Helicycle-- Hoverings & Happenings

I was hovering and setting down all over the place yesterday. Here is a video on one of the family farms. First time I have been able to land at the farm. I landed , then took off and came back around and did a shallow approach.....then a steep approach into a confined area...a little pasture with oak trees just east of the farm buildings. This is the farm I was raised on and it was a nice feeling flying over....circling around and doing a steep approach into the grassy area. After 27 years of having a pilots license.....I am now free to land there. YouTube - MOV06073


Stan
 
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Great Video Stan. keep them coming,I am kind of concerned of debris getting sucked into your engine,that was a lot of leafs flying there.
 
Tim- There is a 360 degree mesh screen that stops debris. However....sand or gravel I dont want to hover over....By the way, when you see the debris circulating in front of the camera....then all of a sudden the helicopter goes through it....thats the onset of ETL...effective translational lift. The helicopter is just starting to outrun its tip recirculation....and starting to get into cleaner undisturbed air. Not only can you feel it by less collective needed.....you can visually see it as well when having debris cleared away.


Stan
 
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I was hovering and setting down all over the place yesterday. Here is a video on one of the family farms. First time I have been able to land at the farm. I landed , then took off and came back around and did a shallow approach.....then a steep approach into a confined area...a little pasture with oak trees just east of the farm buildings. This is the farm I was raised on and it was a nice feeling flying over....circling around and doing a steep approach into the grassy area. After 27 years of having a pilots license.....I am now free to land there. YouTube - MOV06073


Stan

I sure enjoyed the tour of your farm and the landing under the old oak tree. You neglected to tell us how many good looking girls you smooched under that tree. :) Never mind that. Your flight and landing was so smooth I got looking around for more vibrant stuff. Couldn't help it. It appears that your helicopter has worn out the word smooth. Camera mounts too.

My lame attempt at humor Stan. I love to jab at friends once in a while. I am still on dial-up (I know, I know) and because we are having beautiful weather here I set my computer grinding away to download the video and headed outside.. It actually only took ten minutes to download.

While outside I again scanned my yard and counted all the big oak trees that block out the high speed internet transmitter 1/4 mile away.

I find I am praying for a small selective tornado that would open a chopper channel clearing toward the tower , a helicopter kit to go with it , the shop to build it in and the time to do it ..... Oh never mind ..... I have too much on my plate right now.

I think I will go back to an old fashioned simple boy's prayer wanting a good looking neighbors girl to kiss under an old oak tree. :)

Enjoyed the video Stan , and all the places you get to land. It is like you have fulfilled dreams that most of us only dream about. I enjoy watching my un-fulfilled dreams through your camera. I just never expected a helicopter could be so smooth. There's that word again.

Thanks

Arnie
 
Arnie- Glad you liked the farm tour. You may have recognized that grain bin/dryer that I look off alongside of. That was the dryer that my dad had that "hot start" on and the dryer unit got cooked. Those oak trees were my playground when I grew up, actually I never have grown up! It does bring back a lot of memories from my childhood . It especially is cool approaching and departing that liitle patch that has so many memories. One huge memory is that drainage ditch I flew over right next to those trees. .............................................................. I had access to dynamite when I was only 13. I had a friend whose dad used to clear land with dynamite. My mom and dad would take me to my friends home about 30 miles away. I would come home with a stick of dynamite, blasting caps and some fuse stuffed in my pants. When I was left overnight at my friends house, we would put a stick of dynamite in a gallon jug with rocks in it so it would simk. The fuse burned a foot a minute and would burn underwater. We would light a jug and drop it in a creek, and run like hell and wait. The earth would shake, the water would rain down from the sky, and we would go pick up fish on the ditch banks! Boy, would the Department of Conservation and the FBI swoop down on that activity now! ................................................... I never will forget blowing out a huge side of that ditch with some dynamite! I have always heard people saying an M-80 is equivalent to one quarter stick of dynamite. Well, all I can say is they never have felt or heard a stick of dynamite go off. I was actually going to blow 50 pounds of ammonium nitrate, common fertilizer, out in the woods where my stairshop is. As a young boy, I had a hunting magazine that showed guys blowing duck ponds with such. I wanted a duck pond in our woods. All I had to do is mix some diesel fuel with the ammonium nitrate, and the dynamite would set it off. One pound of ammonium nitrate was equal to 2 pounds of dynamite. I was going to blow a hole with an equivalent of 100 pounds of dynamite. My plot got foiled when my supply of dynamite went bad. I had it hid in the very top of one of dads pigeon holed bolt bins. Seems you are supposed to rotate your dynamite to keep the nitro glycerine from leaching out. I remember my dynamite sticks were soaked on one side and I discarded them. Its a wonder they didn't blow up by my hanling them. Anyway, my friend wasn't able to sneak me any more dynamite from his dads warchest, so my duck pond never happened. Nowadays, one would get a federal job if caught with this stuff! Arnie, yes there are memories right there and they came back as I was doing a steep approach into land. More memories unveiled later. Stan
 
This is a short video of a flight from my chopper channel to the farmstead I gew up on. I practically raised myself in the woods where my stairshop is. It was just a short walk from that farm house I landed at....1/4 mile. The field between the house and my woods used to be a pasture for some Hereford cattle I used to walk to the woods and back. Its just a short flight now...
YouTube - MOV06076

Stan
 
I shut down here in a very secluded field away from everyone...and a nice babbling brook just down the bank with those trees.


