dpcarey
Senior Heliman
Location: Ontario, Canada
| No question about it, the whole system and tail is worked very hard while flying sideways (funnels) in the way that you have described.
However, if your buddy is new to funnels, my guess is that he is using too much collective AND cyclic while literally forcing the funnel to occur, and be maintained, at his chosen airspeed. This puts a lot of strain on the system. But, with a little practice, funnels can be performed with much less stick input thereby loading things up much less. Your buddy will know the difference once he experiences this himself a couple times.
Some funnels are almost effortless insofar that the sticks are hardly touched once the funnel is established. In this case, the heli will settle quite naturally into a funnel of a diamater and airspeed which works together nicely with the rotor disk angle; just like water going down the drain, it doesn`t need to be forced. Alternatively, a funnel can also be achieved by brute force, with lots of stick deflection. But, doing funnels this way really bogs the heli down.
Effortless funnels are much easier, and really do benefit, from a nicely set up heli. |
