FC/DC

Hey anyone have a roto chopper . If im gona Fly its gota be in style!

Matt22

iTrader: (10)

no but i would like to see one. i am sure there are some rotary aviation forums though. let me know if oyu find one cause it would be cool to look thorugh.

Aviator 902S

A guy by the name of Jim Mayfield has been running 13B-powered gyrocopters at his training faucility in Arizona for ten or 15 years. He has accumulated 2500+ hours between engine overhauls, which beats the hell out of standard Lycoming aircraft engines in the same hp range--- most of them last about 2000, with a partial overhaul (top overhaul) required well before that.

limbar85

iTrader: (21)

do they even use lycoming engines in freeking gyrocopters? and only 2k outta them? thats to short. the only reason u should only be getting 2k outta the lycoming is if you absolutely kill it. its highly recommended to rebuild at 2k, but lots of it is for safety reasons. u can go fine with 3k. my dads heli's 2200 hour time out is set by the faa, so its manditory to rebuild it if u want to stay legal, but really, the engine should be fine. most people just use subaru engines for the gyro's. and why the hell would u wanna fly a gyro anyways? they kill more people than its worth to fly. they are just dangerous as hell. and dont even argue that its not.

Aviator 902S

Actually, most gyrocopters use engines that are way lighter than the Lycoming 320 and 360-series engines. The smaller Subaru engines, as well as Rotax (both 2 and 4-stroke) are quite common. Mazda 13B engine installations are almost as heavy as the Lycomings but are more powerful than any of the Subaru or Rotaxes used for this purpose.

As for the Lycoming 2000-hr TBO, yes, these engines can (with proper care and feeding) exceed 2000 hrs--- after all, TBO is only an arbitrary figure that is only legal and binding for aircraft registered for commercial use. Private owners can continue to run them on an "on condition" basis.

But those engines that exceeed TBO seem to be the exception to the rule. In order to do this they must be meticulously maintained and not abused by shock-cooling, over-leaning or otherwise mis-handled. They must also be flown frequently for long durations (ie: in excess of one hour) in order to burn off any condensation or moisture that tends to corrode bearings, camshafts, etc as the aircraft sits. If there's one thing that's every bit as detrimental to these engines as the above-mentioned poor treatment, it's letting them sit for extended periods and only flying them for the occasional short hop. Yet this is exactly what many owners do. And many flight schools and other aircraft rental facilities rent their planes to people who don't have a stake in the aircraft's long-term well-being--- so they save fuel by over-leaning and save time by slam-dunking back into the home field with the engine at idle, a recipe for shock-cooling.

This is the main reason thay many of these highly-regarded "certified" aircraft engines don't even make it to 1200 hrs (let alone 2000) without a top overhaul costing in excess of 10K. Meanwhile, a properly-installed auto conversion Mazda rotary is immune to the type of failures associated with shock-cooling (they're liquid-cooled), over-leaning (they have no valves to burn) and infrequent short hops. Yeah, I know--- sitting for extended periods and only flying the occasional touch and go is not good for any engine, even this one. But the damage is far less detrimental than that seen in Lycomings and Continentals, and a new rotary only costs around 3 or 4K vs. 30K for the Lycoming. (BTW, I fly for fun and maintain aircraft for a living, so I do have a clue).

In fact, there is simply no good excuse for an engine costing 30K not getting at least 2000 hours without having to do an overhaul of any kind--- yet these unscheduled tear-downs happen more often than not, and apologists for these engines continue to rationalize by claiming that these are still the best engines for the job. They're not--- and anybody who claims otherwise is lying or sadly mis-informed, or not willing to look beyond the ends of their noses for viable alternatives.

You're right to a degree about gyros being dangerous--- they kill a higher percentage of pilots than any other aircraft type. But the reason for this has more to do with the pilots than the machines. First, many of these aircraft qualify as ultralights. This means that many who buy them don't have much (if any) flight training to begin with--- and since there aren't many flight-training facilities around the specialize in gyrocopter training these fools try to train themselves after reading a book on the subject (!) Talk about ***** of steel and brains of oatmeal.

But as for instability and difficulty to fly, the helicopter takes top honors here. With a gyrocopter, if the engine quits you can glide without worrying about dropping the collective in time--- because gyros are always in auto-rotation. And with no tail rotor required to counter torque, there's one less item to go wrong. If a helicopter loses its engine the pilot must drop the collective immediately to get the blades to auto-rotate and facilitate a safe landing. If he doesn't, the blades load up and stop due to excess drag and the aircraft comes down like a ******* anvil. A tail-rotor failure on the other hand is often fatal because without a means to counter rotor torque the aircraft spins out of control even if the collective is immediately dropped. Power must be reduced to idle to minimize this tendency if you lose the tail rotor.

The difference here of course is that helicopter pilots are much more highly trained than gyro (and many fixed-wing) pilots, so there are fewer incidences per aircraft. Helis and fixed-wing aircraft are therefore statistically safer than gyrocopters.

limbar85

iTrader: (21)

very nice. u state the gyro has an advantage over the heli if the engine is lost. yes and no. sure u can look at it the way u stated (whole reaction with the collective), but heli pilots, like u stated, obviously have more hours,experience, and knowledge of what to do in these situations. that is exactly what is pushed in heli training, how to autorotate. misconception with everyone is that in a heli, if the engine dies, your just f**ked. nah....u should know what your doing and make it to the ground fine, and i mean that in a safe way, your obviously going to the ground no matter what. surely, not very many people have experienced a real engine failure and have had all that intensity and fear in themselves to land good without damage to the heli, but most people can make it to the ground soft enough so they dont recieve severe injuries, whether they damage the heli or not. at least the heli provides some protection to u. my dads cousins friend used to fly gyros for the longest time. he was a good pilot actually...but loved to show off in a sense. he was flying his gyro from the airport to a near by baseball field (or something) like he usually does before winter so he can park it at his house. ended up his wits got him in deep ****. he hit power lines, gyro flipped, and landed upside down. without any protection provided from the gyro, it killed him and the passenger. now, getting back on track, with the gyro, its not like your not going to be dropping fast without an engine. i think the minimum speed is around 50-70 mph for the blades to be spinning fast enough for flight. u cant just pic a stop where u want to land and start slowing down and hover in like a heli normally could from far away. u still need speed to keep the blades spinning. anyways...im done.