle of the rotorhead control a smidgeon to center the stick, and add a trim tab to the rudder to compensate for left rudder needed to keep it straight. Didn’t take long to do those 2 things.
He determined the best take-off and landing technique for me to use when I solo. The last flight I and Tom Hall drove down the taxi way parallel to Ron as he flew, and he talked over the radio as he flew to let us know what he was doing and how it was behaving as we watched.
He said to take off just hold the stick all the way back and gradually increase throttle to about 5000. The blades come up to about 275, then the stick sort of starts to pull forward on its own. Gradually move the stick forward and it doesn’t take long before it just lifts off.
For landing just throttle back to descend, right above the runway pull the stick back to flare. He said maybe even give it just a bit of throttle at the flare point to get the nose up and the tailwheel down first. When we were observing him it did 3 point touch downs.
Ron said it should be much easier to fly than the Parsons I had been training in all week.
Didn’t get any pictures of it flying, too busy. Dammit! :o
It does a 3-point lift off. Ron said it appears to be very pitch stable. He said to descend he just pulled back on the throttle and didn’t have to lower the nose; sounds good so far. Don’t have a lot of performance numbers at this point. He spent most of the time between 40 and 50 mph, about 50 feet off the ground. Said he never got over 5000rpm on the 582.
The fun part of the week (besides flying) was I got to meet Tom and Leslie Hall and their 2 dogs while I was there; great folks, fun to hang around with. They brought their very orange RAF down from Minnesota.
There was a open-house sort of thing at the Searcy airport one day; they bussed in about 250 kids and gave them airplane rides and had lots of static displays. There were quite a few rotor craft there, including a Black Hawk, old Hiller, old G47, (I think that’s right), Jet Ranger, and of course a few gyros.
All-in-all I had a great time and got a lot accomplished. Now I just need to solo! :D
Pics:
1. Tom and Leslie and their dogs (they make a really unique shrieking sound (the dogs, I mean)).
2. Tom doing some tinkering on their RAF
3. Tom mooning the G47. :eek:
I went to Ron Menzie’s this past week so Ron could help me test fly my gyro, finish my training, get my solo sign-off, and solo my gyro. Got everything done except my solo flight; the weather turned bad just about the time for me to go up………grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr! Oh well; got my solo sign-off so now I’ll get my test flight area changed on the operating limitations and do my solo flight at my home airport.
Ron took it up 3 separate times, about half an hour each time. He did several take offs and landings each time, with some S turns thrown in on the first couple of flights.
After the first flight Ron said I just needed to adjust the lateral angle of the rotorhead control a smidgeon to center the stick, and add a trim tab to the rudder to compensate for left rudder needed to keep it straight. Didn’t take long to do those 2 things.
He determined the best take-off and landing technique for me to use when I solo. The last flight I and Tom Hall drove down the taxi way parallel to Ron as he flew, and he talked over the radio as he flew to let us know what he was doing and how it was behaving as we watched.
He said to take off just hold the stick all the way back and gradually increase throttle to about 5000. The blades come up to about 275, then the stick sort of starts to pull forward on its own. Gradually move the stick forward and it doesn’t take long before it just lifts off.
For landing just throttle back to descend, right above the runway pull the stick back to flare. He said maybe even give it just a bit of throttle at the flare point to get the nose up and the tailwheel down first. When we were observing him it did 3 point touch downs.
Ron said it should be much easier to fly than the Parsons I had been training in all week.
Didn’t get any pictures of it flying, too busy. Dammit! :o
It does a 3-point lift off. Ron said it appears to be very pitch stable. He said to descend he just pulled back on the throttle and didn’t have to lower the nose; sounds good so far. Don’t have a lot of performance numbers at this point. He spent most of the time between 40 and 50 mph, about 50 feet off the ground. Said he never got over 5000rpm on the 582.
The fun part of the week (besides flying) was I got to meet Tom and Leslie Hall and their 2 dogs while I was there; great folks, fun to hang around with. They brought their very orange RAF down from Minnesota.
There was a open-house sort of thing at the Searcy airport one day; they bussed in about 250 kids and gave them airplane rides and had lots of static displays. There were quite a few rotor craft there, including a Black Hawk, old Hiller, old G47, (I think that’s right), Jet Ranger, and of course a few gyros.
All-in-all I had a great time and got a lot accomplished. Now I just need to solo! :D
Pics:
1. Tom and Leslie and their dogs (they make a really unique shrieking sound (the dogs, I mean)).
2. Tom doing some tinkering on their RAF
3. Tom mooning the G47. :eek: