RAF aerial views

StanFoster

Active Member
Joined
Nov 16, 2003
Messages
17,139
Location
Paxton, Il
Aircraft
Helicycle N360SF
Total Flight Time
1250
Since I like to take pictures and share them...I will post them in this thread I started. I dont want to clutter up Harrys fine thread.

Another beautiful day over Illinois. It was very windy again.
 

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some more views
 

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another. You can make out most of the drainage tiles in the farmers fields when the ground drying is just right. You can see all the straight rows of drier soil. Thats the tile lines.
 

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nearby lake...my stairshop is in that woods behind the lake.
 

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Great Photos!

It was windy in Ohio also.
 
Hey Stan. Great pictures. At less than 4200rpm I see 80 mph.
That machine hops right along. When you set your rotor blades up,did you notice anybetter flight charistics as the rotor speed increased?More stability? higher or lower stick pressures?What generation blades do you have from RAF? Any stick shake? I just ordered all the rest of the stuff I need to complete my kit. New RAF 24th generation blades.Lexan glass for windshiel and doors. warp drive prop. reduction drive for my colorado rebuild EJ-22 fuel injected engine. There goes the spare change for awhile.
 
Larry: I have the 24th generation blades. I am still working on fine tuning them. I had zero stick shake initially...but my rotor rpm's were only 295. I made a set of tracking bars and Pete at RAF advised that I depitch the blades about 0.060 of an inch. I did some math on this and this amount of adjustment across my 8 inch tracking bar resulted to about .4 degrees of less pitch.

Anyway...my rotor rpm's are up where they should be as you can see in all my photos ....the rotor readouts. But...I have just a little cyclic shake and some minor cabin hop. Minor though...I could live with it...but I love to fiddle with things. I have been moving my chord block .005 at a time till I noticed it getting worse. Then I went to my initial setting and went the other way. Right now I am at a stand still till I can convince myself which blade is tracking higher. I used a laser to align my blades instead of string..but I may go out and sling them and see what that does.

My airspeed was artificially high in that one picture that indicated 80...as I was forcing the nose down for a different perspective for the camera. Most of my photos are straight and level.

I have had it to 95 staight and level...and it would have gone faster...but I wasnt ready and thats too near the redline anyway. But..I was slowly exploring ever increasing speeds with it.

I generally cruise at 4200 and my photos are my own best record. It looks like close to 70 at this rpm is average. I can cruise at 80 indicated..but I am planning on having this machine for a long time..and I figure why wear it out sooner. Probably the only time I would rev it up higher is when going against a good headwind .
 
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This is good info Stan. Maybe should be in the RAF drivers thread too.

Can they be duplicated to there? Todd!!
 
Stan, just pick a blade and change the pitch either way by 20 thou.

Just remember which blade and what change. Forget track, just go for equal lift which is the smoothest ride,

Aussie Paul.
 
Paul: I have to have which blade to adjust down to an exact science. Pick one for me....black tip or white. I will adjust and report back. :)
 
Paul or anyone. Seriously...on this rotor adjustment. I am not one to just start adjusting unless I know whats going on. I started with the chord block exactly centered. Then I moved it one way until the shake was increasing...then back to the centered and the other way by .005 at a time.

I guess my question is when or how do you decide to quit the chord adjustment and then proceed to the individual blade adjustment?

I just dont want to go at this like a dog chasing his tail. :)
 
Stan. Black tip depitch 20 thou. If it is worse go the other way. There is no exact science to Raf or any blades for that matter.

Regards, Aussie Paul.
 
Stan,mate,"aerial views" usualy mean views from the air,not views of your sexy dash while in the air. ;)

Just a note on Raf engioneering,and I'm not sling'n mud at RAF,but when I changed from the RAF blades to the extruded ones,the first thing I noticed was the new blade track.[8" out of track.]
I rang the dude I bought the extruded ones from and said "I thought you said you tested these blades before you sent them??"He just asked "are you usi'n a stock RAF head,if so ,The teeter bolt holes won't be exactly level,throwi'n your blades out of track."
He was right,The holes were 17th out of level.

After some shimi'n to determine how much to take off the block,I had the block machined to bring the low blade up and the high blade down and now the blades are in perfect track :) .Absalutly 0 shake :D .[When they was 8" out of track,I couldn't get them past prerotate rpm for the shake. :mad: ]
 
Birdy: Thanks for the reply. My blades look like they are tracking close....I am just trying to get the little bit of cabin hop out of it.

Keep up the cow mustering stories....they are mooooooooooooooving.. :)
 
Intercepted some more trikes....
 

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take off roll
 

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another angle
 

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Stan;

Your pics are really great and as you know, from the posts you recieved, a lot of good RAF info was offered. I'd like to see this info, as well as your aerial pics showing in flight panel info in the RAF thread. I think future RAF drivers will eat it up!?

Birdy;

Is your machine a 2 seater? I would love to fly *muster* with you; then again, I may not have the balls for it, now. Next best thing would be to watch an inside and an outside video, as it occurs. Yeah, I think I could handle that better.
 
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