THIS VIDEO *COULD* SAVE YOUR LIFE!! Rotorblade Flap on Takeoff!

okay welcome back captain ron here uh today we're going to discuss a serious problem that we have with with the gyroplanes causing a lot of accidents and it's a rotor blade flap on your very first takeoff when you when you're required to re pre-spin the blades up and i'd like to demons illustrate here a couple of the situations to call like the danger zones that you can get in trouble on takeoff now in your very first takeoff you obviously have to pre-rotate the blades to the manufacturer's recommendations as far as rpms go okay and it's usually depicted on your rotor tachometer instrument as the green zone so okay the first uh zoned danger zone you can get into is not pre-rotating enough rpm before you move the cyclic back add power for takeoff now you're you're you're getting a lot of air speed through the rotor blades and they're tilted all the way back so if they're not spinning fast enough they don't have enough centrifugal force to maintain their stiffness and that and then in slow motion what happens this advancing blade that's the blade going in the same direction you're going comes around and meets this all this air speed flaps it up the blade that's going backwards obviously it's a tearing system it flaps down so every revolution it keeps flapping up and down up and down and you'll feel a vibration in the cyclic so to immediately you want to push the cyclic forward pull the throttle back so that's the first danger zone in rotor blade flap on takeoff so let you let's say you've uh you pre-spin the blades up to the green zone in your rotor tachometer and they're spinning fast enough the stick is always forward to spin them up now you're ready to release the mechanical pre-rotator and when you first do that move the cyclic back and add power as soon as you move the cyclic back the rotor disc is going to start slowing down because it at the moment you don't have any air speed coming in unless you have a lot of headway so the rotors might stay where they're at or slow down and you slowly nurse the throttle in and bring these rotor blades up to a higher rpm your pre-rotated all its function is to get the blade started then you have to continue its rotor blade increase with the throttle going down the runway as you get air speed in now at some point in time on your initial roll for takeoff you can't leave the cyclic all the way back if you do the machine's going to tilt back get in the air on the back side the power curve so to avoid that as you're going down the road on the runway you push the cycle forward a little bit flatten the disc out reduce the drag get air speed and ground speed and it's recommended you don't want to push the cycle too far forward because now the nose is on the ground and you've got an area here where the cyclic is doesn't give you any feedback you don't know where you're at and you've got the disc too flat too much speed rotor blades aren't spinning up like they should then the pilot recognizes pulls a stick back flaps the blades and tips over so that's the the second zone where you can get into trouble so what we're going to do now is we're going to go out in the aircraft and demonstrate these two problems that we have one initi initially pre-spinning the rotor blades up and two uh moving the cyclic too far forward as you roll down the runway trying to get air speed for takeoff let's go fly okay we're gonna hopefully demonstrate what we just finished illustrating to you about rotor blade management on on your first takeoff [Music] unfortunately when you train with a flight instructor you uh just pre-rotate that one time for whatever however long you're going to be flying so most students don't get enough uh training and and first take off [Music] generally the practice is at least the practice i use is once i feel the student is prepared for solo flight we'll do approximately two hours of nothing but first takeoffs fly the runway land stop every stop your rotor blades taxi back this this will get you quite used to the uh systems of whatever aircraft airplane you're flying and it's just been a lot of accidents and they continue uh always uh the number one accident is traffic charlie left base runway it's caused by rotor blade flap on take off now you can uh you can get rotor blade flap if you if you taxi with a rotor blade spinning i don't teach that and some people spin the pre-rotate at the whole short line uh because they don't want to sit out on the center line of the runway uh i guess they're afraid somebody's gonna another aircraft's gonna overtake them but that's generally not the case if for instance if you're sitting at the whole short line like we are right now and we've got a good traffic gopro and we have a good win down the runway it's a crosswind to me right now so if i pre-spin my rotor blades and and then start taxiing and for some reason tilt the cyclic downwind in this case the winds coming from our right so i would accidentally inadvertently tip the cyclic to the left now the wind is underneath your rotor disc and it's gonna tip you over if the wind is strong enough and your rotor blades are spinning uh probably 125 or whatever 150. we're waiting on an aircraft at the moment so i'm going to illustrate or demonstrate to you the two places where you can get [Music] rotor blade flat now just because when you pre-rotate with whatever mechanical means you have to pre-rotate in in that specific gyro plane up to the recommended the manufacturer's recommended uh minimum road rpm for takeoff to to start your rolling takeoff now once you get the blades up to speed and they become into the green area on your road rpm which is safe to fly or continue power inputs uh that's one place you can get rotor blade flat if you don't spin them up into the green area before you start your roll down the runway now once you complete that that doesn't mean you're out of the safety zone because at one point in time you've got to push the cyclic forward to get air speed and and if you if you move the cyclic forward too much you're going to flatten the rotor disc out your rotor blades not going to continue to spin up and you're going to get a lot of ground speed air speed and that's what happens on the on the rotor blade flap they move the cyclic back too quick after being forwarded too much okay here we go searching traffic yellow jar plane lining up waiting for departure 0-1 searching [Music] this is not an easy video because i have to be careful how i demonstrate this to you because i can't demonstrate reality otherwise i'd be a victim of rotor blade flap on takeoff okay we're going to go through the checklist here there's traffic oh bad two too far charlie turning [Music] all right we'll get our blade spun up [Music] all right we're going to go up the in this case uh 225 rpm okay stick comes all the way back and leave it back centered and now first thing you're going to see is your rotor blade is going to reduce an rpm so you can get some power and get some movement down the runway okay now at this point we're at about 300 rpm on the rotor now if you move if you don't move the stick forward like i got it back you're not going to get any air speed enough air speed to get take off so i'm going to lower the nose and push this move the stick forward just a little bit okay that's going