Autorotation with 5 Blade Head?

[Trooper7]

Any thoughts or experiences?

When I try it on the sim it doesn't go very well.

[Margaritaman]

When you kill the power don't go as far negative, maybe even try zero pitch for a few seconds then ease into more negative. More blades equals more surface area and going too far negative too early will cause you to lose rotor speed...then you wobble and boom. Just my experience, your mileage may vary.

[Keyrigger]

I can't miss with the sim but so far, in real time with three helicopters, the best I have managed was one nearly successful landing with the TOW Defender with a five blade head, four that were more of a controlled crash landing with mixed results in damage, and one that was memorable for having the motor needing 15 seconds to spool up and having 10 seconds of air. I flew that helicopter the next day, though. I just finished rebuilding a Logo 500 that will have a fairly low head speed (under 1700) so that I can learn to manage the collective in an autorotation landing. It seems that most scale helicopters tend to fall out of the air on account of their weight and the slow head speed we run them at. Aside from stopped rotor auto's done by 3D pilots, their high initial head speed is a bonus to keep the air moving over the blades as they begin their landings. What I might do is setup a very low head speed (under 500 rpm) where I can flip the switch to that and try to see how the helicopter handles the landing. At least the ESC will be live and not have any delay on starting up. I am using a Jazz ESC which does not have the "keep it live" feature of the CC ESC's. I will be at least a couple of hundred feet up for the first test and when I tried an auto once with my Jet Ranger from that height, it did work out well as I got it back up to speed with about 90 feet to spare. I know I will be missing some material from my shorts when I do the first auto right to ground, gulp. Take care.

Don