"Adelle" testing continued

[twistair]

Last week we continued testing "Adelle" after some modifications. First we installed oil radiator+oil thermostat on it. Second was that we removed hydraulic prerotator drive and moved the prerotator engine down - into the fuselage.
Photos below show the gyro before and after (without any prerotator here). This mod made some good things for the gyro:
- corrected gyro's CG location which resulted in more correct craft reactions in flight
- removed unnecessary weight from mast and rotorhead which resulted in better vibration picture and surprisingly
- decreased drag so significantly that I got 6-8 mph extra airspeed at same engine rpm

After the prerotator was removed I made two flights without prerotator at all. Funny stuff This was my first experience of taking gyro off without pre. SportRotor makes it's job excellently. Wind was only 10-12 mph but after rotating it to 30-35 rrpm by hand I managed to catch weak gusts and prerotate it. Very slowly, 3-4 minute to 85-90 rrpm, then very quick to 120 in first flight and 140 in second. Tractor config really helps very much in this - I noted it slightly adding main engine rpm while rrpm were 50-60 and rrpm grew more rapidly.