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Progress
Hello everyone,
I love it when people share their progress with pictures. I always feel inspired.
Here are some pictures of my progress over the last three weeks.
I have been working on my autogiro to give me a little more leg room and to put dual controls on it so I can train in it. Almost all my training has been in a two place side by side.
It is very intimidating to work on something so nicely made. Mark Givens really did a nice job. I am trying to not compromise the integrity of the aircraft.
The cyclic was a challenge because there is only just enough room for the link that controls rotor angle of attack. It is a rod that runs up the middle of the big tube. We ran a link down the right side and had to dent the floor to clear when the stick is all the way to the right.
Left to right was easy as we just make another stick with a clamp. The rear stick is longer than the front one so we changed the ratio front to back, but there is nothing we can do about left to right. Fortunately the frame is a little wider back there so there is room for the extra movement.
We raised the rear seat so that we could keep the pedals inside the frame. By making a sort of rocker we could get more travel from the instructor’s ankles. We linked to the front pedals with rods. I painted all the moving control stuff red so people wouldn’t step on it. We used aluminum seats that have thinner backs so we could move the rear seat back a little and up so we now have room for a 23 gallon tank under the rear seat. The side tanks have just about a foot of frontal area and would probably be compromised in a rollover accident. Two reasons I am not fond of the side tanks.
The throttle was fairly easy. We just duplicated the throttle arm and linked it to the front quadrant.
We mounted another aluminum seat in front so I could get a little more leg room. There is a bar across the truss that limited the roto mold seats from moving further back. We had to cut the rear corners of the front seat so the instructor’s feet wouldn’t get jammed under the seat.
We saved 12 pounds between the seats and the seat brackets.
Both seats had seat belts that would pull down in a frontal impact so we raised the rear mount and created a new higher front mount. I worked a lot on the belts. I will one day replace them with something a little more substantial.
We are cutting a hole for an access door in the shark’s mouth. This will allow me to remove the body without crawling under the panel with the stub of the stick poking me in the stomach. As an older person I found this trying.
I still have to clean up the wiring that we moved around to get access to things.
We hope to have the access panel for the body finished by Wednesday evening and mounted by Thursday so I can do a hang test, weight and balance and determine the center of gravity before I begin my training on Monday, October 29th.
I have been having a wonderful time working on this machine and almost everyone that has stopped by the hanger has been very nice. I only had to hear about how dangerous flying gyroplanes and how stupid I was for doing it once.
50 shows the pedals, cyclic and the cutout in the seat corners for foot clearance.
52 shows the connection to the front controls.
57 shows the throttle linkage and the new upper seat belt mounts.
63 shows the modified rudder pedals with toe brakes.
74 shows another view of the rear controls.
83 shows an overview of the aircraft on the trailer.
87 shows another long view.
89 shows sort of an overview of the work.
Thank you, Vance
Thank you Chris,
I always enjoy your company and your posts. You are someone who consistently brightens my day. You have great social skills. I would like to see pictures of your progress.
That is a good question JR. It is made more difficult with the body on and the panel in place.
There is a cast aluminum step like they use on four wheel drive trucks on the left side of the tower that goes down to the main gear. You can see it well in picture 87. You step up and on to the rear seat and then to the front seat. Once you are standing on the front seat it is a fairly easy to stand on the floor and lower yourself down. My balance has been compromised by my injuries so I can use the front seat belt upper mount as a hand hold. There are panels that cover the rotor tower and I need to cut a hand hold to help me with my balance.
The tubing and the aluminum floor are all fairly thin so it is important to not set foot in the wrong place. I painted the moving control parts red in the hope that people wouldn’t step on them. They are all designed to accept this kind of abuse, so it doesn’t really matter. I also want to prevent people from putting clothing in a place that would fowl the controls. It will be quite a while before I feel comfortable carrying passengers and I will probably remove the rear controls. There is no panel in the rear seat, only throttle, stick and rudder.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Thank you Todd and Joe,
I am no longer able to weld because of my monocular vision, so the welding was performed by my friend Smokey Alleman. I just make the pieces fit together and paint them when his is finished welding.
