DaveOMG - Mike G. you haven’t taken woke training yet and still using Master/Slave? This post should be removed immediately! Nice placard! How about Forward and Retreating Blade? For those who do not have sense of humor, this is neither political nor personal attack.
There is a story that Juan de la Cierva y Codorníu after four years of mishaps where his Autogiro rolled because of dissymmetry of lift in forward flight that he went to the opera Man of La Mancha and was inspired by the hinges in the windmill on the stage, put hinges in his rotor and had his first successful flight January 30, 1923.Tyger, I sometimes wonder how many have seen the parallel between my quest to overcome rotor vibration and Don Quixote's to overcome those windmills.
The original link to Don Quixote was from my French RTB colleague Jérôme Prompsy who regularly calls me DonQ and himself Sancho so any praise for humour must go to him.
Mike
All good points, though AG have made changes / improvements to their rotor systems in the past, and hopefully will continue to do so. As to the bearing issue, to me that's much less of an issue than the issues with the blades themselves. I would think the liabilities of not building an improved system outweigh the liabilities of staying with things as they are.Andino
I don’t know why AG don’t use spherical bearings, but since I never proposed this solution to them there’s no reason to suppose they would.
You must realise the problems facing any manufacturer when considering a design change once in production.
As a result, manufacturers are often trapped into keeping their old design even if they’d like to change.
- Unlike a home builder who is only responsible for his own design/build, the manufacturer needs to carry out a detailed design study to ensure that he cannot be held liable for any accident that could possibly (even if unfairly) be blamed on the change.
- He then risks having existing customers saying that the change proves that the old design was inadequate and demanding an upgrade free of charge.
- If the design change is to a system used by a competitor, he risks being accused of copying or demonstrating that the competitor was cleverer than he was.
- Finally, as explained to me by Arrowcopter when I demonstrated to them that one of their design features was inadequate, they agreed but pointed out that getting German approval had been a long process and they couldn’t afford to lose any more time jumping through hoops to get a mod approved.
Mike
I stand corrected; Don Quichotte was the opera in the story. Thank you.That's a good story, but it's hard to imagine stage windmills being built so accurately
Of course, the musical Man of La Mancha premiered in 1965...
Evidently there was a french opera by Massenet called Don Quichotte that premiered in 1910, but it doesn't seem ever to have been performed in Spain.
I have read in several places that Juan de la Cierva was an engineering student and designed and built a remarkable three engine bomber in nine months to compete for a military contract. On one of its first flights the test pilot stalled it and spun her in destroying the aircraft although the pilot survived.I read somewhere, that someone else (who had a friend, who stalled his plane) got the gyro idea and then went to Cierva.
Who then, as businessman, claimed it as his own. True or not?I have read in several places is Juan de la Cierva was an engineering student and designed and built a remarkable three engine bomber in nine months to compete for a military contract. On one of its first flights the test pilot stalled it and spun her in destroying the aircraft although the pilot survived.
All good points, though AG have made changes / improvements to their rotor systems in the past, and hopefully will continue to do so. As to the bearing issue, to me that's much less of an issue than the issues with the blades themselves. I would think the liabilities of not building an improved system outweigh the liabilities of staying with things as they are.
I think with regular greasing etc the bushings last significantly longer than 300 hours. Again a simple matter of checking for any play as part of the preflight. When flying an MTO, if you are not conscientious about the 5 hour greasing, you will be able to feel it in the smoothness / shake when flying. Nevertheless it would seem to be a straightforward thing to make improvements, especially because they claim certification, better to make changes proactively than be forced by certifying agencies to make them when things fail.
All AutoGyro has to do is produce their "university study" which allegedly deemed a 2,500 hour safe life. And, Abid, who are you to accuse their hub bar of being "a bit strange?" Why, that is the market leader you're talking about! Please show proper reverance.AutoGyro if they are having cracks in their rotor blades in the UK as has been stated probably need to focus on redoing their extrusion die and perhaps making their rotor a bit heavier like Averso has because it seems Averso Stella are not experiencing these issues with around 1500 samples in the field since 2004. Their hub bar clamping mechanism is to me a bit strange.
Haha. Man you go hot on AG. All of us can improve and all products can improve. One good thing about Experimental is we can improve them without going through red tape.All AutoGyro has to do is produce their "university study" which allegedly deemed a 2,500 hour safe life. And, Abid, who are you to accuse their hub bar of being "a bit strange?" Why, that is the market leader you're talking about! Please show proper reverance.
Yes, I do. I think their "university study" does not exist, else they would have quoted it by now. It's all about marketing with them.Haha. Man you go hot on AG. All of us can improve and all products can improve. One good thing about Experimental is we can improve them without going through red tape.
My newbie reasons I got M-24 instead of Cavalon:
"Big deal" for me:
1. Rotor blades material - composite (Magni) vs aluminum (AG).
2. Frame material - chrome-moly 4130 steel (Magni) vs "kitchen sink" 304 stainless steel (AG).
3. Negative caster front wheel (Magni) vs positive caster (AG)
Not so "big deal", but still a factor:
4. Trim system - stepper motor (Magni) vs pneumatic cylinder (AG)
5. Pre-rotator - flex-shaft (Magni) is better than AG system, IMHO.
6. Straight kiel (Magni) vs bent kiel (AG).
Also - Magni let me come to Italy and participate in assembly process and test flights of my gyro at the factory, AG did not provide that opportunity.
Composite rotor blades IMHO are better than extruded aluminum ones, I did not know Cavalon has composite frame, it is even worse than stainless, IMHO.Good for you but let me correct you
Cavalon is not 304. Its composite which according to your #1 point is somehow better than metal.