Resasi
Gold Supporter
- Joined
- Jul 2, 2007
- Messages
- 9,094
- Location
- London/ Kilifi Kenya
- Aircraft
- Gyrs, RAF 2000/Mgni/Bnsn/Hrnet/Mrlin/Crckt/MT-03/Lyzlle AV18-A/Prdtor. GT-VX1&2, Pax ArrowCopter
- Total Flight Time
- 100+ gyro, 16,000+ other
I know that some of us fly without prerotators and am interested in any other observations from those who do. Here are what I have found recently as the last few weeks have tended to be very windy.
Early on I had experienced problems in no-wind conditions when trying to pat up the blades on my own, discovering that having patted up as fast as I could go I could not spend any time fastening in but had to move off immediately in order to get some airflow to build up RRPM sufficient that would allow me to stop and do up the seatbelt, a slightly fiddly 4 point harness, before proceeding to get them up ready for a take off. When beginning to get to full back stick increasing power in this low wind situation also helped to feed air into the tip section of the rotor as it starts entering the prop slipstream.
Gaining experience in higher and higher winds I have now found that point can be reached where even when strapped in and having someone else patting them up to as high an RPM as they can, when you back stick to let them exit from the front, the wind can be strong enough to crowd your blades and begin blade sail/flap almost immediately because it exceeds the ammount of air for that RRPM.
In the case of patting them up on one's own over a certain wind speed, and it will vary with your particular blades, and definitely not DW's, it does get tricky feeding the wind into the rotor by slowly coming back on the stick, particularly if the wind is gusting. Here since you do not have to full back stick to let someone out, you can take your time over this.
With winds of 8-13Kt approx it has not been a problem, but as it begins to approach 20 Kts the feeding in of the wind does start to get a lot more delicate an operation if not almost impossible.
Over 20 Kts I found that after a lot of trying I had to go back and move into the lee of the hanger to reduce the headwind before I could then manage to get the blades spinning fast enough to then move back into the full wind.
Not having a RRPM indicator does make this a bit more tricky but when flying the simpler gyros a lot of this is done on feel anyway.
Flying in strong winds is great fun and building up the experience has taken time. Obviously it is more critical and I am very conscious that one is continually learning, hence the interest in hearing other peoples experiences on what to watch out for, pointers and tips.
Early on I had experienced problems in no-wind conditions when trying to pat up the blades on my own, discovering that having patted up as fast as I could go I could not spend any time fastening in but had to move off immediately in order to get some airflow to build up RRPM sufficient that would allow me to stop and do up the seatbelt, a slightly fiddly 4 point harness, before proceeding to get them up ready for a take off. When beginning to get to full back stick increasing power in this low wind situation also helped to feed air into the tip section of the rotor as it starts entering the prop slipstream.
Gaining experience in higher and higher winds I have now found that point can be reached where even when strapped in and having someone else patting them up to as high an RPM as they can, when you back stick to let them exit from the front, the wind can be strong enough to crowd your blades and begin blade sail/flap almost immediately because it exceeds the ammount of air for that RRPM.
In the case of patting them up on one's own over a certain wind speed, and it will vary with your particular blades, and definitely not DW's, it does get tricky feeding the wind into the rotor by slowly coming back on the stick, particularly if the wind is gusting. Here since you do not have to full back stick to let someone out, you can take your time over this.
With winds of 8-13Kt approx it has not been a problem, but as it begins to approach 20 Kts the feeding in of the wind does start to get a lot more delicate an operation if not almost impossible.
Over 20 Kts I found that after a lot of trying I had to go back and move into the lee of the hanger to reduce the headwind before I could then manage to get the blades spinning fast enough to then move back into the full wind.
Not having a RRPM indicator does make this a bit more tricky but when flying the simpler gyros a lot of this is done on feel anyway.
Flying in strong winds is great fun and building up the experience has taken time. Obviously it is more critical and I am very conscious that one is continually learning, hence the interest in hearing other peoples experiences on what to watch out for, pointers and tips.