Talking about governors...

[Danyboy]

Fellow freaks...

Though I have my first Gasser in front of me, I'm starting to think ahead, especially after some excellent vid's from some board-member here... ;)

As far I understand, the type of carburetors that are installed (membrane-pump), there's no need for a pressure-tank. So far so good.

I informed myself about the current situation on governors in my LHS and received an input, I'd like to hear your comments on:

Problem with a governor, is it hides problems that might come from temperature by high loads. If the engine gets warm, you'll get less power. That's being masked by the governor by regulating. Just until a point, where the governor already regulated to 100% to keep the headspeed, resulting in bog... Heavy bog...
I know from movies, not having a governor tends to get a short transient over or underspeed due to the big throw of the gas servo for the amount of required power, compared to the nitros.

I ask you:
Did you ever get problems with the governor?
Mind you, I just received an old Robbe Futura Millenium that has the ZG-22 conversion kit installed. Basically dialled in, flown five times, then putten into a corner and nicely stored for ten years. I am very aware that ten years ago, technology wasn't that far down the road than it's nowadays, so I do expect to have enough power, but not much to spare...

Do you really have problems to keep headspeed under big load-changes? I can't imagine it's that much...

Your opinions, please? :)

Cheers,

Daniel

[rbort]

I don't believe governors will hide problems so well as people assume, especially if you get everything running as you expect and then turn on the governor. The gv-1 comes equipped with an on/off channel that you can put on the gear switch and turn if off, get everything right, and then turn it on.

After the heli is setup and you go fly with the governor, I don't think the engine can lean SO much that the governor will go to full throttle an hide the situation. If anything the heli may run a little faster with gv-1 off than with on if it leans out a bit, but that never hurt anything.

I'm sure some people will disagree, but my opinion is if you are reserving not buying a gv-1 because you think it will hide something then I'll say that's a bad thought to judge it that way.

-=>Raja.

[Danyboy]

Hey Raja,

Thank you very much for your opinion...

Well, let's say, that for me, that "cover-up" issue would be the only one really valid. It's not strongly against, but in my opinion to be taken into consideration: If I can tune my engine successfully, then why buy a governor anyway? :)

I went back to the shop and asked further and there we go:
The situation in question happened on a hot day (actually it was the summer of record-temperatures), at high altitude (almost at 4000ft, instead of the usual 1500ft) and with a camera underneath. Now that sounds somewhat plausible, right? ;)

Well, let's see anyhow how the engine will run and tune in...

In any way, I'd be open for some more opinions?

Cheers,

Daniel

[ArthurKnowles]

I bought my govenor to maintain a constant headspeed during manuvers more than anything else. And I think it will work well for that. I would never expect a govener to be useful for a serious altitude change. Not until you change the pitch curve to match at least.

People that have been flying planes or helicoptors at higher altitudes already know that you need to increase the pitch of the prop/blade to maintain the same performance. An underpitched prop/blade just will not produce the same power. FWIW, tempature will also affect the performance. In fact, I just read an interesting article in one of my helicoptor magazines where Curtis Youngblood (I beleive) discusses how altitude/temp would make a difference in performance for contast flying and how you would need to modify the helicoptor.

I think a govenor should be used to maintain the headspeed of a properly configured helicoptor at you usualy fly site. Anyting else, and you'll need to reconfigure the helicoptor. If you are using an AV rig and traveling a lot, I suggest you just stick to the stock setup and use throttle/pitch curves. You can also add a bit of throttle to pitch mix and/or cyclic to pitch mix to help maintain a constant headspeed.

[Danyboy]

Arthur,

You somewhat catched me the wrong way around... ;)

The only thing I would look forward in a governor is constant speed, because that's the only purpose of a unit, that is called governor in a technical correct sense...

My question is, whether any of you had similar expirience, that performance changes were masked by the governor until he couldn't keep up and the RPM dropped in due course.

The information about hot'n'high'n'camera'n'stuff was only to confirm, that (in my opinion/guess) the performance-trouble does not appear to be that big, unless you went for all those power-suckers, like hot-and-high condition, heavy weight and such.
I do *not* intend to do the same...

I really just wanted to know, whether this was a one-time occurence or if other people could report the same, though I did not believe this to happen too often...

Cheers,

Daniel