photo comparative crash damage to various gyro rotor systems

[HighAltitude]

Guys you are correct but, you are also versed. However, keep in mind newbies and possibilities read these forums. What we see as discussions or debates, might drive a new follower into seeking another form of flight. Just some thoughts from someone who has been there done that.

So true. I half expected brawls at Mentone. This forum leads an outsider to believe its a biker bar sometimes. Everyone was actually very pleasant to hang out with in person. I was glad I went. It put me at ease that most of the nasty posts here are not a reflection of how they treat each other in person.

 

[Vance]

So true. I half expected brawls at Mentone. This forum leads an outsider to believe its a biker bar sometimes. Everyone was actually very pleasant to hang out with in person. I was glad I went. It put me at ease that most of the nasty posts here are not a reflection of how they treat each other in person.

I was a Harley Davidson Dealer for 17 years and can assure you that they are a lot less snarky and more civil in a biker bar than some here on the Rotary Wing Forum.

A few have temporally lost their posting privileges for acting badly.

 

[HighAltitude]

No Title

I wouldn't know anything about bikers as I am forbidden to own a motorcycle. Imagine that.

I try to stay away because some of the threads are negative and some are downright scary (the crash photos). My wife would never let me fly again if she saw all the crash photos. Sure we all learn from a crash but it is getting out of hand over the past couple of weeks. I participate in other FW forums but none of them ever seem so obsessed in crashes nor display so much disagreement about causes and remedies. A few manufacturers of gyros and parts are some of the worst offenders here. No doubt, they get scratched off the list by eager buyers. Sad really. Who wants to get on their bad side? A buyer will have to predict who will still be around in 3 or 5 years an go that direction.

Mentone restored my confidence in gyros and the group as a whole, despite the tone of this forum.

Christine Toevs was the star. So friendly, so gracious. She hung around all day Saturday giving flights to show attendees that appeared to be local people just checking out the event. She had the place to herself on Saturday. Nearly everyone else had checked out. Here's a picture I took at 2:30 on Saturday:

 

[GyrOZprey]

Kolibri

I notice all of the examples you cite are of aluminum rotor blades, such as used on the Sportcopter, and rotor hubs at least similar to the Averso Stella. What did you discover regarding composite blades and other hubs, such as on the Titanium and Magni?

/Ed

If I thought it would usefully contribute to a good discussion I could share pictures of how the Titanium rotors segmented when it came straight down in a 3/4 spiral at cruise power into a softish soybean field - when Jim was passed out dying from a massive brain hemhorrage & also I have seen some pictures of how Magni blades delaminate at their median glue-line ... I could ... not sure that I SHOULD!hwell:

 

[C. Beaty]

The FAA type certificated A&S 18A has wooden rotor blades. I suppose you’d have a shower of toothpicks if they smacked the ground. But what does that prove?

 

[EdL]

Hi Chris

Can you elaborate on the Magnis: are you saying the crash(es) was/were due to blade delamination or that, in a crash, they fractured along a lamination line? Seems like a big difference. Or maybe you’re saying some Magni blades delaminated but not in association with a crash?
How long ago was this?
Thanks!

/Ed

 

[Kolibri]

Did Jim tell you that?

Yes, WaspAir, he did.
He also stressed the importance of the mast neither bending nor breaking, to protect cabin occupants from the rotors.


____________

I would like to know of one indecent where an innocent bystander was harmed by a detached rotor blade?

gyrojake, I've no such incident yet to report. I'm trying to reduce the risks of it happening.
I suspect that there have been at least a few near misses.

All the pictures are very interesting, and bunches of engineering upgrades can be deduced.

The debate is not over Brand A, B, or C it is about structural integrity and how it is accomplished.
Real life experience is being shared with insight to real engineering.

Thanks, I think so, too.

