Lets Crash Some Remote Control Gyros and Film Everything We Can Do to Get Us Killed

[mccarthyinv]

Greetings,

Does anyone have plans for a remote control Bensen Style Gyro?

I would like to make maybe ten of them, and then do all the things we read about but never saw, such as the high speed dive followed by a rapid pull, then nose down again for another high speed pass leading to the "Bunt Over" (Like the "Bunt Over" that got the guy killed in Japan, or the "Lets over-correct until the gyro gets sideways and knocks off the rudder" manuever, never saw it, but Ron describes it...a sort of "New Bee Killer").

We can film all of these fatal maneuvers that no body lives to talk about. Then in slow motion we can dissect it all, and learn what not to do...

We've all seen footage of a gyro crashing, but its usually a tiny blurred image to the point of not knowing what the hell is really going on.

Our videos would do a world of good to define what the "Flight Envelope" of a gyro-plane is. We could all view the videos and learn the do's and dont's of gyro flying.

Do you know the "Does and Don'ts"? All I ever heard was, "Don't unload the Rotor"..

With high quality video photage with an explanation, "An now I did this...or did that" by the remote pilot....and we could sit back and go "Ooooooh, got to remember never to try that!".

The majority of accidents I've seen is #1 Blade flap, (Ok, get rotor RPM indicator-solved), or #2. Lift off in a kind of "ground effect" where the craft is flying but out of the engines ideal RPM range so the gyro starts to bog, loose airspeed and settle back down to the ground, right about the time the runway ends...leading to a spetacular crash.......those are the easy fixes.

What gets me are the guys that have plenty of airspeed and seem to do a forward tumble. (And yet another throw-off to this research could be where would the ideal place to put a ballastic parachute is? It wont save you when you hit a power line, but most of the up high tumbles I've seen, the tail gets knocked off, the rotor slows and the craft pluges towards earth inverted, meaning a downward i.e. now skyward ballistic chute should work).

Any thoughts?

 

[Vance]

In my opinion different gyroplanes have different weaknesses.

If all you ever heard was; “don’t unload the rotor” I feel you didn’t have a very good flight instructor or you didn’t listen well.

In my opinion it is not hard to stay away from the coffin corners of the gyroplane flight envelope in all but the worst designs.

A gyroplane flies with rotor rpm and air speed.

Both are important.

 

[mccarthyinv]

Well after your comment of me not listening very well, which is true, and probably reflects a lot of gyro pilots, I re-read the Rotor Craft Flying Handbook (FAA-h-8083-21) at https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/

Its conclusion was, "When compared to other aircraft, the gyroplane is just as safe and very reliable. The most important factor, as in all aircraft, is pilot proficiency. Proper training and flight experience helps prevent the risks associated with pilot-induced oscillation or buntover" (See Chapters 15 to 21 of FAA-h-8083), the file was too large to upload so you have to go to the website shown above).

The article I did attach is about the types of flights I'd like to replicate. And its ironic in the article below, they don't agree with the FAA's comment of the gyroplane being "Just as safe" as any other aircraft. Its good reading, but as a flight instructor, it would probably bore you to tears, since you've heard this all before.

If you read the article I attached, this incident was particularly disturbing, since the pilot got formal training, and was a certified gyro pilot.....yet still knocked his tail off from pilot induced oscillations.

A little off of the subject of crashing RC gyros, but if you look at the Ponsford Gyro in the article, it appears to be an air command but its not, its an old style Bensen with an Air Command front end with more of a gravel guard to protect picking up rocks than a horizontal stabilizer.

To see this replicated with an RC gyro in a video, and be able to play it back in slow motion, would be very beneficial.

 

[WaspAir]

Its conclusion was, "When compared to other aircraft, the gyroplane is just as safe and very reliable. The most important factor, as in all aircraft, is pilot proficiency. Proper training and flight experience helps prevent the risks associated with pilot-induced oscillation or buntover" .

This conclusion presumes competently engineered aircraft, which historically has not always been the case, and that accounts in part for many of the classic disaster scenarios.
I am a zealous advocate of proper training, but I would not want anybody to conclude from the wording of the quoted conclusion above that proficiency should be relied upon to compensate for poorly thought-out designs (sadly, at least one manufacturer is infamous for taking that stance). A competent gyro pilot, in a competently engineered, constructed, and maintained gyroplane, can enjoy safety comparable to other types of aircraft. Pilot proficiency is essential but a poor patch for designer ignorance or malfeasance.

