Autorotation tail drive kit?
 

I just found a tail drive kit for the Shuttle in autorotation.

Seriously!

I found it in a box of parts at the local hobby shop. I havent seen or heard anything about such a contraption.

Its part # 0402-231 and its just a hat bushing that sits below the main drive gear and sandwiches a greased O-ring between them. I guess it acts like a torque limiter so if the tail rotor drag becomes too much the oring slips so as not to degrade the headspeed.

Its just crazy enough to work, but I'm not sure if I'm crazy enough to try it.

Anyone ever see, use, install or mess with one of these things?

I took a pic of it for reference,

Tony

RE: Autorotation tail drive kit?
 

I think Hirobo changed the part number to 0402-580 and raised the price on those to 19.95. You gonna try it out? I was just east of you last week flying off the New Jeruselum air strip and saw they have a cool RC strip next door on the old runway, ever go out there to fly? I am flying for an outfit part time up there in Tracy. Maybe I will bring some toys up with me to fly this week. I lost my TR gearbox on my Raptor the other day, but my shuttle is always ready to go.

RE: Autorotation tail drive kit?
 

THose worked pretty well, but you should allow it to slip more than grab as usually 550 main blades do not have a lot of stored auto energy for drastic tail drive manuevers. It will usually only help you point rather than be a substantial tail drive like that found on the 50 and 90's

Jeff

RE: Autorotation tail drive kit?
 

Thanks Mr Clue and Hirobo

I will have to give that tail drive a try. Sounds kinda interesting.

As far as the flying fields go, I havent been to the New Jeruselum field. I mainly fly at the EBRC field since its only a few miles from my house in Livermore. I hope to be able to fly there sometime this weekend.

This helicopter stuff is turning out to be alot of fun. Its pure mechanical mayhem!

T

RE: Autorotation tail drive kit?
 

I installed the auto rotation tail drive o-ring kit. I must say that it does seem to help keep the heli pointed straight ahead when you go into throttle hold. Before the kit was installed I noted a slight twist to the right as the power came off. Seems a bit less pronounced now and I was able to use some tail input during the auto phase before touch down. I have to play with it more but my autos from around 6 to 7 feet were nicely controlled and on heading!!!! Its a confidence booster because all my landings on Sunday were autos from 4 to 6 feet.

I noted that the kit came with 3 washers to set up the tension on the O-ring. I put two washers in and it just started to turn the tail rotor with lots of slippage. I then put all three washers in and it seemed to be a bit too tight, although it really drove the tail rotor well. I figured I would lose too much rotor speed like that so I removed one thin washer. Thats worked well so far.

Tony