Hello Thom,
I will be training and practicing landings and take offs so staying near the airport is no problem.
Jim Mayfield feels that I will need about 15 hours in the tandem before I will be safe to solo in it. Jim is the one who gave me my demonstrated ability medical check ride and felt that he had cheated death once again. He is a test pilot with a very high fear threshold. I have over 70 hours in rotorcraft, more than 50 hours in gyroplanes. I have a low fear threshold and my skill set is somewhat deficient for the challenge of autogiro flight.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Hello Mr. Beaty,
I don’t have a plan. What would you suggest?
It was exceptionally smooth when I flew with Gary Brewer. It has an RAF Hub bar and blades. It has Ernie’s two bearing rotor head. I would like to go to Sport Copter blades, but it seems like their flexible blade mounts might exacerbate the challenge.
I have closely inspected all the welded joints in the airframe structure because of my concern over this. It seems like it should shake a lot.
My friend, John Stevens, keeps telling me that “if it isn’t broken don’t repair it”.
He says “just fly and enjoy it and work on your projects that don’t fly yet.”
It is hard for me to know where to stop with the modifications.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Thank you Stan,
I find working on it to be a cathartic experience and particularly uplifting.
I wish I had your skills, sense of style and work ethic. I am grateful to have your friendship.
I am still learning how to take pictures and I cannot figure out how to get my finger in the picture.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brent_Brown  Vance I would put a slider on the rotorhead. | Hello Brent, Thank you for your input. It is one of the smoothest rotorcraft I have flown in. There didn’t appear to be any stick shakes either, but I was not holding the stick. Would you still go to a slider? I don’t really understand how a slider works. I would be grateful for an explanation as to just what it does. I don’t fully understand the dynamics of the two per rev shake. I have struggled with it but I am not able to get past an academic familiarity. The SparrowHawk that I flew had a slider head and Sport Copter blades and it was not as smooth. I don’t want to go backward. Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
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Gold Supporter
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Join Date: Apr 2004
Location: Florida
Posts: 3,309
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What brand of rotors do you have, Vance? The stiff in-plane hub of SkyWheels is a big help in resonance avoidance. Also, the rotor pylon may not be as stiff as a casual look would indicate,
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 10-21-2007, 03:19 PM |
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vance breese
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Nipomo,California
Posts: 2,238
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Thank you Mr. Beaty,
I have performed those types of experiments on a less elegant level. We used to use an adjustable automotive timing light to watch the movement on a motorcycle frame that was running on the dynamometer. We could actually see the wave go down the frame tube and you could predict where the frame would break. We would change the stiffness and the perceived and observed vibration would change.
I would think that any change in the hub bar in plane stiffness would change the perceived shake. Isn’t that what Sport Copter is doing with their soft hub bar?
I have an unreasonable desire to go to Sport Copter Blades and a Sport Copter hub bar. Do you feel that their hub bar would exacerbate my challenge?
I have observed the structures response to various loads applied in different directions in an effort to understand why it is so smooth when in theory it should have two per rev shake challenges based on many people’s experience.
I just spoke to Gary Brewer and he says there is some stick shake. It is on a line from eleven o’clock to five o’clock in sort of a flattened oval. I am trying to understand the source of the stick shake when there is no perceptible shake in the aircraft. This is counterintuitive to me. Gary has a lot of rotor experience and has spent time adjusting the blade angle and tracking. They appear to not have quite the same angle of attack.
I am wondering if I could be having a quarrel between the large tube that controls left and right and the smaller tube that runs up the middle of the larger tube and controls pitch. This is all academic until I get some stick time. I suspect that I am being premature.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
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10-21-2007, 03:23 PM |
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vance breese
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Nipomo,California
Posts: 2,238
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Hello Mr. Beaty,
I have an RAF hub bar and RAF blades.
