Old stuff

WindRyder06 said:
Chuck,
That looks lke Jerry Eastman's WindRyder. It is now in Texas with Tommy Rust who bought it a couple of years ago. Jerry flew his everywhere...

Fly Safe,
Chris
Yes-I remember reading of Jerry's exploits.
 
Has the WindRyder got enough tail, far enough back, to be safe throughout a normal flight regime, or is there too much side area forward of the CG for the tail to ride herd on?

The principle behind what I'm getting at (and Chuck and many of you know this, so please don't take it as an insult that I repeat it), is this: for any body moving in a fluid (like air) to be stable, the centre of gravity must be forward of the centre of pressure. This applies to everything moving in the air from arrows to zeppelins, and gyros are not an exception (there are people that believe that gyros have an exemption to the laws of physics. And some of those believers design and sell gyros).

I know that people have flown the WindRyder successfully, but Chuck was reminded by this photo of someone who did not. (And the RAF 1000 reminded me of Dan Haseloh's untimely end in a 2000 GTX SE, which had less to do with gyro stability and more with pilot error).

How sadly typical that a couple of pictures from 15 years ago should call to mind fatal mishaps.

cheers

-=K=-
 
Heather Poe said:
C. Beaty,
If you like, send me some of your pictures by email, I will work them over in Photoshop for you and return them.
Heather
Thanks, Heather, but I don’t need to have any stills reworked. Now if you know how to restore faded out 8mm film…..

I have a spectacular crash on film shot in the late ‘60s at Sunstate’s first flyin. The pilot, Dennis Stripling, turned downwind and ran out of space. The top rotorblade topped a pine tree; the bottom blade smacked the ground. The only pieces of airframe that were left intact was a short length of keel, a piece of axle and the seat. Dennis unstrapped and walked away without a scratch. Unfortunately, the film is too faded to be reproduced.

The only thing that’s holding me up at the moment is the need for a microphone amplifier so I can insert some voiceover. Still footage is pretty boring without narration.

I’m not keeping a waiting list for the DVDs. As long as Staples doesn’t run out of cheap blanks, there will be enough for everyone.
 
Speaking of DVDs, does anyone remember who asked for Birdy's original tape and a DVD copy so they could reproduce them for the denizens here? I sent them off, but haven't seen diddly about them. If whomever has them suddenly doesn't have the time to do them, maybe let someone else have them who has the time. I'm going to copy this into a new thread too.
 
Kevin, as I understand it, gyros with too much slab side can run out of cyclic control while flying sideways. The fuselage rolls away from the direction of motion, tilting the rotor even more sideways although the stick is against the opposite stop.

Ron Heron was a witness to Harry Cordon’s crash and said the gyro rolled over sideways.

Several A&S 18As were lost from this cause shortly after their introduction. It seems to me that Don Farrington’s fatal crash at Lakeland was caused by getting past the recoverable limit of sideways flight but many of his friends and admirers say that would be impossible in Don’s case.

One would think that with enough vertical tail power, the machine could be weathercocked into alignment with the flight path no matter how much side area.
 
Before pictures...
 

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After pictures...
 

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C. Beaty said:
Thanks, Heather, but I don’t need to have any stills reworked. Now if you know how to restore faded out 8mm film…..

C. Beaty,
If you send me an AVI file of the 8mm film, I can adjust the tonal values and restore it as much as I can.
Heather
 
Heather, as you can probably tell, I haven’t yet qualified as a novice at this stuff. Locating the off/on switch taxes my ability.

I don’t have the foggiest notion what an AVI file is; I suppose it’s audio/video something or the other. Whatever it is, anything containing a half-hour of movies would take a couple of weeks to squirt down my rural telephone line.

I have one short sequence I would dearly love to restore; about 10 minutes of the first flight of my helicopter. I could mail it to you either as VCD, DVD, VHS tape or original 8mm film.

My E-mail is:

[email protected]
 
Here’s a frame from Discovery Channel’s series; Choppers.

This is the Bell model 30, precursor of the model 47, piloted by test pilot Floyd Carlson.

It was the first version able to exceed 30 mph; the original rotor was too flexible in-plane, encountering resonance and causing dangerous 2/rev vibration above 20 mph. It was stiffened by the bridgework seen above the rotorhead and named the Swedish yoke in honor of the test pilot who had suggested it.
 

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Chuck,
A friend of mine converts 8mm film to video/DVDs by running the 8mm film on a projector against a small screen. He sets up a digital video camera next to the film projector and runs the film and records it onto the video camera. If you want to add some narration get an external mic plugged into the video camera away from the projector so it doesn't pick up the noise and talk as it records. All of this can be done better on a computer editing system like what Heather uses.
 
Tim, I’ve tried that using an 8mm analog video camera. I have always gotten a strobe effect because of the different frame rates between film and TV. I think TV has a 30/second frame rate and movie film has a 20/second frame rate. Causes a 10 frame/second flicker.
 
Chuck,
Yes, you're right. I forgot about that. My friend uses a special projector that compensates for that.
 
Thanks to Heather's restoration job on the Japanese photos, I can see one of the gyros has a radial. It looks like a Wright, doesn't it? The other has the Argus, which is a 240-HP engine.

I bet you somewhere in Japan there's a memoir written by one of these gyro pilots. In the last few years Japanese veterans, just like Allied ones, have been wanting to tell their story before it's too late.

Chuck, I'm a history buff, so I really enjoy these postings of yours -- they're the next best thing to Dr. Bruce Charnov's articles in Rotorcraft. My undergraduate degree is in history, which qualified me for such things as Walmart greeter, kid who asks "would you like me to super-size that, sir?" "Would you like fries with that, Ma'am?", and combat infantryman.

cheers

-=K=-
 
I believe the radial engine on that Japanese Autogiro was a license built Jacobs.

A leading newspaper, the Asahi Shinbun, had been operating Autogiros since 1932 and their pilots formed the nucleus of the Japanese Army group operating military Autogiros.

There is Japanese language book devoted to the history of Autogiros in Japan, the material coming mostly from the archives of the Asahi Shinbun. I have a copy but looking at the pictures is the limit of my comprehension.
 
Heck, I just had lunch with a friend who's a noted author on military subjects in Japan -- and a fellow SF vet. But he'll be headed back to LA soon -- he was just up here to put his daughter in college, and make a pilgrimage to an old team house on former Fort Devens.

Thanks for the correction. A Jake would make sense for the HP demands of the gyro.

Can you send me the ISBN of the book, and I'll try to get a copy?

cheers

-=K=-
 
Sign me up for the vids!
 
Kevin, the number is: ISBN4-7698-1060-1 C0095

The following web site was on a slip of paper in the book; evidently the book store where the copy I have was purchased.

http://kojinsha.co.jp/

The book above is hard cover, more text than pictures. I also have a soft cover booklet that is more pictures than text that I can’t locate at the moment. If you could see my filing system, you’d understand.
 
Here's a picture of the post war Kayaba gyro, scanned from the above book.

Notice the apparent tilt of the propeller in the upper illustraton to locate its thrust line on the CG.
 

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Last edited:
Not to worry about your filing system...or lack thereof Chuck...you, sir, have some classics. ;)


Cheers :)
 
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