Mike- This thing has crept up on me. Its a very simple adjustment that I simply wasnt aware of. My turbine has shut down from the governor switch for a long time. I recall it not being that way initially.
It looks like it was just simply shutting down too much on the fuel. I have it set now where it acts differently now, not flying, but on ground runup and shutdown.
This turbine has been a dream to fly, its so smooth, and trying to keep my ignorance ahead of it is the challenge.
My best defense is to practice autos. ha
I was talking to Blake today at the factory about it, and he feels also that the low fuel stop being raised higher should prevent the turbine from starving for fuel when and if a high load is released suddenly from it, just like these only two times I have done such.
I will now not lower the collective during an aggressive use of it just for safer measures.
This information is to help educate the Helicycle guys that frequent this forum.
Some of this stuff is educating both the customer and the company. Maybe if I would go back in the archives in the Helicycle flyers forum, I am sure this has been covered. If my spreading the word here saves someone from that making a simple adjustment could keep them from having to perform an auto, then this is good.
Speaking from actual practical experience, and not out of a book, I can verify there is a lot of energy stored in those rotor blades with those 12 ounce tip weights. This last auto was a yawner in comparison to the situation I found myself in last fall. My very first thoughts last fall as I was coming down like a possum tossed off a hayloft were that I would walk away from a wrecked machine. I had enough energy to pull out a low speed landing with a high rate of descent.
Last night I had all the energy in the world with 70 mph, and vertical descent was almost nothing as I enjoyed a nice bleed off of rotor energy over the grass. I remember at one foot altitude as I was flying parallel to the ground the amount of stored energy that the rotor was giving back to me. B.J. did a fantastic job designing this Helicycle. Plus, no nose over tendency at all as I was happily skidding to a stop.
Again, had I not had this nice stretch of grass, I still had a normal flare to a quick stop to 0 mph, level the skids and kiss it down with 0 or just a creep of forward travel if I didnt quite get it stopped. I practice getting this machine stopped, and do aggressive quick stops all the time. These are done for my butts sake and not trying to show off with it.
I come into my chopper channel many times just smoking, then haul on the aerodynamic brakes. I love hearing that thrushing, thump thump sound in the chopper channel as there are some serious reverbs going on. Its all to prepare me for an actual event. I hate having to go through a real auto, but it is a freakin rush that I cant describe experiencing one successfully.
Stan