I have Ernie’s two bearing rotor head.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
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10-21-2007, 03:31 PM |
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vance breese
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Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Nipomo,California
Posts: 2,238
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Hello Mr. Beaty,
The truss seems to have little resistance to small deflections, but once the movement goes above .25 inches it requires about three times the force to move it the next quarter inch. It is stiffer left to right than it is front to back.
I am off to the hanger.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese |
Thank you Harry,
I will have a look at the builders log and see what I can see. It is a big bunch of papers on my desk that I have yet to study.
I feel fortunate to be able to work on such a nice aircraft.
I have an unreasonable desire to fly her to Bensen days in 2008.
Thank you Tim, I like her even better naked. The body weighs 51 pounds including the landing lights.
I finished installing the rear body and tanks today. I had the classic experience where I had spent a lot of time installing the seat, upostery and adjusting the seat belts and then found that I had to remove the seat to get at the lower rear fuel tank mount.
So far I am short one screw and one Tinian nut. They were missing when I took her apart. I realized tonight as I prepared to leave the hangar that I have had great trepidation over whether or not I would remember how she went back together. She is the only one and there are a lot of special parts to lose. It has gone very well and I expect to have her air worthy except for the hang test by tomorrow. I am feeling more confident by the minuet. I hooked up the ground tonight and everything still seems to work.
We have made all the parts for the rotor brake and I am working on a design for a gust lock.
The new seats and the controls work very nicely. There is very little friction in the cyclic and almost no friction in the rudder pedals. This is in contrast to the rudders on most of the gyroplanes I have flown. Most have been very stiff and I line up with a series of jerks rather that a fluid movement.
I have cleaned up the plumbing a little and gotten rid of nearly 12 pounds of bolts and mounting brackets.
Friday I am going to work on the pre flight check list.
I will post some pictures Friday when I have her back together.
Thank you, Vance
__________________
Vance Breese
Hello Paul,
She is smiling. In the original art she is supposed to have a mini gun sticking out of her mouth. This is the kinder, gentler version. It has been suggested that I make the side tanks look like ordinance.
Her eyes are crossed when you look at her form the front. As I towed her cross-country form Canton, Illinois, It appeared that I had an angry cross-eyed monster following to close in the rear view mirror. Her sweet expression has kind of grown on me.
Thank you Stan,
I feel your support. I would like to do work more like yours.
This sharing business is more fun than I expected. I learn things about my experience and feelings when I take the time to write about it. Sharing with friends is a lot of fun.
Thank you all for your support, Vance
__________________
Vance Breese
Thursday went well. I mounted the front body and the access hole worked great both for the nose gear and the pitot tube.
As could be expected the panel was a little hard to slip into place and I am having trouble finding plastic fittings for my static ports.
I hit the main switch and everything came alive.
We made the cable for the rotor brake.
I now believe that my hub bar is going to hit my rotor brake cable and I will find out when we install the blades on Monday. I have a fix, but it just takes more time.
I spent the entire morning shopping for a screw that I didn’t need. I tried the stc department of 9 different stores. I counted wrong and thought I had lost one.
I now have a whole bunch of empty boxes that used to be filled with aircraft parts.
Friday John and Diana worked feverishly into the night trying to get the Predator and I ready to leave at 0 dark thirty Saturday. I tested the pre-rotator without the blades and it spun to 366 rpm. I would have thought it should be geared for around 160 rpm. I am not sure how I can gear it down, but I feel that a greater gear reduction would help. Direct current electric motors do not like to live near stall.
Saturday, morning was spent loading for the trip to Buckeye and The Copper State fly in. We left KSMX at close to 13:00 and hit a lot of rain as we ran down the coast highway toward Ventura. We kept seeing blue sky ahead and it kept raining harder. No time to stop anywhere in LA but we didn’t hit much traffic.
