Hello all,
Well, the only good thing about my first autogyro "flight" was that it was my first autogyro flight.
I built the gyro schtick as per RCM plans. Waited for a stiff breeze and tossed my lawn dart into it. It took a dive to the left. What i hypothesized is that I had not reached autorotation and the right 1/2 of the disk produced lift and the left didnt. Am i on the right track? Once I rebuild what should I do differently? Has anyone modified this design to ROG? I have not had any luck with hand launches(except my funflys) and prefer a 'real' takeoff.
I was thinking of running a pull cable from the aileron servo to a tailwheel that "fights" a rubber band. Set up the mechanics to be sensitive so very little disk movement would allow acceptable steering. Thanks for the help.

Snow

Dont give up the ship i had about a dozen trys before a sucsesful flight. i tryed a running takeof onetime just put it on the runway and let it go it tookoff only to fly toward the pits so i choped throtle and stoped it point is maybe with some directonal control it would work.keep trying the stick will fly.

Old Buzzard

Snow...

When I first tried flying my "Whistler" back in 1993, I had 65 "take off's" before the first successful "landing".

Take heart and be of good cheer, they DO fly!

Bill

OH no Mr Bill, I wish I knew that before I made my Spacewalker my test bed!

It's been blowing at 20 mph here for a week, now monsoon rain, will I ever get to test fly, (i.e. crash), my Spacewalker? :drowning:

Hi Snow,

Sorry about the flight, sounds familiar. On the ROG. My experience is that most small autogryos are difficult for ROG. My smallest is the Arizona Gyrobee and I have only tried ROG twice and failure both times but I have had many flights with hand launch. My only bad experience with hand launching is, I keep chopping my transmitter antenna off with the engine prop before I get the rotors spinning. If you hand launch the fun fly planes you should have no problem with the gyro. The most difficult part is getting the trim fairly close. With the gyro tilted back in one hand, you should feel the gyro blades pulling real hard, almost to the point that you feel your fingers going through the fuselage. Tilt the gyro forward until it's level and a slight push forward as the engine should now be up to full throttle and pulling hard. It sounds like I'm a salesmen for the Co-Pilot but it saved my Gyrobee on the first flight as I was trying to get it trimmed out and it flew into the sun and I had no idea where it was. In another instance, I launched an autogyro for it's first flight and after getting to a safe altitude I switched off the Co-Pilot and the gyro nosed up and flipped over on it's back but I had plenty of altitude to correct and fly again without rebuilding. If I had launched it without the Co-Pilot it would have done the same thing 5 ft off the ground. Hope the next flight is more successful.

Phil

Hi ya'll,
If a Giro flys decently there is no reason for it not to take off well.
However, unlike an airplane, you can't just head it down the runway and expect it to lift gracefully.
Without going into detail know that rotors have what is called
"retreating blade stall" and this is the cause of 90% of the aborts.
Fortunatly the RBS occurs in a narrow spectrum of the rotor RPM and unfortunately the RPM at left off is in the RBS spectrum. Once the RPM has increased beyond lift off speed the RBS is no longer
present. Yes, flight RPM is greater than at lift off
An honest proven answer to proper take offs consistantly is simply to "pre spin" the rotor to above the RBS spectrum.This can
be easily done. Attach an engine spinner to the blade hanger and
wind the rotor up ala an engine propeller with a starter motor or
better yet a power drill. Believe it works!
Good luck,

Hal debolt