Turbines are ruining aviation

[rfonseca]

Taken from the Canard chat room:

Subject: Turbines are ruining aviation

We must get rid of turbines. They are ruining aviation. We need to go back
to big round engines. Anybody can start a turbine, you just need to move a
switch from "OFF" to "START" and then remember to move it back to "ON"
after a while. My PC is more difficult to start. Cranking a round engine
requires skill, finesse and style. On some planes, the pilots are not even
allowed to do it.

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and
start whining louder.Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle,
click-click BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more
clicks, a lot of smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like
that. It's a guy thing. When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged
and you can concentrate on the flight ahead. Starting a turbine is like
flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but hardly exciting. Turbines don't
break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom,complacency and inattention.
A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it's going to blow at any
minute. This helps concentrate the mind. Turbines don't have enough control
levers to keep a pilot's attention.There's nothing to fiddle with during
the flight. Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns.
Round engines smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

I think I hear the nurse coming down the hall. I gotta go.

[DougKspokane]

I gotta ask... does anybody make a turbine small enough to work on a gyro? ;D I almost like the idea of "simple" since that what I am, most of the time. And can we direct some of that "Coleman smell" through the rotortips for pre-rotation? :P

Warmest regards and best wishes for the Holidays!

[ToddP]

Weight certainly shouldn't be a problem. The helicycle is using a t-62 solar turbine pulled from surplus generators. I think with gearbox they are around 100 lbs. The website doesn't say how much horsepower they're getting. I think the biggest concern would be slow throttle reaction time. I really don't know much about turbines...but I think they sound cool ;D

[Kevin_Richey]

I talked with Doug Schwochert in Mentone this summer at the PRA Convention about his Solar turbine.

He said that they are only using 100 h.p. of the 150 available to make them last virtually indefinately!

Here's a close-up of the turbine. This is Homer Bell's red Helicycle. That's Sharon Bell sitting behind. Doug is also there with his arms folded across his chest.

[Al_Hammer]

BJ Schramm will not sell you one of his modified turbines unless you have a Helicycle. It is a years wait to get one even if you buy a helicycle.
He uses the T62-32 Solar turbine and builds a new gearbox for it to lighten the weight and makes other mods. T62's are available on the used market for $4-7K- then you need a gearbox, etc.
This same Solar T62-32 engine is used in the Rotorway Exec turbine conversions and has been used in a beautiful fixed wing Luscombe among others.

Power is cut back in the Helicycle to around 95 hp , mainly because of transmission torque limits.
That still allows plenty of reserve power, considering it only takes around 60 hp to hover.

The T62 runs at fixed rpm in flight of approx 60,000 rpm and it has a governor to maintain engine/rotor rpm. It doesn't run at full power, but rather at 100% flight rpm.

Power is controlled by the fuel flow; increasing collective pitch puts more load on the engine and the governor increases fuel flow automatically while holding rpm constant. The pilot simply controls the collective.

Throttle response is not a problem; the engine easily maintains rotor rpm under all flight loads. It can accelerate incredibly fast and could overspeed- that's why the governor is essential.

There is a variable throttle control. It is mainly used during startup and shut down to bring the engine to idle.
The turbine is started and run up to idle speed with no load. The electric tensioner/clutch is then slowly engaged and the rotor is brought up to speed.
From then on, the governor takes over.


Here is the clutch side view of the turbine in the factory Helicycle.

[Al_Hammer]

Steven, the fuel burn is something like 12 gal/hr at cruise power.
It would use even more if run at the full available power of 150 hp.
The engine is most efficient(and they use that word "efficient" very loosely) at full throttle and drops off rapidly with reduced throttle.

The turbine option is currently 11 or 12k as I recall, and that's a good deal ,believe me.
I just didn't want to spend the money (on the engine or on the fuel) after having already purchased a Rotax for my Helicycle and having had good luck with a 618 on my Dominator.
If my kit doesn't sell soon, I may go ahead and finish it up and wind up putting a turbine in it eventually, just because they are so cool- I can't deny that! ;D


The 2-stroke is still a viable engine choice. One Helicycle is now flying with a fuel injected 3 cylinder Hirth and it performs well. The vibration is a bit more, however.

[scottessex]

Kinda like how the electric starter ruined motorcycling. I mean, how bad do you want to ride when your bike can kick you back? Old sportsters have thrown people over the handle bars and hyper extended many a knee. A kicker will force you to keep your machine in top tune.

I can't argue with the allure of a big radial, pure music!
As far as asthetics go, the Mac is "the" perfect gyro engine, people just want too much reliability today. ;D

Just like the old Mac's and old Harleys, you never knew when you were going to break down, but you would always come back with new stories to tell. ;D

[brycekelsey]

Does anybody know where I can purchase a Solar T-62-T-32?

[Steve McGowan]

Yall been watchin it for years,

19,000 RPM, derated 2.85/1 at 7200 rpm 350 HP at 7-9 gph

3 moving parts, with 1900.F exhaust

[Wilson]

Originally Posted by brycekelsey

Does anybody know where I can purchase a Solar T-62-T-32?

Once you get the turbine in there, how are you going to hold enough fuel to go anywhere? Those things are thirsty
W

[GyroDoug]

Larry Neal is talking about building a Gyro with "true jet" engines just because there are some small 100lb thrust jet engines becoming available. The are very small and light (15 lbs each - I think) so he would mount four of them to give it 400 lbs of thrust and plenty or redundancy in case you lost an engine. However, he will be the first to admit it isn't really practical at all and would give you a flight endurance measured in minutes. (they are very thirsty engines) But there is something about the whine of a jet engine that really seems to attract pilots. Maybe we are all just dealing with our earlier dreams of wanting to be a jet fighter pilot. I don't think I would ever spend the money to build such an impractical machine but I sure wouldn't mind flying one if it were available.

Gyro Doug

[Timchick]

They did it with an ultralight. We should be able to do it with a gyro:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pztUJRzOaNs

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XbTzfAFNgE