How do you teach rotor management? Sorry, but did I really just read that?
I had the misfortune to drive a modern car on a recent trip. So much unnecessary junk on it, it was unbelievable. Little flashing lights to tell me when to change gear, irrelevant messages popping up on the screen where the dashboard used to be, little beepers and buzzers going off for god knows what reason, flashing arrows on the wing mirrors to warn me something was coming – and all totally pointless. Never mind the engine switching itself off when it felt like it! All any of it achieved was distraction from the most important priority of watching the darn road. The parallel with modern gyroplanes was unavoidable.
Teach people to fly the rotor blades without the junk – it really is that simple. They can always add the toys afterwards if they want, because they’ll know how to fly properly without them. Regardless of the occasional brain-fart, it’s beyond belief that in this supposedly enlightened age, people are apparently qualifying without the ability to recognise the onset of blade flap, or how to deal with it. It’s basic for crying out loud! They’ll be taking their family and friends along for joy rides with a huge piece of fundamental skill missing. How long before a passenger gets hurt? Yet we go along with it because a salesman decided to modernise training and old-school rotor handling isn’t trendy enough. Look where flying by numbers has got us. Sorry to get mad, but these stupid accidents make me bloody furious. We should be better than this by now.
Back in the sixties, Ken Wallis wrote ‘The practise of aerodynamic spin up [as opposed to using a mechanical pre-rotator] gives more “feel” for autorotational principle than a thousand words.’
Out of interest, how many new pilots would know how to fly without pre-rotator and tach (regardless if they can reach the blades or not), how many could actually put it into practice?
It’s too depressing to go through it all again (this topic resurfaces every few years, and Marion’s not here to share the burden anymore). Pick the bones out of this
https://spinningonthewind.com/short-hops/ it’s all there – the hows and the whys – even how to do it with a factory-built.
There’s no mystery, Vance, honest. The solution is in the Bensen method where it’s been all along. It’s just not trendy, that’s all.