 

[Vance]

Well after your comment of me not listening very well, which is true, and probably reflects a lot of gyro pilots, I re-read the Rotor Craft Flying Handbook (FAA-h-8083-21) at https://www.faa.gov/regulations_policies/handbooks_manuals/aircraft/

Its conclusion was, "When compared to other aircraft, the gyroplane is just as safe and very reliable. The most important factor, as in all aircraft, is pilot proficiency. Proper training and flight experience helps prevent the risks associated with pilot-induced oscillation or buntover" (See Chapters 15 to 21 of FAA-h-8083), the file was too large to upload so you have to go to the website shown above).

The article I did attach is about the types of flights I'd like to replicate. And its ironic in the article below, they don't agree with the FAA's comment of the gyroplane being "Just as safe" as any other aircraft. Its good reading, but as a flight instructor, it would probably bore you to tears, since you've heard this all before.

If you read the article I attached, this incident was particularly disturbing, since the pilot got formal training, and was a certified gyro pilot.....yet still knocked his tail off from pilot induced oscillations.

A little off of the subject of crashing RC gyros, but if you look at the Ponsford Gyro in the article, it appears to be an air command but its not, its an old style Bensen with an Air Command front end with more of a gravel guard to protect picking up rocks than a horizontal stabilizer.

To see this replicated with an RC gyro in a video, and be able to play it back in slow motion, would be very beneficial.

I fail to see the mystery you seem to find in this accident Dan.

It is my observation that Pilot Induced Oscillations are induced by the pilot.

I have had several clients do just fine in The Predator and then over control a less stable gyroplane.

A single place machine will tend to be more pitch sensitive than a tandem trainer.

An effective horizontal stabilizer helps to reduce the tendency toward PIO.

When someone earns a pilot certificate I cannot control what they fly.

I prefer to work with them to manage the transition; this does not always work out.

My advice at the first sign of PIO is to reduce power and let the aircraft fly itself. In other words take the pilot out of PIO and thrust out of the high thrust line and the oscillation tends to go away.

In my opinion there is no mystery about PIO and rotor divergence.

 

[NJpilot]

Building drone gyros to demonstrate the "Does and Don'ts" of flying gyros and the repercussions is not practical IMHO. I think simulation via flight simulation games would be far easier and more demonstrable. Now having said that, I don't know if gyros are represented in these games or whether rotor aerodynamics and physics are obeyed. If not, you would need to create animations in 3D packages. Some do obey solid body physics and gravity but I doubt aerodynamics. There may be professional CAD software that does but it would be very expensive.

You mentioned using gyro drones to test ballistic chute deployment. This makes much more sense to me given no system has ever been deployed on a gyro yet. The current state of the art for ballistic chutes designed for gyros are from Galaxy. http://www.galaxysky.cz/gyro-amp-helicopters-s65-en
I believe they have solved the chute location and attach point questions and have tested deploying the system through a spinning rotor from the back of a truck. It would certainly be nice to see it deployed successfully on a flying gyro. For whatever reason it seems Galaxy is content waiting for the first gyro installed system to be deployed by a customer. Did BRS ever test on a drone before the FAA requirements for the Cirrus?

 

[EI-GYRO]

I don't think your idea would tell us anything we don't already know.
The 'bunt' is almost unknown these days. We all have stabs.
We know most of what causes the takeoff accidents also. We just haven't found a way of preventing humans behaving instinctively.

 

[Eric S]

Lets Crash Some Remote Control Gyros

Any thoughts?

I like the idea!

When I flew trikes, I bought an R/C trike and it tumbled (forward flips = ass over elbows - head over heels) all the way to the ground after trying some whip stalls - a no-no in trikes.

I also had one of those $20 gyro kites that I used to fly in strong, steady winds at the beach. It would sit up there for an hour or two and then occasionally roll upside down and crash to the ground. Maybe a gust that loaded the rotor and then quit blowing, but there's no engine, so no torque roll.

I'd like to see slow-motion videos of each of those crashes.

Eric

 

[PJB]

It would be an interesting project if for no other reason than to see how they perform v the established data/expectation. With all the great and relatively cheap camera kit in 2019 it would also give some nice output assuming it produced something faithful. On the downside it gives everyone something else to disagree over.....just don’t mention the Glasgow Uni study.

