Doug Riley
Platinum Member
- Joined
- Jan 11, 2004
- Messages
- 6,968
The reason I told students to do crow hops (AFTER they demonstrated that they could fly my trainer without my help) is that most were transitioning to open single-place gyros.
An open single-place gyro grosses at HALF the mass of a light gyro trainer. It also has a far lower mass moment of inertia. Both these things make it MUCH quicker in pitch than my tandem was -- even when the tandem was flown solo.
I intended the balancing exercise to get them used to the relative twitchiness of even a well-behaved 1-place, compared to the stretch limo they trained in.
It is not the ideal solution, for just the reasons we've seen here. Skittering about at almost-flying speed is a twitchy situation in its own way.
The correct thing to do when you pop off is to fly the aircraft (not necessarily LAND the aircraft instantly). Close the throttle gradually and settle in gradually, once you have the machine pointed in the direction it's travelling.
Don't do any of this in ANY cross-wind.
An open single-place gyro grosses at HALF the mass of a light gyro trainer. It also has a far lower mass moment of inertia. Both these things make it MUCH quicker in pitch than my tandem was -- even when the tandem was flown solo.
I intended the balancing exercise to get them used to the relative twitchiness of even a well-behaved 1-place, compared to the stretch limo they trained in.
It is not the ideal solution, for just the reasons we've seen here. Skittering about at almost-flying speed is a twitchy situation in its own way.
The correct thing to do when you pop off is to fly the aircraft (not necessarily LAND the aircraft instantly). Close the throttle gradually and settle in gradually, once you have the machine pointed in the direction it's travelling.
Don't do any of this in ANY cross-wind.