Vance,
Try to stay in the simple realm when it comes to the physics of flying and it will serve you and your students well.
Simple ideas like ...
* Throw away the phrase "Negative-G's." A gyro will never go there.
* Replace it with "Low-G condition." A gyro will go there, and very quickly.
* There are many things that can occur in flight are a threat to a pilot's life, not just low-G condition.
* A gyroplane in controlled flight can & will get into a low-G condition
* A low-G condition does not have to be "sustained" to be dangerous
* Low rotor RPM is not the most significant thing to fear in a low-G condition. Teeter Stop Hitting IS! Torque rolling IS!
* In a low-G condition, re-loading the rotor SHOULD always be your goal. In almost all low-G events, gentle application of aft cyclic will do that.
* It is my opinion that you do not have a soild foundation upon which to build. It is my opinion that your understanding of rotary wing aerodynamics is flawed in a handful of key areas and until you open your mind and stop having the attitude that your understanding is already 100% correct, you may be teaching your students wrong information, and may not be be giving them the tools they need to safely react when something out of the ordinary happens in the air.
I can’t throw away something that I don’t have. People on this forum are often suggesting that negative gs are dangerous.
One of the points of the thread is that low g events are dangerous.
In is my observation that a gyroplane does not reach low gs quickly unless it is a weather event.
Flying experimental gyroplanes is dangerous, I explain that every way I can to student pilots and try to find teachable moments in every flight lesson to explain what could have gone wrong and what we would do to manage it or avoid it. I am a ground school enthusiast and carefully explain many of the ways to get hurt or killed in a gyroplane. Part of the student pilots homework is reading and analyzing accident reports.
In my opinion the danger is a combination of how low for how long.
Low rotor rpm is a symptom of low gs. Low rotor rpm leads to flapping the blades and hitting the teeter stops and parts of the aircraft. It is not something to fear but rather something to avoid.
Fear takes the fun out of things for me and I have a low fear threshold.
I feel aft cyclic is not the always the way to reload the blades.
Because rotor thrust is reduced by the low g event and I have less cyclic control it may be a bad thing to move the cyclic in any direction. It depends on how the low g condition was reached.
If it was wind shear I would reduce power and wouldn’t move the cyclic back.
If I was the top of a zoom climb I would reduce power and wouldn’t move the cyclic back because moving the cyclic back is what precipitated the low g event.
If I was slow I would reduce power wouldn’t move the cyclic back.
If I had a lot of airspeed I would reduce power and I might pull the cyclic smoothly back.
Gravity will take care of things in a short term uncommanded low g event soon after I smoothly pull the power back.
I don’t pretend to understand gyroplane rotors Bryan and I am careful to explain that to students.
My mind is open Bryan and that is why I ask questions and carefully read the answers trying to relate it to my observations.
Thank you for your thoughtful advice Bryan. I am grateful you left helicopters out of this post.
I was explaining to my student yesterday that people like you help me to express things I might not otherwise have the opportunity or inclination to express. For example I probably would not have explained in such detail why moving the cyclic smoothly aft in a low g event may not be the best choice and there is probably value in the explanation.