It is with considerable excitement that I report from the maiden flight of the Arrow-Copter AC10. You can see a brief video YouTube - Arrow-Copter AC10 SN001.m4v.
A couple of days ago we received the approval to begin flight testing. This has come after a considerable amount of testing (e.g., YouTube - Arrow-Copter certification test of rotor and rotor head) or load testing (scroll down, it's the last couple of pictures in the gallery) and many shelves of design documentation and verification.
This Tuesday, May 17th, the Arrow-Copter took to air the first time. Note, however, that a previous prototype of the aircraft flew in 2008. However, the current production version isn't the same gyro anymore, even though from the outside it looks very similar.
As is the case for all maiden flights: the more boring the better. And we didn't encount anything out of the ordinary at all. It flew like a charm, no bad surprises! Austro-Control (the Austrian equivalent to the FAA) restricted us during the first couple of hours to the open cockpit version and no constant speed prop for simplicity and safety reasons. But this will change to closed cockpit and constant speed prop very soon during the test phase.
The Neuform prop we used for the first flight maxed its rpm at only 120 km/h (75 mph) with plenty of power left. It is clearly not well matched to the aircraft but sufficient to conduct the first necessary flight tests (controllability, ASI calibration, slow speed behavior, intial stability tests, etc.) We reasonably expect a final Vne north of 200 km/h (125 mph). The prototype already reached 218 km/h (135 mph).
Empty weight is 330 kg (727lbs) with all options and a Rotax 914. This still leaves 230 kg (507 lbs) for useful load. With two 200 lbs champions in the cockpit, 107 lbs of fuel this gives you a range of 300 nm at a cruise of 160 km/h (100 mph). The tank takes 80 l (21 gal), with more than 75 l (20 gal) usable.
This is going to be one exciting machine with which I hope to bust some existing gyro records. But let's take it one step at a time...
-- Chris.
A couple of days ago we received the approval to begin flight testing. This has come after a considerable amount of testing (e.g., YouTube - Arrow-Copter certification test of rotor and rotor head) or load testing (scroll down, it's the last couple of pictures in the gallery) and many shelves of design documentation and verification.
This Tuesday, May 17th, the Arrow-Copter took to air the first time. Note, however, that a previous prototype of the aircraft flew in 2008. However, the current production version isn't the same gyro anymore, even though from the outside it looks very similar.
As is the case for all maiden flights: the more boring the better. And we didn't encount anything out of the ordinary at all. It flew like a charm, no bad surprises! Austro-Control (the Austrian equivalent to the FAA) restricted us during the first couple of hours to the open cockpit version and no constant speed prop for simplicity and safety reasons. But this will change to closed cockpit and constant speed prop very soon during the test phase.
The Neuform prop we used for the first flight maxed its rpm at only 120 km/h (75 mph) with plenty of power left. It is clearly not well matched to the aircraft but sufficient to conduct the first necessary flight tests (controllability, ASI calibration, slow speed behavior, intial stability tests, etc.) We reasonably expect a final Vne north of 200 km/h (125 mph). The prototype already reached 218 km/h (135 mph).
Empty weight is 330 kg (727lbs) with all options and a Rotax 914. This still leaves 230 kg (507 lbs) for useful load. With two 200 lbs champions in the cockpit, 107 lbs of fuel this gives you a range of 300 nm at a cruise of 160 km/h (100 mph). The tank takes 80 l (21 gal), with more than 75 l (20 gal) usable.
This is going to be one exciting machine with which I hope to bust some existing gyro records. But let's take it one step at a time...
-- Chris.