I for one, hold no grudges and enjoy every ones company at flyins.
Even Kolibri would be welcome at my table.
No matter what, I know he's a good guy at heart, He was one of the few on this forum that showed compassion and concern after my triple bypass.
It would be puerile to bias someone because of a disagreement.

I appreciate that gyrojake. I hope you've recovered well from your operation.
Our paths will someday cross, and I'll buy you a beer then.

____________

The blades were not flung in the video . . .

Vance, your challenged inductive reasoning reminds me of dogs which cannot understand pointing.
They always look at the finger vs. the object pointed at.
The video was posted to demonstrate, generically, the energetic danger of departing rotors (regardless of the mechanical reason for their departure).
I realize that that rotor system flew off in its entirety, vs. having been broken up and flung in pieces. Ducking is ducking.

As I have already posted here there is much to like about Sport Rotors without inventing features that have no benefit.

Well, the designer of Sport Rotors didn't concoct some flimsy advantage of robust strength. It was seriously intentional, through lots of patient experimentation.
When I recently mentioned to him that I'd not yet been able to find a photo of a broken rotor set, he wanly smiled and replied, "You won't."

Soft blades deform . . . Hard blades break . . .

In general, I agree, and haven't argued otherwise. Both SC and AG rotors do deform beyond the root, and that certainly absorbs much energy.
(Magni blades are even more flexible and must deform quite a lot during impact.)

What's "odd" is that Sport Rotors are very hard at the root. Harder than AutoGyro. More rigid, too. (I defy anyone to offer an example of a stronger and more rigid aluminum gyro blade.)
Thus, by the "soft blades deform/hard blades break" mantra, AutoGyro rotors should not be breaking at the root, but Sport Rotors should be. However, the exact opposite has consistently occurred. Nobody here seems to want to recognize this.

AG rotors typically break, and almost always at the root. Why? Wouldn't their softer-than-Sport-Rotors nature allow them to stay intact?
Somebody please explain this paradox.

Jake tried to explain it to you but . . .
Your pictures demonstrate Jake's point.

They do not. Jake (and eddie, and you) have alleged that Sport Rotors do not break because of their deformation.
Well, AutoGyro blades also show plenty of deformation (more so than SC), don't they? THEN . . . WHY DO THEY . . . BREAK?

In my opinion the production numbers of gyroplanes are too small to invest heavily in research and development. Why reinvent something that is acceptable?

Since lives literally hang in the balance, why accept merely the "acceptable"?
Why not push for true excellence, strength, and optimal safety?

In my opinion based primarily on my experience with designing motorcycle frames; managing perceived vibration is more of an art than actual engineering.

Indeed. And the Maestro of this particular music can be found at his factory, just off Taxiway B4 of SPB.
For example, he made a 235hp 1700lb SCII with 9"x31' rotors fly with virtually zero stick shake and I've seen an even smoother video than that.

I was a Harley Davidson Dealer for 17 years and can assure you that they are a lot less snarky and more civil in a biker bar than some here on the Rotary Wing Forum.

Ah, no wonder you and I could never "agree on the furniture".
I've ridden BMWs for over 30 years and 200,000+ miles, in about 20 countries.
We're simply very different people.
And, I don't recall you complaining about Chuck Ellsworth back in the day when he habitually called RAF Canada "morons" and "thieves".

A few have temporally lost their posting privileges for acting badly.

I wouldn't want that to happen to you or anybody else who has directly called me names in this thread.
I'd rather civilly debate the facts, rather than dodge bullets from those who would instead attempt to "shoot the messenger".

a desire to argue

.
Incorrect. I desire to get to the bottom of things, even if that requires "arguing" along the way.
I certainly am not "confrontation averse" but neither do I seek out or foment confrontation for the sheer sake of it.

I have not seen a benefit from the blade staying in one piece.

The spectators below may have an opposing viewpoint:




_______

The FAA type certificated A&S 18A has wooden rotor blades. I suppose you’d have a shower of toothpicks if they smacked the ground. But what does that prove?

