mikeflyz
Senior Heliman
Location: Westlake Village, CA
| SUCCESS! First Rotory Winged flightFIXED WING TEST
With the newly reinforced motor mount, the Rascal took to the air on a successful fixed wing flight a few times around the pattern. It was also modified with a steerable tailwheel, which eases ROG takeoffs considerably.
It took some getting used to with operating the rudder from the left stick. It's perfectly natural to use the rudder in helicopters, but less so in an airplane. It flew around fine.
ROTARY WING FLIGHT
After hooking up the roll servo and checking its deflection and direction (almost launched it with the aileron servo reversed!), I prepared to hand launch it by myself. Most people were gun shy about helping me with the hand launch, as the spin-up guidance was something completely new and no one wanted to take a risk. With a reasonably steady 8-10 mph breeze, I spun up the rotors, set the autogyro's pitch attitude to about 10 degrees or so and rolled on the throttle. At the last minute, I felt I needed more power, so I added full throttle and pushed it into the air. The nose shot up nearly vertical and rolled to the right. Along with massive body english, I pitched over and countered with full left aileron, continuing with full power. It slowly righted itself and I was off, climbing out smartly. Whew!
The roll authority was weak and delayed. After a couple of turns, keeping in mind the recommendation was to use left turns only at first, I started adding rudder with the turn, which was immediate. It remained high and with me learning a whole new aircraft, it was a flight of starting a control input and learning its reactions.
Reducing power helped with the stability somewhat (not unlike the full size gyroplanes I have flown), and it floated down with good control authority. Adding power, and it took off like a shot. I had a friend do the trims for me, which it needed a substantial amount of left rudder and aileron. It also bobbed on the first flight in mild pitch oscillations, which never became divergent. After about four minutes, I throttled back, made a couple of practice approaches, set up and landed on the grass.
After reflecting on the flight, I re-rigged the roll and rudder, neutralized the trims and added some nose down trim, theorizing that it would get rid of the bobble.
SECOND FLIGHT
The second flight was a joy. The winds died down a little in the late afternoon, and were steadier. I made it a point to launch with only half throttle as recommended, and took my time during the jog to feel the lift and any roll/yaw loading, so when it was released, it would go straight. And it launched in a beautiful, straight line!
THIRD, FOURTH AND FIFTH FLIGHTS
The launches had improved and I figured out the flight controls. When rudder is applied, it needs an equal amount of opposite aileron! There is a substantial overbanking tendency, something warned about in the manual. Rudder is the most effective flight control to initiate and terminate a turn, and the opposite aileron puts in just enough bank to keep the turns coordinated. Happily, the amount of opposing aileron was equal in both turn directions. I didn't find a particular difficulty in right turns, as was warned in the manual.
This was a bit of a surprise, since the full size pusher gyros have plenty of authority and little to no delay in roll and pitch. But as I was driving home, I did remember that rudder turns in the gyro did require some opposite roll cyclic, but not as much as I encountered with the model.
On landing approaches, reducing power to near idle, will result in a nice, slow descent, but you will need to add power and aft elevator to arrest the descent. As time goes on, I'll figure out a good final approach speed. I'll likely increase the UP elevator travel for landings as well, since it seems weak. Landing on hard surfaces can result in a prop strike, since it's pretty big diameter, and subsequent weakening of the motor mount.
Even though we're used to few visual cues in a helicopter for orientation, reading the attitude of the gyro in flight, particularly at high altitudes, was uniquely challenging, since it was a brand new shape. The blades are hard to see unless you can see the tops of them, and you're literally flying a fuselage around! I found myself saying "left rudder" entering a turn and "right rudder" leaving a turn. In the last flights, this became less of an issue as I became accustomed to it.
More to come...
Mike
MA Fury Extreme, Logo 600 and T-Rex |
