Hey Chuck, would you say the 269 blades few good on a gyro?

skyguynca

Gold Member
Joined
Sep 23, 2004
Messages
1,413
Location
Acampo, CA
Aircraft
depends on what I have sold recently
Total Flight Time
5000+
I remember reading a post by you Chuck some time ago. I can't find it now but I think I remember correctly that you had said the 269 blades flew better than the bensen blades, same as the brock blades. I think you said to use the twist in the blades effectively you needed to turn them over and spin them the opposite way on a gyro?

Am I remembering this correctly?
If I am how much of the tip weight (in inches of shortening the blade) did you remove to make them more responsive and to get better rpms at landing?

Also any of you other experienced with these blades, comments are appreciated.

David M.
San Jose, CA
 
Hughes 269 blades flew much better than Bensen metal blades and as well or a bit better than currently manufactured gyro blades. But they’re almost impossible to hand start when properly pitched.

I measured lift/drag ratio a number of years ago and the only blades that came close were Skywheels.

Sawing off the outer 6” will remove the tip weights.
 
Thanks, wouldn't you want to keep some of the tip weights?
What is properly pitched? If you remember. If you do at what blade station is that pitch measured?

thanks again Chuck

David
 
To the best of my recollection, pitch was set to -1.5* at the root end or +3* at 70% radius.

I remember Pete Johnson keeping 2 sets of Hughes blades; one without tip weights for buzzing around the tree tops and a second set with tip blades for cross country flight.

I made a fixture for measuring pitch; a gadget that picked up leading and trailing edges via V notches.

My memory is a bit iffy, this was in the early 1970s.
 
I made something like that when I had my kb2 with the Brock blades. It consisted of two rods, one that hooked to the Hub Bar and had a four inch scale attached at the end, and the other hooked on the trailing Edge and around the Leading Edge and extended out with a pointer to the four inch scale on the other rod.

I believe it was 36 in Long and every inch on the scale was 1° on the blade

I think I did that back in 2001 or 2003 somewhere in that time range. Work like a champ though and setting the blades equally in Pitch

Thanks Chuck

David M
San Jose CA
 
Top