That it nonetheless remains preferable for the smacked blade not to disintegrate?

_______

I wouldn't know anything about bikers as I am forbidden to own a motorcycle. Imagine that.

I try to stay away because some of the threads are negative and some are downright scary (the crash photos).
My wife would never let me fly again if she saw all the crash photos. Sure we all learn from a crash but it is getting out of hand over the past couple of weeks.

HighAltitude, here's an idea: don't read this thread, or my posts, if you find such "downright scary".
Compared to FW (where I started), gyros have a much higher incidence of crashes per million miles, and a higher percentage of fatalities.
I'm doing what I can to understand why, and improve training and gyro quality. The process may be uncomfortable to some.
In matters of aviation safety, Kumbaya Kills.

When a gyro manufacturer's second rotor system snaps off from mere tipovers in the same area that was sufficient cause for 2011 alarm in the U.K. to
issue Emergency Mandatory Permit Directive 2011-006-E which "found cracks, bends and evidence of fretting" and thus limited their rotor life to 700 hours
. . . I think that is worthy of some scrutiny.

Finally, I remind everyone that my posts are my own personal expression, and not those of any company or other individual.

_______
GyrOZprey, if you feel that the photos would add to the knowledge base, please do post them.
I would applaud you for doing so, especially due to their personal nature.

Regards,
Kolibri

 

[WaspAir]

The FAA type certificated A&S 18A has wooden rotor blades. I suppose you’d have a shower of toothpicks if they smacked the ground. But what does that prove?

There are two things that it certainly does NOT prove.

First, it doesn't indicate any horrible risk to the general public from fractured bits being thrown about post-crash. In over 50 years of A&S18A operations, there are no reports of bystander injuries from blade components after ground impact. You could easily generalize that statement to all gyros back to Cierva himself, or so it seems from the total lack of any reports of any injuries to non-crew from broken/bent blades. If such issues had been real over the last 80+ years, we would have a body count to discuss, and we don't. People on the ground are not being hurt by blades broken on impact. Whatever one thinks the theoretical possibility of such an injury might be or how severe an injury one can imagine, the real world statistics speak with authority that can't be matched by marketing puffery.

Second, it doesn't prove that the failure mode of a blade at ground impact has any implications at all for in-flight safety. It's an enormous unsupported logical leap to assume that some notion of "strength" (undefined) with regard to whacking the ground has any correlation with the likelihood of throwing off a blade in the air (a likelihood that seems to have been exceptionally small for the whole fleet for all makes and models for many decades).

This whole discussion is based upon bad logic applied to an empty data set. Here's an analogy from my experience. My Norton motorcycle has stainless steel fenders rather than conventional chrome, because the designers thought they looked good and would continue to look good without any maintenance. Nobody has yet claimed that their lack of rust would protect the rider from possible tetanus infection from skin injuries in a crash scenario, and I would laugh out loud if anybody suggested tetanus avoidance was a design objective for Norton's engineers. I love my Norton and the look of its fenders but I wouldn't ever try to argue superiority over chrome-fendered Hondas on that basis. Meanwhile, there is no data to suggest that Norton riders are safer than Honda riders from contracting tetanus.

 

[Kolibri]

Second, it doesn't prove that the failure mode of a blade at ground impact has any implications at all for in-flight safety.

No, it does not "prove" such, but it also seems foolish to imagine that there are no in-flight implications, either.

Ground impacts are obviously tougher on rotors than any rough air.
Conversely, a rotor system which can typically remain attached to its hub bar during a crash is one which will probably never fail in the air.
That extra margin of safety already exists from at least one mfg. I wish all companies could make the same claim.

It's an enormous unsupported logical leap to assume that some notion of "strength" (undefined) with regard to whacking the ground has any correlation with the likelihood of throwing off a blade in the air (a likelihood that seems to have been exceptionally small for the whole fleet for all makes and models for many decades).

