Pile o' parts

[All_In]

Way to go John.

Your right about his ride, I saw it at Mentone too!!!

[RockyMeLad]

Great, John!
Are you taking it to Mentone this year?

[Jazzenjohn]

I plan on being there with it this year. Hopefully it will have all the bugs worked out by then... knock on wood.

[Jazzenjohn]

I've been doing crow hops for a couple days and it has behaved pretty well so I finally did a pattern today. I flared a little high and plopped the landing in a bit but the gear handled it without complaint. My dad has video but can't find the cables so it might be a while before I can get it on the forum.

[GyroRon]

How did it perform?

[Jazzenjohn]

It climbs very well. It seems like it climbs at least as well as the old gyro with good blades and the tuned pipe, but I'm flying it with Bensens now and I haven't pushed the power up to max power yet. I need to tweak the prop and get the prerotator going before I put on the DW's. I have the valving for the prerotator but I haven't found a good spot to mount it and hosed it up yet. I also have to debug the instruments. I have a loose connection in the egt wiring.

I'm getting the hang of the different steering. I was waiting too long to go from the ground steering to the rudder. It is much better to switch earlier.

The difference between the Brock stick I had before and the pump handle now wasn't hard to get used to. I'm starting to think I may like it better.

[Jazzenjohn]

Still testing the gyro. I have installed the prerotator and have Dragon Wings on it now. I know someone will ask how many RRPM's I'm getting, but I have no guage for it and the handheld unit isn't giving me good numbers. The best answer I can give is enough but certainly nothing to boast about. I'm still tweaking it and I hope to improve it. It is surprisingly light as the Hydraulic pump is built into the HKS engine so the additional weight is the Hyd motor (only 15 ounces!), the hoses, and the valve. I'm playing with the ratios now and then valving later.

It flies pretty similarly to my Bee except it is smoother, quieter, uses far less gas, and is more powerful. The difference between the Brock type stick and the current pump handle stick was easy to get used to and now I like this one very much. The different nosewheel steering took longer to get comfortable with, but once I figured out it was best to switch to the rudder pedals earlier rather than later in the takeoff, I got the hang of it quickly.

The fiberglass axle seems to be holding up well. I've plopped it in a couple times and it just absorbs it. I may narrow the wheelbase a little to stiffen it up as I sometimes think it's a bit more compliant than I like. I haven't decided on that for sure yet.

I fly exclusively off a runway and, in fact, I've never taken off from grass. I've landed on grass twice (once intentionally, once not). I think the gear would handle a grass landing fine but I have no idea if it would be suitable for a grass takeoff or not.

[GyroRon]

Can't wait to see it in person

[StanFoster]

Way to go John....I will look forward to seeing it at Mentone if you bring it!

Its so unique the number of builders and doers on this site......like no other site I get on.



Stan

[All_In]

Most excellent, I saw it last year and hope you bring it this year too!
I'll see ya there John!!!

[Jazzenjohn]

Two steps forward and one step back... I had an engine out on the gyro. I hadn't even gotten the blades stopped and out from the bushes a woman comes and asks me "Are you Mr. Anderson?" I was shocked and had a fleeting thought about whether I should answer, but I said yes. She told me that she was the wife of a guy that talked to me for an article in a Magazine and that she had already called him to come out with his truck. We went back to the airport, got my truck, blade box, and a couple people and went back to get the gyro. We had it broken down, loaded on the truck, and back to the airport in less than an hour! Amazing! Thankfully it was a non-event.


The problem was an offshoot from a previous issue where I had noticed on preflight that the battery was coming in contact with the engine and it was scratching the battery case. The combination of engine thrust and vibration and the movement allowed by the motor mounts it could just touch. I remounted the battery with more clearance and had put another 5-6 hours on it but I hadn't noticed that at some point, a wire had gotten between the motor and battery and been squished. Well, it was the power to the fuel pump and the engine out was the result of a broken wire causing the fuel pump to stop and then fuel starvation. That, or because It had EXACTLY 13 hours on the Hobbs....

With the gyro down I decided to work on a few things I had been thinking about doing this winter and put the gyro on a stricter diet. It's current empty dry weight is too heavy with the Hydraulic prerotator, the lead acid battery, Starter, and seat tank all installed at the same time. The question is what trade off to make. Having a prerotator is nice but not essential by any means. Currently the prerotator has a reduction maximum of 6.92 -1 but it seems like it is running out of torque and it is currently pretty anemic. If I can't improve it signifigantly, I may dump it to save weight. I have been flying with Dragon Wings but I have to be really careful teasing them up to a high enough speed before pushing the power. I made a new setup where I can have ratios from 10-1 to 15-1. I'll see if I can get better performance now. If it isn't acceptable and I need either a more powerful motor or a higher reduction, I'll have to weigh the difference between my Sportcopter blades without prerotator and the Dragon Wings with an acceptable prerotator.

