Gyro-Tec carbon Blades 100 Hrs Follow Up.

Brian I don't think
he tariff stuff is in effect yet,David and I found out that you have to have a

broker here in this country to handle the release of the blades from customs,acquire one before the

blades are shipped as this will speed up the process.
 
twistair;n1135229 said:
Welcome aboard on rotaryforum. This set is now in Voskresensk and wasn't flown here yet, I've just inspected it and made blades' CG crosscheck. During it we saw that blades' paint is apparently very soft. We informed Gyro-Tech about this and are waiting for their comments.
Hopefully this rotor will be flown after July, 15th ;) on MTOsport in Voskresensk.

Hello! We have not received any complaint about the paint on our blades being very soft and especially about traces on blade surface caused by fingernails! If the case is true, can you please tell the owner of the blades to contact us again at [email protected]?

GYRO-TECH Team
 
I dont think the paint is overly soft, but it's not as tough as it could be. But keep in mind that these blades do flex a lot, so maybe it's softer to prevent cracking? Not sure.

I've got 25-30 hours on a set, but have yet to get them to a point where I'd recommend the change. Our issue has not been with quality, they are very nice blades, but the performance has been a problem for us so far.
 
Sorry to hear that Jason,I have been real pleased with the blades performance on my RAF,but maybe your gyro was already

at a higher level of performance than mine,so any improvement to mine has been really noticed..
.
 
GYRO-TECH;n1135585 said:
Hello! We have not received any complaint about the paint on our blades being very soft and especially about traces on blade surface caused by fingernails! If the case is true, can you please tell the owner of the blades to contact us again at [email protected]?

GYRO-TECH Team

Good day,

Mr.Ruslan Ustinov is the owner of this rotor. He emailed you about this problem but I suppose he didn't explain the problem properly in English. I inspected this rotor myself and it is obviously that this particular set of blades has very soft surface. Possible cause looks to me like there was not enough hardener in the paint. Now we're thinking what can be done to fix this problem. Probably blades can be covered with polyurethane laquer?
 
twistair;n1135609 said:
Good day,

Mr.Ruslan Ustinov is the owner of this rotor. He emailed you about this problem but I suppose he didn't explain the problem properly in English. I inspected this rotor myself and it is obviously that this particular set of blades has very soft surface. Possible cause looks to me like there was not enough hardener in the paint. Now we're thinking what can be done to fix this problem. Probably blades can be covered with polyurethane laquer?

We have finally explained the case. The blades do not belong to Ruslan, but to a different owner from Estonia and they were transported to Russia. But that’s not important.

The blades have a slight longitudinal abrasion caused by the user which has nothing in common with the quality of the paint. The paint on blades cannot be too hard and stiff because blades make a lot of movements in flight, they bend and twist and the paint would easily start cracking if it was too hard.

There might occur some minor damages on the leading edge caused by flying in a big rain or hail or dust etc. For customers who fly in such conditions, we offer a special leading edge protection system. You can read more information on our website www.gyotech.eu.
 
Hello Jason!

The leading edge protection tape is installed in a special pocket on the leading edge surface so that, after installation, it does not change the aerodynamic profile of the blade.
Therefore, we need to know about installation of the tape before starting the production process a blade in order to prepare the special pocket.
It is not possible to install the tape on a blade that does not have the special pocket, because this will disrupt the aerodynamic shape of the blade and will negatively affect its work.
 
GYRO-TECH;n1135886 said:
It is not possible to install the tape on a blade that does not have the special pocket, because this will disrupt the aerodynamic shape of the blade and will negatively affect its work.

Have you tested the tape on a set of actual blades and noticed the performance degradation, the reason I'm asking is it was planned to add the tape to a set of blades we are now flying on an ELA?
 
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Alan, when I played with Rotorway helicopters they suffered much from abrasion on take-off, landing and hover. We used a 3M Prop Tape from Spruce which worked very well on helo rotors despite their tip speed is higher than in a gyro. I'm sure it should be good and safe for ELA rotors.
My question about Gyro-Tech paint hardness was since that set which I inspected has apparently softer paint than, say, finished SportCopter blades, ELA and RAF2000 which I have some experience with. I believe Gyro-Tech could simply tell us which hardness they count enough, say, according to ASTM standard. I recall Jim Vanek spent a lot of time before he decided his blades have good enough paint/protection. And they really have.

This is a tape from AircraftSpruce we used for Rotorway helos: http://www.aircraftspruce.com/catalo...mproptape2.php This time I fly mostly aluminium rotors which don't need additional protection but I instantly use such tapes to protect props - we all know that pusher props suffer much more from abrasion than tractor ones. These tapes apparently don't affect prop nor rotor efficiency.
 