Fortunately, SBs and MPDs regarding some gyro mfg. about their short-lived rotors have prevented numerous fatal blade throwing incidences in flight.
Imagine AutoGyro's Rotor System 1 still being in place since 2011, with 700+ hour bolt hole cracks unseen by the owners under the strap covers?

or so it seems from the total lack of any reports of any injuries to non-crew from broken/bent blades.

I've seen a photo of a pair of colliding battlefield bullets.
If that can happen, it's assured that some bystander has been injured by gyro crash rotor debris.

This whole discussion is based upon bad logic applied to an empty data set.

People usually say such things before anything wonky happens.
Ever heard of "Murphy's law"?
Or the Apollo 1 launchpad fire?

Regards,
Kolibri

 

[HighAltitude]

Dude, the crash photos are not "downright scary". Your leap to conclusions is the scary I was referring to.

Wow, you argue with EVERYONE about everything! You start numerous threads and then quote and argue with every reply. Are you familiar with the phrase thick headed? I'm not sure what your game is but you win, I'm out.

I'm a new guy interested in buying a gyro. I'm taking lessons and sorting through the various makes of gyros. Thanks for the warm welcome.

 

[eddie]

Tim your smart don't let him pull you down to his level,every village has one of these !!

 

[Vance]

No Title

Ah, no wonder you and I could never "agree on the furniture".
I've ridden BMWs for over 30 years and 200,000+ miles, in about 20 countries.
We're simply very different people.


Regards,
Kolibri

I like all motorcycles and do not share your narrow vision of the sport just as I like all gyroplanes.

I have ridden motorcycles for fifty five years and have over a half million miles on the street.

I road raced professionally for 23 years. I have won races on Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, BSA, Norton, Triumph, Laverda, Ducati, MotoGuzzi, Esso, Harley Davidson, and Indian.

I even raced and broke several BMWs in endurances races as a sponsored racer.

I have also raced desert, TT, mile, half mile, short track, speedway and quarter mile drag racing.

I road raced sidecars for three years.

I have set many records at Bonneville.

I am pleased to be a very different person than you.

 

[loftus]

I like all motorcycles and do not share your narrow vision of the sport just as I like all gyroplanes.

I have ridden motorcycles for fifty five years and have over a half million miles on the street.

I road raced professionally for 23 years. I have won races on Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, BSA, Norton, Triumph, Laverda, Ducati, MotoGuzzi, Esso, Harley Davidson, and Indian.

I even raced and broke several BMWs in endurances races as a sponsored racer.

I have also raced desert, TT, mile, half mile, short track, speedway and quarter mile drag racing.

I road raced sidecars for three years.

I have set many records at Bonneville.

I am pleased to be a very different person than you.

Wow; impressive. Vance, I think your exploits and history are pretty awesome - I have great respect for what you have done and continue to do, as one of the greatest ambassadors for gyros and the fun and safety of flying in general.

I know we don't always agree, though I do try to respectfully put forward my arguments in a rational way. I do think we agree much more than we disagree. We are all stubborn I guess to a greater or lesser degree. Keeping things respectful is key.

 

[Vance]

I read everything you write with great interest Jeffery.

I have the greatest respect and admiration for your life’s path and am proud to know you as a friend and fellow aviator.

I find your wide ranging interests and avocations an inspiration.

It has always been a pleasure to interact with you.

 

[gyrojake]

I know we don't always agree, though I do try to respectfully put forward my arguments in a rational way. I do think we agree much more than we disagree. We are all stubborn I guess to a greater or lesser degree. Keeping things respectful is key.

Your such a nice guy because you get to fondle different Breasts everyday.
If you were a proctologist you would have a whole different outlook !!!!

 

[loftus]

Your such a nice guy because you get to fondle different Breasts everyday.
If you were a proctologist you would have a whole different outlook !!!!

:lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol::lol:

 

[Kolibri]

____________

I try to stay away because some of the threads are negative and some are downright scary (the crash photos).