I'm thinking replacing the seat tank with a fuel tank that mounts to the mast and is reasonably aerodynamic. On the plus side it will likely save somewhere between 5-9 pounds and eliminate the possibility of fuel starvation unless I fly it till empty. On the minus side it will put the fuel tank over the motor, it will also change the front to back CG.

I haven't had any problems with the 14" Tuff Wheels. They have performed beautifully, roll easily, and have less drag than my previous Azusa wheels. They are likely to be more fragile than the Azusa's mainly because they are taller and therefore there is more leverage from side loads caused by crosswinds or inadvertant sideslip on landing. I've found some smaller wheels that could be easily mounted with a small piece of 2x2 aluminum tube below the axle tube. The heights are exactly the same mounted that way. I would save at most 2 pounds.

Pro's are that they would go through mud, soft ground, or sand better, they would be stronger, especially in side loads, and they would save a little weight.

Minuses are they don't roll quite as easily and they wouldn't go over bigger bumps as easily as the larger diameter wheels.

They are nearly the same frontal area, and they can be easily switched back if I don't like them, I'm going to add the aluminum sheet to below the axle tube and shorten each side a couple inches to stiffen the suspension so I'm pretty sure I'll do it all at the same time. I may also experiment with fairing the axle tube to reduce the low drag as well.

I've tried hand propping the motor without success. Frankly, I don't have any idea whether I'm doing it right or not anyway. I am planning to try an external starter like the race car and R/C people do. If it is successful, I'll be able to cut another 8-12 pounds.

If I don't save enough weight with those changes (although I'm fairly sure I'll be able to), I may have to resort to increasing my allowable weight.

There are 2 ways to get additional weight allowed for ultralight aircraft. You can put on floats and get 30 pounds allowed for each float regardless of what they weigh. That takes the max weight for an ultralight up to 314 pounds dry weight. That is how the Mosquito XEL helicopter with floats is a legal ultralight despite using the full body. It is listed at 312 pounds.

The second way is to install an emergency parachute. There is a 24 pound credit for the chute. If your chute weighs 18 pounds, like the BRS 600 softpack for instance, you would get an extra 6 pounds. If someone developed a perfect chute for a gyro that weighed 50 pounds, you could get 50 pounds credit, but the chute would have to be weighed separately and you'd only get the exact weight of the chute. I am considering putting on an emergency chute. Depending on the final weight of the chute, I might even be able to keep the electric start with a lightweight battery.
It could be argued that the chute will not be tested. I doubt there is anyone alive that would deploy a parachute from a gyro with functional spinning blades. However, if the blades were destroyed, or it tumbled and chopped the tail, I equally believe there isn't anyone who would not deploy whatever last resort device was attached to the aircraft. I have a few ideas about what might work, and I have some friends with vast amounts of experience to get advise from. We'll see what, if anything, we can come up with.

The new prerotator is already installed with a stronger chain. I'm making the fuel tank mounts tonight. Hopefully I'll make all the changes and have it back flying before too long.

[RockyMeLad]

Yo John,

Glad your landing was uneventful.

Good luck with the mods. Sounds interesting, keep us informed.

[Jazzenjohn]

I've been trying out alot of things on the mule and recently weighed it at 248.6 pounds. I followed it up this morning with a weigh in using a Pelouze 4040 digital scale. It seems to be an accurate instrument, maybe more so than the digital bathroom scale I had used when I got the lower number. 261.5 pounds right now on the Pelouze. I have a couple weight loss projects ready to put in so I'm pretty sure I'll have it soon, but I jumped the gun when I said (in another thread) I was there now. I do have a question whether oil is counted weight . Generally it is counted in empty weight, but it isn't on a 2 stroke UL machine (only a few ounces anyway). That right there is several pounds of handicap.

Does anyone know if this has been asked/addressed?

[GyroRon]

I would think oil would not count.

[Jazzenjohn]

The pile o' parts test mule had another first today... I did my first flight on it with an overhead stick. I have both an overhead stick as well as the regular pump handle stick now. I took off with the regular stick and practiced flying it with the overhead. probably got about 30 minutes on it before daylight ran out. I'll try and get a few hours on it and get feeling comfortable before I begin low approaches and then landings.
One thing I noticed is that I want to have a bit of extra trim spring tension on it when using the overhead stick. The trim tension is a bit low now and I think it will feel more comfortable trimmed for a lower speed.