Here's a picture of my Wallis autogyro. All this talk about gyros made me get this out last week, knock off the dust and fire it up. It started great, very strong but kicked the prop nut off a couple of times. I cured that problem with a rubber washer. I tried to take-off from the same grass field as in the picture but as you can see, it's full of holes. When I released the teather, the machine moved about 10 feet, flipped on it's side and became a lawn tiller....UUGLLYY. Believe it or not, the only noteable damage was a small chip on the main blade.

To make a longer story short, this machine is a wall ornament until I can get some better resourced on flying it.

The Wallis looks good. It does look like the Benson's that have been Customized to look better. Do I see a belt drive.
I think if you do a lot of reading about getting the rotor speed up and setting up the blades it should go. Some of the new blade designs might help also.
Good Luck.
Jim

Hello Swim...
Good looking Wallis! I have one too and have had some real 'adventures' with it. The best flight was one in which the plane lifted off, was in a right turn to come back toward me at about 20' of altitude when one of the linkages on the swash plate let go. Result was an immediate "earth rise".

There is a photo of one in flight on Jim Baxter's autogyro.com site.

I have added a ball bearing thrust bearing at the bottom of the rotor shaft to help autorotation. Also have added 1,2 and 3 deg of positive incidence to the symmetrical blades in hopes of generating more lift. This does seem to help BTW.

My next approach will be to put an FMA co-pilot on the plane to see of that will help stabilize the flight characteristics. In addition I'll install a set of blades with the SG6042 airfoil, which seem to be pretty effective for model autogyros.

Bill

Thanks for the input. The blades seem to spin-up pretty well, I'll have to work on the pitch, however; it's not like my helicopters which have adjustable linkage to control pitch: It's a piece of steel that must be bent to control pitch. My biggest fear is breaking the blades; I didn't think they could be replaced. What's everyone else using for blades? Are helicopter blades adaptable?

Yes it is a belt drive, is that good or bad?

Thanks again.

Hello again....

Here's an attempt to respond to your questions. I hope others will pitch in too!

The belt drive is to pre-rotate the rotor, prior to take off. An autogyro rotor generates lift when it is in what is called "autorotation". This is a condition where the lift of the blades workiing against the tilt back angle of the mast actually creates a small vector which pulls the blade forward.

If the blades are symmetrical (as I understand is usually the case with helicopter blades) and there is no positive incidence between the chord line of the blade and the plane of rotation, then there won't be much, if any lift. So for symmetrical blades a shim can be placed under the blade ahead of the mounting bolt to give various degrees of positive incidence to the blade, and therefore it will create lift as it is spun up by the prerotation system, or later, is is kept spinning when the plane is flying by the autorotation of the rotor.

Also note that the Wallis has an overrunning clutch so that when autorotation takes over, the rotor spins faster than the motor driven belt system.

As far as breaking blades is concerned, using a single mounting bolt will allow the blade to swing to its neutral position as it spins up and when it hits the ground (unfortunately) it can swing back and avoid damage.

While symmetrical (helicopter) blades can probably be made to work, a cambered airfoil seems to be a better route to go. The Clark-Y is O.K. but it seems that the SG6042 is really outstanding in generating lift.

The Clark-Y has an angle of zero lift coefficient something in the vicinity of -3.5 degrees. While the SG6042's angle of zero lift coefficient is nearly -5 degrees. Thus the 6042 can be set with negative incidence of a degree or so to generate a windmill starting effect and still be generating plenty of lift to carry it into autorotation.

Sorry for the wordy answer, hope this helps.

Bill

My spin up device goes to 400rpm and shows great promise. see my pics.

Merry xmas and a prosperous new year to all gyronuts.
Whilst not wishing to be a killjoy! My advice for the Wallis is apply full power, release the string and as the model is just about to pitch up and become airborne throttle back to about 70 - 75% throttle and it then FLIES quite nicely but is VERY difficult to orientate. If you don't throttle back then it pitches up to the near vertical ...everyone runs away and the model hits the ground ...the blades swing back and the model motors along with a strange wobble BUT little or no dam,ge except to ones pride and underwear!! I have a video of this strange phenomena!!
Best advice....sell the model on ebay and build a direct control one from plans... see www.autogyro.com or artf/kit from www.autogyro-rc.com.
You won't regret replacing the Wallis. Thats what I did. Bill

Hi Swimdude
My Wallis type Gyro G-CRKT has a .49 motor with a belt drive to a lay shaft to a pinion /crown wheel to a shaft with flex. boat couplings with a friction roller that rubs on a disc in the rota head, when full forward on pitch. A 15 to 1 ratio. Spins to 400 rpm when motor at 6000 rpm. Not flown yet but taxys and spins up well and shows great promise. The big problem is to stop lifting off before Autorotation, all my Gyros have this problem, hope this one cures it.

For interest there is a very good guide to flying the Wallis on www.autogyro.com .
Once on the site go to "technical" then click "flying" then " flying the wallis autogyro"
Bill
If anyone needs one...I have an original "MM WALLIS Instruction manual"
Over the last 30 years a group of four of us at infrequent intervals have flown , successfully and mostly othwerwise, the
Kalt Robin, Micromold Wallis , gyrace , Fa61 , Silverbird, Huff and Puff, suitcase minnie, Robbe Whopper, whistler , Al's autogyro .
In fact I even have an untouched Arizona Autogyro company Profile 2D cnc kit for sale or swap!