Dude, the crash photos are not "downright scary". Your leap to conclusions is the scary I was referring to.

High Altitude, you didn't mention "conclusions" but you did mention the crash photos.
And, by the way, I've not concluded anything so far.

Wow, you argue with EVERYONE about everything!

You've a flair for the ironical, I'll grant you that. When others challenge me, it's not "arguing" but when I challenge them, it is.

I'm a new guy interested in buying a gyro. I'm taking lessons and sorting through the various makes of gyros. Thanks for the warm welcome.

Then, welcome, sincerely!
But is a "warm welcome" all you want as you embark on one of the most statistically dangerous forms of flying?

Or, can you handle opinions which may be alternative to what is printed in glossy brochures?
There are Champions of Mediocrity in the gyro world. I'm not one of them.
I've got your back more than you realize. Good luck and safe flying!

"It was the law in the ancient Greek city of Amyclae to hold one's tongue. The Amyclaeans had often panicked
when they hear rumors that the powerful Spartan army was coming, so to put an end to defeatism, a law was pass forbidding rumors.
Violators were to be executed.
When the Spartans did actually appear, no one had the courage to report it, and the city was overcome without a fight."
-- Amazing Lost History

____________
What, no Bultaco?

Yes, Vance, you're much older than I am, and you singularly immersed yourself into motorcycles. Good for you.
(Just imagine what you could have accomplished in aviation had you started in your teens, following in your test pilot father's footsteps.)

I never understood the mechanical allure of H-D. While I love a V-twin, a paint-shaker 45° just doesn't do it for me, not even the Evo motor.
I've a 90° V-twin MotoGuzzi that I like very much, but it's not made nearly as well as my BMW. I'd like to own a Ducati, to round out the field.

You're welcome to effectively style yourself as the Will "I never met a gyroplane I didn't like" Rogers of our sport.
This risks a whiff of the phony, and obligates you to excuse crappy gyros (RAF, for example) and at least one lethal gyro CFI (of N5002E infamy).
Yes, we are very different people. May God bless us both.

I, however, would rather find my way towards the highest quality. You may call my discriminating taste "narrow" but I dismiss your narrow interpretation.
My trajectory in this world is not towards popularity. Rather, it's for the advancement of better and better ideas. Such is never initially popular.
(Recall your ongoing vituperation when I called the RAF tensile bolt hub bar a nutty and dangerous design, and RAFSA an irresponsible company?)

The black sheep must be made of steel wool. I've made my peace with that long ago.

I've probably nothing else to add to my thread except for the lingering wonder why nobody has so far explained why a more flexible blade
such as AutoGyro consistently breaks, while a more solid and rigid Sport Rotor never does. During a pause for reloading amongst shooting this messenger,
perhaps somebody will finally answer that. LMK, thanks.

Safe flying y'all,

Kolibri

 

[gyrojake]

O.K. I see the only way to determine the answer your looking for, is to have for all rotors in question:
Total weight
Skin thikness
Leading edge design
Tip weight value
Length
Core structure
cord design and width
PRM at impact and moment of first impact.
I then will be able to give you a Scientific answer that is backed up by math.
Will let Physics do the work.
Your and educated man, I will give you a link to all the math necessary to accomplish your quest.
You convince yourself.
Looking forward to that beer. Thanks
If you need some tutelage, I myself or Chuck Beaty will help if asked.
Hint = start in mechanics

 

[Kolibri]

Thanks. Also, material yield strength.
I don't know what they use, but rotor extrusions cannot be made with 6061-T6. They probably use something like T4, with subsequent hardening.

But, really, since I don't (and won't) fly AutoGyro products, the answer is more important for those who do.

 

[eddie]

I think that because Sportcoptor just bends and won't break is probably the worst of all. its the odd duck

of the whole bunch of gyro blades,I would rather have my blades shatter.break into a lot of little pieces

and help absorb the impact during a wreck or tip over.