Past Buckeye at 21:30 and Miss Garmin said just a little over an hour to Casa Grande. At Avondale brake lights and stopped traffic as far as we could see. I thought that eight runs parallel to ten so I headed toward eight and ran into the largest planed housing development I had ever seen. Miss Garmin had never heard of most of the streets and believed that we were in the middle of the desert. 22 miles at 35 to 45 miles per hour and we were at an end. She kept saying “return to the highlighted route”. We rolled into Casa Grande and 23:30 with my one eye mostly closed.
Everyone at Copper State said I should have been there yesterday, that today was vendor get acquainted day. Almost everyone in the booth was a vendor from another booth. I learned a great deal about lots of things because they had more time to answer my questions. I saw Rob with the Zenon and Cathy and Stu Fields. There was a fellow with a SparrowHawk who had built 20 of them and this was his last one. He kept taking people over to see the Zenon to make the $62,000 he wanted seem like a low price. Nice man.
Picture 41 shows the predator smiling as my hand disappears into the new access panel in her mouth. As I told Paul, she is smiling.
Picture 42 shows the access panel in place.
Picture 43 is the instrument panel in place and the modified pedals, stick linkage and throttle. The floor is cleaned up quite a bit with the new seat brackets and the new seats.
Picture 44 shows what a sponge bath has done for N142MG.
Tomorrow we are going to do a hang test and test the controls and then a double hang test to determine the center of gravity. Hopefully I will get to practice taxing without the rotor blades on.
If all goes well, it is into the air on Tuesday.
Thank you, Vance
__________________
Vance Breese
Hello everyone,
We had a very productive day to day.
I achieved a new level of exhilaration.
We had a whole team work on the Predator today.
Monty did a wonderfully through inspection and helped with a lot of little things. My RAF blades have some cracks and blemishes, but still appear airworthy.
Diana provided humor and took pictures. I had to show someone how well the Predator steered so I let her drive it. She has five hours of training in a fixed wing and she didn’t hit anything.
Brandon helped with his usual good humor and lots of extra hand tasks.
Maggie, the funnel head dog, provided comic relief.
Terry provided gyroplane safety insight and reminded me that when testing to taxi at a slow walk. He also spent some time substituting for a sand bag.
Cindy, as always, provided sunshine to all.
Sergio did a lot of strong young person things; he is a very nice young man.
Bill was quietly helpful.
Greg was Greg.
They had less to do because the wind was blowing all day, so no flying.
The rotor brake did hit the hub bar, it doesn’t any more. This required multiple disassemblies, bending, filing and imagining.
The rotors are on.
The wheel pants are on, off to check the tire pressure and on again.
The switches are labeled.
I took some play out of the upper control rods.
I tightened every nut and bolt on it.
We did a hang test and it hung at 8.2 degrees with just me in the front seat. With Terry in the back seat it hung at 9.3 nose down.
Tomorrow we hope to find the center of gravity with a double hang test now that the blades are on.
Tomorrow I will try to take a little play out of the middle control link.
Tomorrow, weather permitting; I hope to practice balancing on the mains. She only has about 5 degrees of rock back so I will have to get a little better at balancing.
Tomorrow I hope to find the fault in the cylinder head temperature gage.
I had more than an hour of taxi practice to get used to steering with the differential braking. The brakes are great and she turns around in twice her width. With a 20 mile per hour head wind I could maneuver her with the rudder, if I needed to turn sharper I just added a little brake and I could follow the lines.
There was a lot of fun and a sense of accomplishment shared by all the usual suspects.
It is great to spend a day in a toy factory with a bunch of big kids.
02 Terry substituting for a sand bag.
054 Vance and Terry in the hang test for two.
055 Taxi practice with Diana, the photographer and mechanics helper in training , as navigator.
56 A happy Vance at the end of a very productive day on a final taxi practice.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Thank you Harry, Thom, Tim and John, your encouragement means a lot to me. I feel very out of my element and slipshod. I have to reach way back in my racing to remember so many self generated challenges. It is fun to think about the day that I will be good at this. I am good at having fun now even though things are not always as I hope they will be.