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The reason for my question is that Gyro-Tech goes to the trouble to make a blade that has a recess in it's profile to compensate for the thickness of the leading edge tape, I want to know if tape applied to one of their standard blades will degrade it's performance. Although both the Gyro-Tech and the ELA blades use the some airfoil we have found some reduced performance in certain areas with the GT blades compared to the ELA and while we would like to install a leading edge tape a further performance hit would be undesirable.
 
Alan_Cheatham;n1135912 said:
Although both the Gyro-Tech and the ELA blades use the some airfoil we have found some reduced performance in certain areas with the GT blades compared to the ELA
I'm really curious what areas do you mean? As for airfoils I'm not sure they are same for ELA and GT. GT states their rotors are vulgar 8H12 while modern ELA rotors likely use one of modern European-designed airfoil.
 
Alan_Cheatham;n1135912 said:
The reason for my question is that Gyro-Tech goes to the trouble to make a blade that has a recess in it's profile to compensate for the thickness of the leading edge tape, I want to know if tape applied to one of their standard blades will degrade it's performance. Although both the Gyro-Tech and the ELA blades use the some airfoil we have found some reduced performance in certain areas with the GT blades compared to the ELA and while we would like to install a leading edge tape a further performance hit would be undesirable.

What reduced performance Alan? Takeoff distance and landing hang time?
 
Good question Fara I also would like to know the reduced performance areas,I could possibly see a reduction in top speed buts

that's about it.
 
It's been my intention to create a thread about our experiences mounting and flying the GT blades on the ELA we have here in Texas but I haven't gotten around to it yet.

The information I have on the GT and ELA rotor is they both are using the 8H12 profile, refer to this document here on the ELA https://www.elaaviacion.com/wp-conte...djust-2015.pdf.

GT has two options, the standard 8h12 or a modified one, we are flying the standard 8h12.

In a nut shell lift, glide and maximum speed are degraded compared to the ELAs, takeoff distance is longer.

Landing performance is more desirable, the ELAs will float more after the flare but then loose energy quickly and can drop you in, the GTs don't float and being a higher inertia blade hang in better for a smoother landing. Sticking a spot on the ground is more accurate with the GTs.

The GTs are definitely smoother and the main reason for trying the rotor, we've never been able to get the ELA rotor vibration to a desirable level. The GTs are also more stable in turbulent air and at high speed flight compared to the ELAs.

Handling qualities are better with a lighter stick despite the higher inertia (the GT rotor is about 14 lbs heavier than the ELA) but we found it necessary to install the GT rotor head to get rid of some undesirable rotor feedback and oscillation. The GT rotor has very little coning angle, they fly very flat and as such have about one inch less undersling compared to the ELA rotor, this caused issues flying them in the ELA rotor head so the ultimate solution was to install the GT rotor head which has shorter towers compared to the ELA.

There were a few teething issues we encountered mounting the rotor, it turned out to be not quite the plug-and-play solution we where hoping for but I will say the dealer here in the US and the factory in Poland have been very helpful, Gyrotech seems genuinely interested in maturing their product given their support to us.

Flight testing continues.

Here's an earlier video we shot (in rather poor conditions) showing the GTs in action. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_0ydBw2BJgg
 
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Great article Alan,and yes the blades are stiffer and fly really good in rough air and seem to be lighter on the cyclic.

When David ordered our blades he sent them the spec's for the ring gear and they drilled those for us,they also later

on made bushings to raise the ring back to its orgninal height,our install went actually very well.The factory has bent over

backwards to help us. I believe the 8 1/2" blades are the standard 8H12 profile and the 8" blades have the modified profie

One of the best design features to me is the teeter block with the bearings on the inside,instead of in the tower uprights.

GREAT VIDEO !!!
 
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That teeter block and hub bar on GT is very much a La Averso Stella. I really have never understood the bearing in teeter tower design nor the AutoGyro design. Both seem less desirable to me.
We noticed longer takeoff distance and less hang time on the GT compared to Averso.
 
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I think that teeter block design should be the standard for teeter blocks, its a good one.
 
Not to derail the thread, but I recall reading a mention of a US distributor for GT blades. I've been in preparation for ordering a set through GT Poland direct, but that involves customs, etc. Is there a US distributor? And would there be any advantage to going through him/her instead of direct?
 
I think that there is a distributor for the helio blades and it is in fla. check with GT in Poland that's a good idea.
 
Around the first of this year we were in the process of ordering a set from the factory in Poland and just about to wire the funds when we became aware that the US distributor had a few sets in stock and so ordered from them.

Helicopter International LLC down in Florida.

Currently I find their web site is down but Facebook page is up, you might want to talk to them first.

https://www.facebook.com/pg/HelicoptersInternational/photos/?ref=page_internal
 
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