Yeah... I had my first successful autogyro flights today. I'm still excited about it, even after 5 hours!!! I took the mast, blades and landing gear from my [link=http://www.kemi.fi/kk019065/models/gyro/autogyro.htm]first autogyro project[/link] and added it to my friends bluestick trainer (again I'm using others planes for my tests). This time it flew. This was maybe due to longer tail and fixed pitch for aft tilt. There were "traditional!" elevator control this time. I try to take pictures about this configuration later. Here are some pics about [link=http://www.kemi.fi/kk019065/vesitaso/vesilenn.htm]normal bluestick.[/link]

My autogyro was unstable and tried to fall to both sides. Luckily I found it out on third flight that the aileron servo had broke. It was JP's mini-servo. The servo obviously didn't like autogyros as much as I did... I'm planning to fit there a futaba std servo. Are these supposed to be stable to fly on the "aileron" axis? I mean with undamaged servos

I just can't wait to get more test flights

Goodness me! What an unusual flying field for the `Bluestick`! Do you fly the autogyro over the ocean too?
Seems your servo was too weak. I had a rotor tilt pushrod come undone once and wondered why the plane tilted to one side - however I cut the throttle and it landed with no damage.
Traditional elevator control instead of forward/aft tilting rotors. - One of my autogyros has this, the other two are full DC (no moving elevator). I don`t find any great difference in the handling, maybe a benefit is less strain on the servo (read Hal`s comments earlier about servos for forward/aft tilt).
Stabilty - I can only speak from own experience with three models, as I have never seen anyone else`s autogyro fly. (none others here in NZ that I know of). I find my planes sensitive to sideways tilt, but OK as long as I keep alert. Reponse to correction is quick. I guess you could say sideways stability is `neutral`. Others may have different views.
Incidently I find no need for any permanent sideways tilt, just build the plane with everything straight, including tailplane etc.
Colin Duthie

Some questions more:

1) Is the rotor supposed to tilt back on DC when pulling the right stick back (equals to up elevator)? I had this opinion on my first autogyo and the helipilots had opposite opinion about it.
2) Metal or nylon geared servo for the "aileron" (.15 sized model)? Or does it make any difference?

I built the autogyros because I wanted to be different from average fliers. I have never seen others flying one as a model or as a full size. There seems to be rather small amount of modelers doing autogyros.

Tilting the rotors backwards is the same as `up elevator`. So which ever Transmitter stick you would use for elevator on an ordinary plane is the one to use for an autogyro, and back stick means down tail and up with the nose. Whether it is the left or the right stick depends on which mode you fly on.
Metal or plastic geared servos - Mine are plastic, adequate for a .15 powered model. In fact my .15 powered model uses some old servos, work fine, even withstanding some bad crashes!
My .35 and .40 powered planes use Futaba FP-S3001 with plastic gears - all fine so far.
Colin

That link of yours to those bluestick images made me feel cold just looking at them !

I have used very small micro servos on gyros up to about 36" rotor diameter. The forward and aft tilting servo (pitch) tends to take the greatest hammering and generally speaking takes the larger loads. Any rotor system larger than 32" diameter I usually use more standard servos like Futaba 148 or 3001.

One tip, if you can mount the rotor mast fractionally behind the axis point where the head tilts fore and aft this will offset a lot of the strain on the pitch servo. Its called an offset gimbal and is used on full size gyros to ease the workload on those poor sensitive pilots

Aileron axis is usually not quite as stable as say a fixed wing trainer model. You can improve things a bit by having a lower centre of gravity by say having a higher rotor mast ?! Mind you if you can put up with it I find that its all part of the challenge.

If you want design and flying info take a look at www.autogyro.com Most of what you want to know is in there if you look hard enough. www.gyronuts.com is another useful place for general info.

Sean

I made new flights with undamaged aileron servo and rudder servo. This time it flew better. I could say it flew actually well. I'm pleased to those flying characteristics especially because it is just a rotor on a trainer after all

The flying place is still on Kemi River, which was shown on the other bluestick pictures. On these pictures the ice is much thicker. And yes, we do also fly on frozen ice. You can see more winter flying pics on my homepage: www.kemi.fi/kk019065/models/

Do I call this as a bluestick or is this a new plane? I shall call this as the Red Avenger It is sure not a pretty one but at least it flies.!!!