Thank you Rocky, that kind offer is almost as unnatural as my desire to fly to Wauchula. I feel that Bensen Days would be a lot more fun with an aircraft and I could use the advice as experts examined the machine. I always learn so much. It would be a great adventure, but probably about two years premature. I am sure your offer will play in my head like an old Hank Williams song.
More progress!
We had nice weather so there weren’t as many people to help. They were out flying!
I tightened up on the pivots for the links on the control rods. That combined with the work I did yesterday on the upper control rods made the rotor control have a lot less play in it.
The radio became very quiet. You could hear people talking as long as there was no other noise. The intercom worked great and the radio broadcast well. Very low volume when receiving. We worked and worked to no avail. Antenna, wiring and plugs, we checked them all. Terry downloaded a new manual from the internet for my intercom. I removed the panel and worked on the cylinder head temperature gage. Brandon installed the radio in another gyroplane and it worked fine. We found a way to rout the wires so that the panel slipped into place. The temperature gage worked and the wiring and plumbing had a much more tidy quality about it. We reinstalled the radio and it worked fine for no particular reason.
We weighed the Predator to determine weight and balance. This involved lots of careful measurements. We were able to determine an appropriate cg range. She now weighs 797 pounds with the battery and oil. She weighed 811 when I got her so the dual controls didn’t add much and getting rid of brackets, bolts and going to aluminum seats helped.
I drove her down to get fuel and felt very foolish as I fumbled around with the ground and the credit card machine. As I drove away I felt like I had had the airport experience and I liked it. I adjusted the fuel gages to read full when I got back.
Then we had our paperwork crisis. I had weight and balance, I had my student pilot’s license and medical. I had the operating limitations. I had my birth certificate. I didn’t have the aircraft registration. This was a show stopper. We found it at my office and had a copy faxed and the real one will show up tomorrow. I had trouble locating my soda, but we found it stuck in my log book. This caused 48 minutes of indescribable panic.
Terry and I pre-rotated up to 100 rpm with Monte watching carefully and the aircraft was pronounced good to go.
Down the taxiway and we waited for Brandon in a SparrowHawk and a Cessna to land before we could take the numbers. The radio again became quiet.
We pre-rotated to 100 rpm and slowly began to accelerate. As the rotor rpm passed 260 the front wheel began to shimmy. I gave her a little more throttle and up came the front end. I found it very easy to balance and the throttle and rotor control was very nice. Off to the taxiway we went and around for another shot. This time we could only get 50 rpm and many of the instruments would not work properly with the power to the starter. We started a slow roll and the blades cam up quickly. I accelerated gently and balanced nicely on the mains. We were running out of runway so I set her back down. I found it Very satisfying after we overcame all the obstacles in our way. If nothing else goes wrong I will lift off on Wednesday.
I removed and replaced the radio, cleaned the contacts and reinstalled it. It works for now.
Today’s pictures are Maggie, the funnel dog continuing to provide comic relief and a shot of a happy Vance looking serious with Terry and Monte making sure all is well.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Thank you Brandon,
It has been a great collaborative effort. You helped a lot.
Thank you Birdie,
There is no front suspension and it is a catering nose wheel.
Thank you Paul,
We found a lose wire on the cylinder head temperature gage.
We checked all the connections on the radio and didn’t find anything. Then Brandon installed it in another aircraft and it worked perfectly. It slides into a little tray with a single bolt holding it in with a clip. When we reinstalled it in the Predator it worked fine, loud and clear. It always broadcast well. It was like the volume was turned down. By the end of the day it was not working again and I cleaned it with contact cleaner and it was still working at the end of today.
We had a great day today.
Jim Mayfield showed up yesterday and looked the machine over and approved all of my modifications. He had given Mark Givens his check ride so he was familiar with the ship. He said he would be back today to watch and reminded that he was retired. He has flown over two hundred first flights and I really wanted his assessment and numbers on the Predator but he made it clear that he would not fly.
