Bob Kelly
Well-Known Member
I tried something diferent the other night with Flight sim 2002 , I made a Tiny Gyro.... with a rotor diamator of only 17feet, ultralight of corse, and to my amazement after all the figures were double checked it flew great !
Now in reality that would realy be putting a heavy rotor loading on the rotor
by reduceing its airea like that , but it made me think , " How small of a rotor will actually Work on a gyro-copter " ?
If Flight sim is any where acurate the takeoff speed jumped to 40mph, cruse speed to 85mph and max speed to 100mph .
well within the limits of do-ability
.... with a 72hp engine in it , the preformance was fabulus ! climb rate was way up there probly close to 2000 fpm ....
and most suppriseing of all was i could land it with zero roll ,
So, my question is this , I know changeing the wing loading on a conventional wing will dramitially effect the glide ratio..., so I ASSUMED it would do the same for a rotating wing... but it looks more like a property of the speed the blade is turning than just loading, though loading obviously has an effect no doubt, So how small can a rotor be on a gyro and still fly reasonable well ?
... Gyros like the honey bee are made with overly big rotor diamators to make the loading as small as possable.... great for going slow and glideing but not so good for any speed at all, and even less attractive in gusty wind conditions than a smaller rotor would be in the same sinarrio...
least thats the way i see it,
so tell me why I shouldn't cut off 3feet of each rotor blade up there and
fly faster ?
( personally i just want to putt arround and not go fast , but what if ?)
Any comments ?
Bob......
Now in reality that would realy be putting a heavy rotor loading on the rotor
by reduceing its airea like that , but it made me think , " How small of a rotor will actually Work on a gyro-copter " ?
If Flight sim is any where acurate the takeoff speed jumped to 40mph, cruse speed to 85mph and max speed to 100mph .
well within the limits of do-ability
.... with a 72hp engine in it , the preformance was fabulus ! climb rate was way up there probly close to 2000 fpm ....
and most suppriseing of all was i could land it with zero roll ,
So, my question is this , I know changeing the wing loading on a conventional wing will dramitially effect the glide ratio..., so I ASSUMED it would do the same for a rotating wing... but it looks more like a property of the speed the blade is turning than just loading, though loading obviously has an effect no doubt, So how small can a rotor be on a gyro and still fly reasonable well ?
... Gyros like the honey bee are made with overly big rotor diamators to make the loading as small as possable.... great for going slow and glideing but not so good for any speed at all, and even less attractive in gusty wind conditions than a smaller rotor would be in the same sinarrio...
least thats the way i see it,
so tell me why I shouldn't cut off 3feet of each rotor blade up there and
fly faster ?
( personally i just want to putt arround and not go fast , but what if ?)
Any comments ?
Bob......