YouTube - MOV06075


Stan
 
These are so cool!!!

Thanks for sharing the fun with us buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!

PS:
I love the sound of the turbine.
 
John- Glad you like them. Hey, no flying today....the wind far exceeds my capabilities! It is howling outside.

Stan
 
One of my "happenings" so far happens everytime I land at an airport. As soon as I shut the turbine down, it just seems like its a giant electomagnet, and here come the bystanders. I usually just tell them to wait till the rotor has quit turning, then they suck to it. Its kind of fun answering the same questions I used to ask. I was told several times by other Helicycle pilots to allow 20 to 30 extra minutes at every airport. I feel fortunate for once givimg answers instead of wanting answers. My first helicopter experiences have exceeded my expectations. I am as content as can be with this new type of flying. Stan
 
It takes fuel to make it happen

It takes fuel to make it happen

After my fortunate acquisition of JetA, I have two 55 gallon drums in my shop now. I bought a rotary pump that 18 easy turns of the handle pumps one gallon of JetA into my Helicycle. Much handier than all those 5 gallon cans I was wrestling with.

I bought a 14 foot hose that is just perfect for reaching over and filling.

Stan
 

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Enjoying the great vids and your memories Stan and just had to smile at your dynamite story. I had my share of bangs and experiments but my Dad had me beat by a long way. When he was 16 he spent one summer holiday on my Grandfathers farm following around a road gang that were building a municipal road through the farm and down a big escarpment. The foreman who was young and didn't have kids of his own enjoyed the company, then rather unwisely took dad under his wing and showed him a bit about blasting. He also did not keep too close a check on his supplies.

Holiday over Dad heads back to boarding school down in Nairobi. He started real gently. Small unexplained bangs around the playing fields. Then getting cocky did a couple of small ones underneath the WW1 wooden huts mounted on short stilts that were some of the classrooms, just before they went in for a lesson, with a longish fuse. Chaos everyone rushing out...great fun.

Friends in the know wanted bigger, better, bangs. Dad thought he had a handle on things, knew all about dynamite and obliged. Fortunately he had the sense/blind luck to put the next one under an adjoining empty classroom, and not the one they were just going into.

When it blew it was spectacular. Massive hole through the floor, all the windows out and certainly a major diversion. Luckily no one was hurt, except for some eardrums, and the search was on for the perpetrator. Instant expulsion.

Dad had unfortunately been expelled from his previous school, another story, and knew that his father would be heading down to pick him up from school. My Grandfather was a pretty fearsome character, certainly to me, and I am certain that Dad was not looking forward to this at all. It was late 39 the war had just begun and the Air Force was recruiting. Dad and a buddy headed for town and volunteered. He lied about his age and by the time his Father had arrived, had been accepted as a pilot recruit.

He was the youngest ever pilot on his first Fighter Squadron when he checked out of Flight School, and was promptly nicknamed Pee-Wee, (a long time before Mr Herman). He probably escaped the worst of what his Dad may have had in store for him, though I am sure that his new career path through the invasion of Crete, North Africa, Ceylon, Burma and invasion of Europe provided him with all the bangs he wanted and probably then some.

It certainly was instrumental getting him into the air, and later into the airlines, then me, probably my two boys as well. So I may just owe it all to a bit of dynamite in the wrong/right place.
 
I wonder if a ground wire from the drum to helicopter should be in order? Otherwise looks good.
 
The weather has been terribly windy the last week. It was geogous today and I couldnt wait to go up and do some auto practice. This was just a hand held video......not as stable as when bolted to my skid.


YouTube - October29


Stan
 
autorotation advice from experienced helicopter pilots

autorotation advice from experienced helicopter pilots

I am requesting some needed advice from experienced helicopter pilots about your techniques for bleeding off as much forward airspeed as possible during an auto. I am very comfortable with flying my Helicycle in all areas, except I am not satisfied with my autos yet. I am trying to bleed off as much forward speed as possible, then level the skids, and do a power recovery. I have tried starting my flare early and less aggressive, and also am flaring later and more aggressively. My airspeed is right around 65 mph and the rotor rpm at the top of the green....................................................................................................................................................... During my R22 training, my instructor had me start flaring around 40 feet, get the forward speed down as slow as I could feel I could, level the skids, and if it were a full down auto, just run on with whatever speed was left. I have a tip weights and actually should be capable of getting my Helicycle to near 0 forward speed. But I am not there yet. It seems I always have 5-10 mph left. Maybe I am expecting too much from myself I don't know, but I am asking for some suggestions from experienced helicopter pilots your techniques for bleeding off as much airspeed as possible............................................................................................................................ I have posted this question just today on the HelicyclePilots site. I am sure I will get specific advice closer to what is best in a Helicycle, but I would appreciate any comments and advice from other helicopter pilots in other types of helicopters. Thanks in advance! Stan
 
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Heres a short video I took yesteday. I had a mission to fly over to our farthest farm and see if the trackhoe and bulldozer work was completed. I made a quick flight at 100 mph. I had the collective friction locked on as I was freehanding my camera with my left hand. Got to love these missions!


YouTube - November3

Stan
 
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