I am ahead of myself. I was taking my shower at 4:30 am and I was imagining that the water bouncing off my head was ideas. I was thinking about the Pre-rotator and how it would only make 50 rpm and that this was a great way to flap the blades. It occurred to me that the alternator might not be working correctly and perhaps the battery was low. I know that this is obvious and in a less chaotic environment I probably would have realized it sooner. The volt meter had been in the green. We checked the battery and it was at six volts. We had great challenges finding a way to hook up the charger because the battery is not readily accessible and the main power switch disconnects everything with a solenoid that is not accessible. We finally found a way to make the charger and I was hoping for the best for the Pre-rotator.
We have always had a mystery switch. Starting at the upper left we had a master, a mystery switch, electric fuel pump and instrument lights. Lower left was Navigation lights, strobe lights, left landing and right landing light. The mystery switch didn’t seem to do anything. You airplane guys have already figured it out, but it had me stumped. It was field coils for the alternator. Apparently there are several good reasons to do it this way.
Back to the Mayfield experience. We told him about the shimmy in the front end and he said that he would taxi it to get a feel for the shimmy and feel out the stick shake. I sat in the back seat as we taxied around. He liked the way it handled so well that we pulled out onto the runway and pre-rotated to 120 rpm and off we went to find the shimmy. At about 50 miles per hour the front came up and around 60 we left the runway behind. I asked Jim about it later and he said it was a high taxi. We went around again for another high taxi the length of the runway and set her back down. On the third high taxi we high taxied the pattern. Mr. Mayfield was very pleased with the way it handled and is going to teach Terry to fly it tomorrow morning so he can teach me. He landed tail down and crooked to see how it would respond to my difficulty in locating the ground. She did very well, straightening out quickly and landing gently.
I worked some more at tightening up the controls. The stick shake was much improved by yesterday’s efforts so I wanted to keep going in that direction.
I aligned the rotor brake pads and that seemed to help.
I changed the way that the mag switches worked so that it is harder to turn them off.
I hope to get some hours in my log book tomorrow.
002 shows the mystery switch.
003 is Mayfield looking like a test pilot.
004 is Mayfield and Vance heading out for some taxi testing.
039 in Mayfield and Vance in a high taxi.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Diana:
Vance's Voyage
It is with great joy that I report Vance's maiden voyage in his very own gyro went wonderfully well this morning.
I don't want to steal his thunder, he will report all of the details to you in his next progress report, but I wanted to share my pics of the momentous occasion.
To put it in Vance's words, he is a "very happy boy" and is immensely appreciative of all of the help his friends have made to get him to this point.
Enjoy the pics!
By the way, when Vance was taxing in the parking lot the other day he was making donuts and laying rubber! He is way too excited!!!
Hello my friends,
Jim spent close to an hour with Terry exploring how the Predator flies. Then Terry spent some time in the front with Jim in the back learning how to save me when I screw up.
The first flight in my own Gyroplane was very exciting. There is something very special about flying such a special machine. I am not current and my situational awareness was terrible. Ground reference maneuvers seemed very easy. There was very little wind. I lost the airport and had to sift through several dairies before I was able to identify the airport. Dairies and hangers look very similar from 500 feet agl. The sun was low and it was difficult to read the instruments. We were having a very busy morning with four fixed wings and another gyroplane. I would literally tuck in behind the fixed wings. The gyroplane was much harder to see.
It feels like I am crawling my way into the air until I hit my altitude and back off the propeller rpm by about 500. It feels like I am floating and everything is working together.
I love the descending turn to land from 400 feet. I cut the power 600 rpm when I am abreast of my landing spot. The nose drops and I began to turn and descend at the same time. I have plenty of rudder authority and I began to develop a feel for left disk, right ruder to compensate for the cross wind.
We had a Stearman without a radio flying a left pattern start to land in the opposite direction of my landing. We generally fly a right pattern so he apparently didn’t have charts either. It certainly got my attention.
The second hour we practiced a lot of take offs and landings. I was a little tired and making mistakes by the end of the hour and Terry and I agreed that it was time to stop.
