Barnett J4B

landman

Member
Joined
Jun 11, 2004
Messages
47
Location
Hilo, Hawaii
Aircraft
Barnett J4B
Total Flight Time
200
Here is my machine ready to fly. I asked Vaneck if he would give me more instruction a while back and he said he would. Thanks for the info on posting pictures. Here goes. Hope it works. The guy in the picture is not me. It is Ed Steuber, the guy I bought it from.
 

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Sweet machine. I assume the picture was not taken near your home as there is snow on the ground. You will have to send us some Hawaii pictures after you get some hours on it.
 
uuuuh.....I hate to tell you, but when he painted on the N-number, he put the stencil on backwards. ;)
 
And the blades go the other way too Ken!!!!!!!!!!!

Aussie Paul.
 
...and his jacket buttons the wrong way too! And if you look closely, that's a left-side tire on the right wheel!! And the prop turns the wrong way also!!! Maybe it's from one of those countries where they drive on the wrong side of the road!!!!

Seriously Martin, what h.p. engine you have on her? Fly safely and don't shortcut on the instruction.
 
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Red Star?

Red Star?

I noticed the "Red Star" on the tail... Might this be a gyro from the infamous Karjakistan we hear Ken J speaking of? Would explain the snow and camo paint. Sort of a "para military" craft finally being exposed to world, only "disguised" as a Barnett? Especialy since everything is counter-clockwise from what it should be. A poor attempt at "reverse engineering" that they took too literally... ( I think I've read too many of Ken's posting!)

Terry
 
Iandman you will nead good instrution as thay are a beast,thay are verey light on stick feal and a large talk roll with the continetal.The one we played with did not rotate on the mains so when the frunt came up it was readey to fly.
 
J4B handling

J4B handling

:o Thanks for the reply. You are right on with the lift off. After the fork lift hauled my machine off the airstrip in Marysville Jerrie Barnett asked me. Well didn't you feel the nose getting light... Not really....but I felt it when it smacked back on the runway and upset.

I spent a few hours with Joe Souza in his two place Bandit. It was pretty twitchey. Two finger jab and return kind of control. This is what I am expecting from the Barnett. Other Barnett pilots have said it is pretty much like fixed wing to fly and land as long as you come in rather fast with power on and they did make mention to torque. Any other pilots with Barnett experience please, please reply. I need to get my flying costs down. So far it has cost me about $25,000 per minute!
:o
 
landman sad to hear you damaged your machine but glad to assume you are ok.The offset spindle head on the barnett doesn't seem to give much fell as to where you are at like a gimble head does you have to find out where the stick needs to be pretty quick without too an aggressive move. That 100 hp continental direct drive with all its 2700 rpm needs some big rudder input.I guess barnetts aren't supposed to rotate on the mains.The one we have in nz was flown by a friend of mine Lloyd,he had his hands full.He said after doing hops and one circuit that the machine needed work and he would like to look at seeing the balance changed.Both Lloyd and myself said we would ring big brother Paul B to find out about the balance change but didn't have to bother as the owner with all of 7 hours tried to fly it and the rest is history lucky he was not hurt,best of luck with your harley davidson of gyros Lloyd said the continental shakes rattles vibrates just like a harley.
 
:cool: My flip on the strip was a while back. My machine will remain in pristine condition, CHAINED TO THE HANGER FLOOR, till I get enough training. I have access to Hilo airport. It is controlled space but not toooo busy. Runway 8 is over 90000 ft and 3 is 5400. Winds are usually calm in the earley AM. My machine has a new VAl 760 radio. The little bit I did fly it, the engine and everything else was smooth and tight. I am impressed with the way Jerrie put it together. If he smackes it up test flying it arount well... that's the breaks. Pun intended.
 
too many zeros

too many zeros

Too many zero. runway 8 in Hilo is only 9000 ft long. Not 90,000.

If God had intended man to fly, he would have given him money.

Martin Oliver
 
Huh?

Huh?

From the Website,

"The AAAF has a faceted appearance, like the F-117 Stealth fighter, or a well-cut diamond. The body is shaped to provide a goodly amount of lift, unloading the rotor for more speed."

Ask the Carter Copter people about controlling a lighter loaded rotor.

I hope that does not get into the Consensus Standards.
 
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From the web site's FAQ:

"You barely have to move the stick to fly, yet the craft is never overly sensitive or twitchy. Large tail surfaces and the low CG assure that."

OK, CLT boosters, why are you hiding the fact that CLT makes your controls overly sensitive and twitchy? ;)
 
The Barnett web site is intriguing in a number of ways. The first is that it wasn't that long ago that Jerrie was trying to find a buyer for the business. In fact Norm was trying to help him on his conference. Then there is the 'shoebox gear box'. This really sounds like a nice setup and the size is relatively compact but when I inquired about it a couple of years ago they told me that they didn't make it anymore.

Now he has a new web site and the gearbox is listed as one of his products. Interesting!

It appears that Barnett's web master is the one that claims the new AAAF machine has a lifting body. Jerrie has been around a long time so it would be surprising if he designed a machine that severely unloaded the rotors in normal flight.
 
Information Barnett

Information Barnett

Hello, please it is possible to have someinformation about Barnett?
Thank you, Franco.
 
accident report

accident report

I was reading about all the gyro accidents and came across the one Lewis had with his Barnett. Apparently he was on base at 80 mph and for unknown reasons his nose flipped up, he throttled back and the gyro started to rotate to the right. He lowered the nose and added power but too late to regain airspeed and landed hard.
I sure would like speculations and comments on this one.... What if it happens to me? What to do?? :confused: Easier said than done, I know, but ride it out and don't do anything?? Add power and a little more back on the stick? Please help me out here all you high timers.

Martin
 
Martin,

One thing you can do is get a CLT (Center Line Thrust) gyroplane. Having a truly stable gyro makes all the difference when it comes to PIO. I have one CLT and one non-CLT and the difference is immense.
 
Martin, although we never found an exact reason for the accident we did find out a few things, 1) The same event happened with Joe Souza using the same set of blades, I didn't know at the time the blades were the same ones until later. Joe was making a high speed pass and the machine broke left, pitched up and we thought the rudder broke(Jerrie saw this also). We wrote it off as some aerodynamic problem with the body/canopy arraingement( no proof of this, only an explaination that allowed us to fly again without worry). When the blades were checked after my accident, the skins were 20 thou instead of 32 thou (all other rotordyne blades we checked were 32 thou). We believe they flexed and pitched the nose up. Joe regained control, I didn't. I think the secondary problem that contributed to my accident was I was running a 7.5 degree nose down CG. Jerrie calls for a 10 to 13 degree but, it flew fine at 7.5 so I thought nothing of it. Well, it was fine until I had the drastic pitch up. Then because of the CG it would not recover. With no forward speed and wind resistence against the body, I could not get the nose to drop to regain flying speed. I heard later that during testing of the J4B Jerrie actually unbuckled his seat belt and leaned forward to get the nose to drop(probably why he recommends 10-13 degrees/not 7.5). I don't blame the machine for this incident. I probably would have recovered inspite of everything if I would have run proper CG. I don't think you will have any problem with your gyro-just enjoy it. The Barnett flys well and is easy to handle. GET LESSONS IT IS A GYRO NOT AN AIRPLANE AND IT FLYS LIKE A GYRO. YOU WILL NEED LESSONS OR YOU WILL DAMAGE THE MACHINE, YOURSELF OR BOTH. Happy landings-Bob
 
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