 

[kolibri282]

Quote: I think simulation via flight simulation games would be far easier and more demonstrable. /Quote
Most autogyro simulations I have seen so far only cover the part of the flight envelope that is far away from any risk area due to the fact that they don't include blade flexibility and use very approximate functions for inflow calculation. Both facts inhibit studying the bahaviour of the aircraft in maneuvers that are close to the flight envelope limits. The only exception is, as far as I know, the simulation developed by Holger Duda for the AutoGyro company, but this one is propriatary and not available on the market. You might be able to reproduce PIO or bunt over with the usual simulations but I doubt that the flight state at which these occur would be really close to what happens in a real aircraft. You would have to verify the simulation results by flight tests and there you are back to the R/C gyro. One detail is the question of how to fly the beast. In my opinion you would need a plane that is equipped for first person view flying and a ground station where the pilot has the usual controls to fly the aircraft and where the stick and pedal motion is transmitted identically to the R/C plane.

One last thought: if a group of a few dedicated people could be formed it might be possible to develop our own simulation program that incorporates all the features missing right know for a very close simulation. Note that this simulation would not have to run in real time, so we could include blade felxibility and detailed flow calculations but this would be quite a task. I have been working on a simulation program for almost ten years right now and would contribute all I can to such an open source project.

 

[Brian Jackson]

The telemetry would be interesting, as well as the remote flight controls. I am imagining a ground station with an Oculus Rift VR headset radioed with a pair of forward facing fisheye lenses (in a crash-proof shroud) onboard the RC model. I might consider the airframe to be made of break-away sections designed to survive a crash and re-used as opposed to hard, permanent connections. This would probably want to be a fairly large model since physics doesn't necessarily scale evenly... molecules remain the same size, etc. I wonder if a cell phone, which already has 3-axis accelerometers, could be configured to send or store flight data / attitude moments, kinda like a blackbox. Forgive me, I daydream in the mornings with my coffee.

 

[kolibri282]

Quote: I daydream in the mornings with my coffee /Quote
I actually dream of building a gyro model. To begin with it might be the most simple design which would be a scale model of a tethered aircraft, a Bensen glider or an Fa-330.....(kolibri282 logs off to keep on dreaming...;-)

 

[mccarthyinv]

I have maybe three go pro cameras, I regret posting this, I should have just built one, flew it, crashed, and posted the video..then we'd have something to discuss!

 

[PW_Plack]

I wonder if a cell phone, which already has 3-axis accelerometers, could be configured to send or store flight data / attitude moments, kinda like a blackbox. Forgive me, I daydream in the mornings with my coffee.

I have a six-year-old Motorola Droid Razr Maxx sitting in the office, replaced by a newer phone, no phone network account but most apps still work fine when in range of wifi. I've often had the same daydream, but with the idea of recording actual manned flights for later playback and analysis.

 

[Brian Jackson]

I have a six-year-old Motorola Droid Razr Maxx sitting in the office, replaced by a newer phone, no phone network account but most apps still work fine when in tange of wifi. I've often had the same daydream, but with the idea of recording actual manned flights for later playback and analysis.

I would think with the proliferation of cell phone- and iPad-based nav systems in use that the apps would employ the device's hardware for just such flight data recording. I would be surprised if this didn't exist already in some GPS/Nav app but am unfamiliar with the current offerings. Assuming it does, being on by default (until the user deletes the record) may help answer a lot of questions after an accident.

Update:

‎Flight Data Recorder Mobile

‎>>> WHAT IS IT? Flight Data Recorder (FDR) is an iPhone / iPad utility application for 'recording' your own data. As its name suggests, it mimics what an aircraft "black box" does, by recording position, altitude and attitude data, along with cockpit voice (cockpit voice recorder, CVR), such...

apps.apple.com

 

[mccarthyinv]

there is nothing truer ...
my first instructor was a F..... A.. Ho... recently passed from FW to gyroplane ... he was frigthened by the danger of unloading his rotor .... up to the point that during engine failure training he was teaching his trainees to first pull the stick to load the rotor.... ignorant ...


a rotor is a "living" system that regulates himself and the worst of the worst is well to pull violently the stick to "load it" that can make it flap in certain condition, in addition only the increase in G load can build up rotor RPM, increasing of the angle on attack in an ellicptic trajectory won't accelerate the rotor .. ... it will make it flap ....