to give me now if i for instance lower it too much [Music] and put the nose on the ground i don't know where i'm at and i'm just keep getting faster and faster and the blades aren't coming up right now they're at 300 rpm and i'm doing 40 miles an hour on the ground the blade should be up higher than that because i have the disc too flat so i'm going to move the cyclic back and it's best to keep the nose just bumping the ground if you have to and add power [Music] add power and then you take leave the ground take off level up and you're safe but that's very critical those two the two parts in the rotor blade management on takeoff charlie is turning based on one seriously [Music] yeah once once the pilot recognizes he's moved the cyclic forward too far at that point in time it's uh you better abort the takeoff but what they generally do is they say well i need to move the cyclic back so they immediately pull the cyclic all the way back and the blades aren't used to that that angle of attack a sudden angle of attack for the rotor blades [Music] therefore [Music] uh just chops the propeller the tail and eventually rolls you over [Music] all right i'm going to stop everything and we'll tax you back and i'll do it one more time for you [Music] yep remember axiom you want your rotor blades stopped so we'll stop here and we'll energize and this system it's all pneumatic you pull the trim button back and it's quite an effective road to break and if you got a strong crosswind you want to tilt the cyclic into the wind as a rotor blade stop [Music] okay so remember when you when you get your flight training uh you shouldn't have to encourage the cfi to to put more emphasis on the initial initial takeoff but you may want to make sure you get enough of that to feel comfortable and to learn all the systems that are associated with that specific general plan now you got you you know some gyroplanes the earlier models are the single place [Music] this the earlier model jar planes and still some out there today the single places generally before the european uh jail planes came up came on the market but those uh the pre-rotators are usually maximum probably 125 rpm and obviously that's not enough rpm to to take off with so you're taught it's the only way you can fly you're taught to gradually feed the power in and can kind of glance at the road attack occasionally and and nurse those rotor blades up to speed up to into the green zone until and you'll notice that the nose will you'll feel back pressure on the other cycling and and that's another thing i mean i should have mentioned and we'll do that on our next takeoff is you want to always feel a little braking force on the rotor system or like a little bit of forward come back a little bit just kind of keep it in that neutral area this is a after you pre-spin release the brakes stick all the way back in the center then you would gradually feed power in to continue to get the rotor blades up to speed as soon as you release the mechanical pre-rotator and move the cyclic back and your rotor blades are going to slow down immediately because you don't you don't have any air speed through the rotor blades to to spin them up and one condition if you have a a strong wind in your face like 15 to 20 miles an hour in then when you move the cyclic back after pre-rotation you can just sit there and the blades will come up to speed by their own because you already have air speed you don't need ground speed because of the wind [Music] and most of these european gyroplanes this is the uh auto gyro mto sport uh they they pros pre-spin up this will come up to 325 but that's called a performance takeoff and uh a new pilot should avoid that [Music] until that person gets enough time experience [Music] just flying the standard takeoff and generally the high performance takeoff at a high rpm max road rpm is generally used to take off out of a short field and it's best to stay away from the short fields when you're first learning uh you know you want plenty of runway because your your proficiency is not going to be good uh you're a new pilot there's a lot of mental and physical uh multitasking going on especially on the first takeoff you know you got rotor blades to contend with you got the rudder the cyclic the throttle everything has to be in harmony you gotta gotta work them all together and not only physically move these controls but you have to mentally you know think about everything you're doing so it's it's a you got to pay attention and stay focused on the first takeoff [Music] beautiful day out here today i wish we had a little more wind down the runway where i could uh slow things down and but we'll do another one and hopefully we'll cover all the important details i do have a video out about uh a coordination between the rudder nose wheel and cyclic you may want to watch that one it's it does explain uh in image to illustrate the coordination on take off with a cyclic position okay you look clear there's only one one other aircraft in the pattern i think he's landed already so we're good thirsty traffic yellow jar plane lining up waiting for departure on zero one searching now when you're out on the center line the runway it's your runway don't don't worry about somebody running into you you always check traffic before you go out uh you look some airplanes don't have a radio so you have to look and listen like crossing a railroad track okay and get out on the center you know some of these some people say well you know i want to pre-rotate before i go out on the runway because i'm afraid i don't want to stay out there too long you're flying the aircraft you're you're pilot command you got the runway at this point okay all right we're going to pre-spin the blades [Music] and we'll go up to 225 rpm that puts me just in the beginning of the green on the road rpm no wind today so i'm not going to get any help there all right here we go now when i move the cycling back yeah the rotors are maintaining i'm gonna just give a little throttle stick is all the way back you want that nose to become light you don't want to push that cyclic forward yet and you don't want to push it forward you just ease it forward okay now now the nose is off the ground i'm a little high now if i go forward just the pad see it's almost a feel thing just a little bit to get air speed okay and that'll allow my rotor blades to come up to speed now they're 300 and i'll add a little more power and see we're already in the air at 325 rpm on the road so the main thing is keep the nose off the ground a little you may want to bump it just to know where you're at in the cyclic movement forward and half thank you appreciate you watching and see you next time

Channel: Ron's Gyros

Views: 94,851

Keywords: helicopter, helicopters, aviation, flight training, private pilot, pilot training, autogyro, gyrocopter, gyroplane, rotax, rotax aircraft engines, Gyros, rons gyros, Ron's Gyros, ronsgyros, Ron Menzie, Ronald menzie, ronalds gyros, mtosport, MTOSport, Certified Flight Instruction, Flight Training, instruction, gyro's, Ron's Gyro's, Flying videos, aircraft, airplane, Gyrocopter, density altitude, density altitude explained, flight training videos, rotor blade flap, rotor blades in flight

Id: oS0_Ep6mnaM

Length: 21min 25sec (1285 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 24 2022