New Hornet(s) in the works!

[danmcgee]

Leigh what kind words, I built my Hornet to Dons plans with the 447 and depending on the instruments I want to add it will most likely be over. Don will be the first one to tell you with a 503 it will not UL weight.

Don will also tell you the Hornet is nothing but a redesigned Bee for a closer CLT with a bigger prop and acomidate a much larger control surface for the tail. There are onlt 3 flying that I know of and with no complaints either and flys real well in solidworks and if it works there is should work for real.

A 447 with 23 foot DW you would fly but very little performance and not give you what you want, go for more power, be happy with your build and no regreats.

Dan

[Resasi]

Hi Dan, the only 2 Hornets flying I know of are in Roy's hanger in Zephyrhills, both 503's. Ours certified and Roy's is an UL. The one in Aus was heavily modded and not sure if it remained a Hornet. There are almost certainly others flying now, and I have no doubt there will be more to come soon, three on the Forum and yours for sure.

Has Don continued with his build, has he finished it yet? I went with the Hornet because I liked what Don had done with his redesign of the Bee. I didn't need him to have flown it because if the Bee flew it seemed to make sense that this one would, and more safely. Be nice to know that he had, he certainly put a huge amount of work into doing the engineering and producing the plans and very grateful to him for that alone.

There is a third Hornet in the hanger being built by Roy's other hanger mate Garry who owns a twin Dominator. It may well qualify as the lightest Hornet out, if he finishes it, he has been having some health problems. He has used some much lighter materials. I personally would be concerned about it's strength but am not an engineer and very much a gyro newbe with a huge amount to learn.

Look forward to you getting both your birds up in the summer. That Cri Cri project sounds fun.

[danmcgee]

Don has not finished his Hornet and I have some reservation weather he ever will. He uses solidworks for a living so I am sure it did not take him as long as it would have taken one of us to produce the drawings.

This Cri Cri will be the most challanging thing I have ever built. I am now looking into building a CNC router to cut most of the parts for me save time, effort and mistakes.

I do know now that the next tail feathers I build will be 100% aluminum not no were as hard as it apeared to make and form, not to mention super light and super strong.

I haven't talked to Don in a whiel maybe I should give him a call and see how he is doing.

Dan

[Resasi]

If the next tail will be aluminum, will you be using the same format and shape as the old Hornet tail? I personally like it.

With the limited experience I have with it, it seems to work very well. I tested it in some quite stiff crosswinds and it had good authority. Do you, or he have exactly what tail area it is. 12% of total rotor area is said to be a desirable minimum and a lot of the tails I see would seem to be very much less than this.

Yes I am sure he would like that, hope his personal problems have been eased.

[robo_nipsy]

Comment:
First, I must say that I think Don did a very nice job with the Hornet plans. Granted, it is strongly derived from the Gyrobee, but it did take a lot of time and effort to come up with this new, "Improved" design and I too thank him for all his efforts to make it available to all of us. Much appreciated. And, any changes that I have made to my machine does not imply that Don had it wrong. With that said:
Dan, you commented that the machine flies very well in Solidworks. Am I missing something? I know you and Don know each other personally. Does he also have some other simulation software that I am not aware of?
If not, the comment "it flies well in Solidworks" is misleading and may lead others to believe that this gyro design has been put through some computer-based wind tunnel testing.
I use Autodesk Inventor for all of my daily design work. Solidworks has been around longer, and hence the name is more widely recognized. I won't get into an argument about which is better and why...That is not what this is about. I don't care if something was modeled in Solidworks, Inventor, Unigraphics, Solid Edge, Pro E Wildfire, or whatever...The fact is these are all just modeling programs. You can get a very accurate center of mass, and moments of inertia around all axes, some FEA and structural analysis, but don't let anyone tell you that their mid-range cad program can accurately depict the flight characteristics of any aircraft without some MAJOR additional software!
Please correct me if I'm wrong...
Thanks
Denis

[Resasi]

Apologies Dennis for drifting your thread.

That lot there represents a huge saving of time in a build.