YOU CAN'T FORCE IT TO ACCELERATE LIKE YOU WANT ....

back in time with my new instructor I did close to Zero G trainning and he was always telling "me when you get at the top of your elliptic trajectory, and the rotor is slowing pull back the throtlle and don't pull the stick, leave the gyro go back to a flat attitude and then push the stick to build back your air speed and then pull the stick gently and apply power ..."

gyroplanes are not dangerous at all , this is the fu.... reputation that uninformed FW pilots got gyoplane with that is stressing mew gyro pilots who are reading too much bad stuff on the net ( most of what it written on the net is written by non gyro pilots who repeat the fakes they read) and lead them to get bad reflexes like "loading the rotors"


gyroplanes are only dangerous when passing violenlty from steep ascents to flat attitude or to descent, it is an aircraft that must be piloted mainly with the throttle in those situation, the rotor will never stop and in those situations if the pilot pulls the stick in order to load he rotor ...a violent change in incidence when the rotor turns slow CAUSES it to flap coz to rotor will give back the energy violently given to it by pulling the stick by increasing voilently it's flapping angle ..


this exactly what happens when accelerating the rotor on the ground after pre-spinning by hand, if the pilot accelerates too much and pull the stick too fast ... CRACK he flaps his blades


one have to learn to fly and have to read Chuck Beaty, and Jean fourcade articles in order to find out how a rotor works,
generally speaking trainning must be harsh, the instructor has to show is trainnee what the gyro can do


it is crazy but 80% of the pilots I know have never been trained to manage take off and ascending engine failure, they have never practiced elliptic trajectory, they never practice vertical autorotation until the gyro going backward and make a volilent 180° U turn etcetc it is making standards frightened pilots

I seft train often, and I make dual every year and belive me ... I have never watched my rotor rpm meter in order to check it turn fast enough.... the reason is that it is useless beacause pulling the stick to accelerate it is the last thing to do..

I even know old pilots badly trained who fear to push the stick too much when they want pass from flat flight descent... they fear the relative wind will passes up the rotor and stop it ... yes yes ... I even met an instructor saying that one should not to push the stick to much ( when passing from flat attitude too descent)... it is the evidence that bad reputation is the origin of the stress... and asking use a remote control gyro to explore the flying envolope until the crash is an other evidence of it ... DON'T STRESS

LEARN TO FLY A GIRO WITH A PROPER INSTRUCTOR

Yes, that is the solution. But Gyro instructors are very hard to find and pricey. The Gyro has a bad rap. I don't think twice about fixed wing pilots that stall and crash on base to final, but if a gyro pilot crashes, I tend to blame the machine not the pilot. There is a flight "Envelope" in every aircraft that we have stay in. Whats killing the gyro industry is lack of certified instructors. Both instructors in my area are 10hrs drive away. So while I'm getting my fixed wing lic i'm playing with an ultralight gyro...my training consists of my buddy towing me with a truck with a 100ft cable....its a hell of a lot of fun...but probably frowned upon by instructors...I have a benson with a brock stick...and yes I plan to get a horizonatal stablizer before i install the engine....gyros are really flying, my gruman? its all look out the window, and talk to ATC......boring...might as well fly a video game...

 

[Vance]

Yes, that is the solution. But Gyro instructors are very hard to find and pricey. The Gyro has a bad rap. I don't think twice about fixed wing pilots that stall and crash on base to final, but if a gyro pilot crashes, I tend to blame the machine not the pilot. There is a flight "Envelope" in every aircraft that we have stay in. Whats killing the gyro industry is lack of certified instructors. Both instructors in my area are 10hrs drive away. So while I'm getting my fixed wing lic i'm playing with an ultralight gyro...my training consists of my buddy towing me with a truck with a 100ft cable....its a hell of a lot of fun...but probably frowned upon by instructors...I have a benson with a brock stick...and yes I plan to get a horizonatal stablizer before i install the engine....gyros are really flying, my gruman? its all look out the window, and talk to ATC......boring...might as well fly a video game...

In my opinion gyro gliding is a great way to learn about flying a gyroplane.
It is important that the tow driver knows what they are doing and has good communication with the pilot of the towed gyro glider.
In my opinion flying a powered gyroplane without flight instruction from a qualified flight instructor is poor aviation decision making and dramatically increases your risk of injury or death.
When you crash it makes everyone with a gyroplane look bad because most people imagine it is because the gyroplane is dangerous rather than the pilot is dangerous.
A single gyroplane mishap may be much more expensive than getting instruction.
Gyroplanes don’t kill people; people kill themselves and gyroplanes.
Britta is in San Manual, AZ, 6 and a half hours form San Diego.
Henry is in Hawthorn, CA; two and a half hours from San Diego.
I am in Santa Maria, CA; four and a half hours from San Diego.
We are all three qualified instructors.
There are several others scattered around the Los Angles area.
If you have an illegal ultralight a supervised solo at my airport (KSMX) is not possible.
If you have a legal ultralight you may fly at the Santa Maria Public Airport for a supervised solo.