I had lunch and tightened up some things on the Predator. We were going out for a third hour when one of the Lufthansa student pilots landed with one brake on, spun around and flattened a tire. It was more than an hour before we removed his aircraft from the runway.
The last hour was take offs and landings. As fast as we could make them. Oil temperature got a little high and we found she climbed best at 50 miles per hour. The thermals would sometimes feel like an elevator and we often exceeded 500 feet per minute climb. I started to feel comfortable with the different mistakes I would make because there always seemed to be some way to mitigate the impact of the mistake. I flared high, I flared low and flew her into the runway, and I was even comfortable with a go around when I flared way to high. I had very little trouble keeping her lined up with the runway and I began to develop a feel for left disk, right rudder as we had a cross wind from the left.
I am still having radio problems. It is as though the volume is turned way down. It makes it very hard to understand what people are saying and it increases Terry’s work load. The intercom makes it worse. The wind in the open cockpit exacerbates the problem.
I need to get the radio fixed and install a mode C transponder before I can fly safely at KSMX, a towered airport with some commercial traffic and a lot of helicopters.
Tomorrow is Terry’s birthday so the best I can hope for is a couple of hours and then back to Santa Maria for maintenance and repairs.
84 is a descending turn
85 is an early landing.
Thank you all, this was a fun thread for me.
Thank you, Vance
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Vance Breese
Thank you Tim, Birdy, and Joseph.
Mark, it is good to see you getting your SparrowHawk back together after your set back at Wauchula. I agree with you about the people at Buckeye, they are first rate.
Edward, I have not done a double hang test yet so I don’t know where the vertical center of gravity is.
Today didn’t go quite as well as the rest of the week. Monte found a metal shaving in the grease below the rotor head bearing so we disassembled the rotor system and replaced the two bearings. By the time we had it back together the wind had come up so no flying today. I had that gnawing fear that I wouldn't be able to put her back together again. I hope that one day I will have the self confidence to avoid the trepidation that seems to come in waves. It feels good to have gone through virtually every system but the engine.
As She sits on the trailer compared to the beginning of the week, She has a rotor brake that works, the controls are tightened up in several places, she has new rotor head bearings and all the other bearings in the head have been cleaned and tested, we did a hang test and extensive weight and balance, She has been flown by a first class test pilot, Jim Mayfield, and Inspected by a very good A&P mechanic, Monte, that specializes in gyroplanes and has eyes like an eagle. Terry learned to fly her and passed as much as he could on to me.
I have over twenty take offs and landings and some air work. All in all, a good week!
We discovered some challenges with the radio, some stick shake, fixed the cylinder head temperature gage and I know that I need a transponder if I want to leave class E air space.
I need to get the radio fixed so we can train in two weeks.
Next comes a slider head from Ernie and I am going to tighten up the controls some more to help the stick shake. I have a different way to do the controls that doesn’t have the bend in the control rods, but I don’t think that I have time to get it done and it will be a shame to throw away all the parts for the dual controls on the rotor control.
I love how forgiving of my weaknesses the Predator is. It feels like I am landing on a big marshmallow when I come down hard and I went around once when I flared too high and it was a non event. Cross wind landings seem to make sense now and I feel like I always have options.
I am working on learning about transponders so I can make an informed choice.
I have lots of details that I would like to change, but I want to spend time flying and I don’t want to get side tracked. This is, after all why I bought a flying Autogiro. I did not buy it as another project.
I never did get to see my friend Mike, who lives close to the Buckeye airport. I was in the hustle mode the whole week. Sorry Mike, I didn’t even call because I kept thinking that things would slow down. That is no excuse for my bad manners.
Today was the most chaotic and at the end everyone was helping me finish so they could lock up. It was Terrie’s Birthday today and he left a little early.
Best rate of climb was 500 feet per minute, best pre-rotator rpm was 130. She doesn’t overheat even in the hot Arizona sun.
Thank you all for your support, Vance
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Vance Breese
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Last modified at 1/31/2008 7:29 PM by GYROWIKI\administrator
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