jbeech
rrAdvertiser
Location: Sanford, FL (Orlando area)
| Not to contradict Gus, but he has one approach to this. I know who you are and what your skill set is (sport pilot) and I have a different take on this.
I suggest running your same basic pitch set up as usual, i.e. -4° on low, mid-stick hover around 5.5°, and high end pitch of about 11-12°. The reason for this is that during practice, when you flip the switch from nomal to hold the model won't jump due to a differnt profile in your pitch curves. I used to run max pitch on the top end (+14° vs. +11°) but over time I found it's easier (too easy) to bleed off too much blade energy. As a consequence, I've gone back to using the very same pitch curve for hold as for normal and my autos have gotten better.
Remember, just as a model airplane pilot shouts out "Deadstick!" and continues in for a landing using the altitude swapped off for airspeed to keep the model flying, with a model helicopter you do almost the exact same thing (except shout out deadstick!). You simply maintain enough negative pitch for the model to descend, and enough forward stick to make progress towards the field, and as you get near the ground you add pitch and land, just like you do under power.
The only difference is that if you add too much pitch or try to stretch your rotor blade energy too much you'll stall the blades (they go to slow to produce lift) and you crash the model - just like with a model airplane under similar circumstances, i.e. a pilot who tries to stretch a glide too far will stall and crash. Basically, if you can't make the fild, land wherever you can because it's better to walk out 200 feet to pick up your model than to buy parts because you insisted on trying to make the field. Anyway, as you get better you'll be able to auto closer to your feet, like the pros.
Frankly, I think too much is made of this autorotation business. You see folks writing about pitch up the nose to slow forward progress, push over to level the skids before touchdown, etc. and none of this is any different from whan you're in forward flight coming in for landing under power, i.e. slow the speped relative to the gorund and level the skids for touchdown! They act as if you're doing somethig radically different from what you've been doing all along when it's pretyt much the very same thing! it's just that with fixed wing models you don't see folks writting about hold the nose down to maintain airspeed, pitch up the nose to flare, inscrease aft stick until the model stalls and the wheels touch down for landing, right? That's because fixed wing guys don't make a big deal out of losing engine power and neither should rotory wing pilots. You just maintain airspeed over the rotor blades and land the model. So guess what? With a model heli it's pretty much the same thing, just land the model and don't freak out. It's really pretty easy.
My 2¢
John Beech - GM (and janitor)
Audacity Models |
