Have had the pleasure of flying with various types of rotors in various single seaters.
The Bensen I first flew I had 22’ Rotor Hawkes, I then went to 22’ Layzelles, these were British produced Rotordyne, and an improvement in performance in my opinion. Flown them on Bensen and the AV-18A
My first experience with 22’ Dragon wings was in a Cricket, they flew well, our Hornet had 24’ Dragons and were great, liked they way the performed/flew on a Merlin.
22’ McCutcheon blades in a Benson were very smooth and performed well.
I noticed a definite improvement in performance when going from a 22’ Layzelle to a 23’ blade in a Benson.
Flew 22’ Benson/Brock rotors on a Cricket yesterday, and was underwhelmed with their performance. They were a mild mannered blade, seemed very tolerant ie not critical in terms of blade sail/flap, so good for student initial training, but getting off the ground was an effort, climb performance was poor, and sank like a rock with power off.
I will say we hadn’t done a thrust test and so I may not have had as much thrust from the prop as was possible, but to my mind my rotors are my wings, and these weren’t the best.
I flew for a company that had 5 Lear Jets, and there were 3 different types of wing mods within that group and they all flew differently on a similar airframe and power plants. They all had their little quirks, these most noticeable on the final approach and landing phase, and I believe this of rotors.
Brocks/Bensens are an old blade and probably not many about. Possibly a good thing.