With regard to the engine mount we had been considering copying one I had seen someone else use . Dennis Fetters though very kindly pointed out the mistake and showed us the correct way to do the mount. (The one on the left being the correct way to get the max out of the mounts)

We were up against a deadline, and had wallet fatigue at the time, so went with the origional one from the plans that we had constructed.

[robo_nipsy]

Leigh,
Nice illustration. Yes, I can see how one on the left would give the most flexibility with the shearing action of the mounts vs the compression configuration on the right. Nice design. I will consider this. But now we get into the issues of bending the aluminum, the correct temper, post heat treating and such.... I suppose I could machine it out of solid, but that would take time and money.
Even a flat bar setup I feel would vastly improve the stability of the mount such as the guys are discussing on the gyrobee builds.. This would at least get the mounts out to a 8-10" center distance.
The current design has them at 3.7" center to center. (The same as the studs on the engine)
It sounds like you are saying that this is adiquate for yours? What durometer are the rubber isolators that you used? To me, a center distance this short would be highly critical to having the exactly correct stiffness of the mounts.
Thanks
d

Originally Posted by Resasi

Apologies Dennis for drifting your thread.

That lot there represents a huge saving of time in a build.

With regard to the engine mount we had been considering copying one I had seen someone else use . Dennis Fetters though very kindly pointed out the mistake and showed us the correct way to do the mount. (The one on the left being the correct way to get the max out of the mounts)

We were up against a deadline, and had wallet fatigue at the time, so went with the origional one from the plans that we had constructed.

[Resasi]

That, the tempering and bending, was outside my area of expertise Dennis and another reason not to go with it much as we liked the design.

I asked Dennis Fetters about the hardness went with the rubbers he sent me originally. A hardness that others in the same situation as us at the time were discussing. I regret I can not tell you now which hardness but probably the stiffest.

[gilgsn]

Thanks Denis! Let me study this.. This is great, will save me a lot of time!

Gil.

[danmcgee]

FYI, I talked to Don last Saturday and he is now back on his game and with some friends help will try and finish his Hornet this summer.

Yes Leigh, I would keep the original design for the aluminum tail should be lighter and maintain the same control with a better airfoil shap.

I would also be making the seat and foot tray from aluminum as well.

Dan

[Dirtydog]

Reasai :

I found this for you!
http://www.rotaryforum.com/forum/sho...3&postcount=26

Originally Posted by DennisFetters

As you see, in the right illustration, the mounts need to be further apart to aim at the Center of Mass, but after all, it is rubber we're talking about here and somewhat forgiving. So, reversing them may work well, hard to say until you try.

I would probably go with the yellow and white, if it were me.

[Resasi]

Well retrieved Chris.

[robo_nipsy]

Hi all...
Wow, I didn't think my progress would be this slow, but I'm still picking away at it. Business has REALLY picked up this year (which is a very good thing!) But it really takes away all my fun time for gyros and stuff.. I have a house that is 1/2 remodeled, and I am actively making plans and arrangements for my own wedding this fall! This is without a doubt the busiest year of my life so far!

So, since my last post, I was able to get our Rotor Heads done. All the hardware is temporary. We will be placing an order for more AN stuff shortly.
One feature on the head that I had fun with is the 3D contour in the bottom of the torque tube. This matches the radius of the top of the roll pivot plates. I did this so that when the head is pitched to it's full 9' forward or back limit, there is a nicely nested contact regardless of the current position of the left / right roll of the head. It probably wasn't necessary, but its the details that make building things like this fun! (I would probably be flying my machine by now if I wasn't so anal!)
I will continue to work downward now to the cyclic controls.
Again, hopefully my post will become more frequent!
Thanks
Denis

[gilgsn]

The head looks great Denis. I can see the quality of your work even in the few parts you sent me. You're not going to use a prerotator? If not, what blades do you plan to put on?

Congratulations on the wedding!

Gil.

[jehicks87]

Robo, would you ever consider allowing others to, ahm... "outsource"... parts like the rotor head to you? If you still have the software for it, of course. PM me and let me know.