Autorotation, #$%&?/

[woodbine-rc]

I learned today that autorotation is harder in real life than on the sim. I found out the hard way on the first time I tried it, which by the way was the second flight on the scale EC135 body. I'm still not sure why I even attempted it. it fell from about thirty feet and the only thing that broke was the balsa wood frame. I got lucky, now I just gotta figure out how to make a new one.

[rotormonkey]

It's gonna be a whole lot tougher with a scale fuse than without due to the added weight. Learn with a pod and boom heli first. But it isn't exactly like the sim either way.

[Linguistic]

Practice a lot higher than 30ft when first starting. It takes a bit to manage the collective enough to get the proper updraft to generate enough lift to keep it from splatting.

[woodbine-rc]

Yea, I just got it back together as pod and boom. I love the scale bodies and I will get it back that way but its gonna stay pod and boom till i get better. I still have no idea why possessed me to try it. I was just having fun and then then splat. I gotta give it to the Gorilla Gear though. it took the full force of the impact and not a scratch on it.

[seanh]

As a newbie a fused bird is a bad idea, less you have an unlimited budget.

The good thing is that you now know the downside of a fuse...weight.

1, take the fuse off.

2. practice autos till you can do them in your sleep (sim doesn't count)

3. once you're very good at autos...increase the weight of your bird to match the fuse.

4. more practice

5. Once you've got good at autos with the extra weight...now you can put the fuse on.


Many newbies have wanted that "cool" heli to show off to their friends...many newbies have had to show that crashed heli to their friends. Don't be the statistic...be smart and remove the fuse and learn to fly. (wait about a year)

[rovpilot26]

Don't feel bad bro... I was "Practicing" autos yesterday and decided to go for a little snap and roll flying before my tank went empty...

Welllll... In the middle of my goofing off... Err... the tank ran out of that liquid which makes the 700NP go like it's supposed to!

I was vertical and in the middle of a fast tail blurring piro...

Somehow I managed to pull it off! Had to change my shorts afterwards... But I brought her home in one piece!

[woodbine-rc]

Man is world hate to see a700 go into the ground. Its like watching dollar bills flt all over. The fuse of staying off for a while. I knew better and did it anyway. It was one of those "hey watch this". Like you said, it taught me a lesson, luckily an inexpensive one.

[seanh]

Originally Posted by rovpilot26

Don't feel bad bro... I was "Practicing" autos yesterday and decided to go for a little snap and roll flying before my tank went empty...

Welllll... In the middle of my goofing off... Err... the tank ran out of that liquid which makes the 700NP go like it's supposed to!

I was vertical and in the middle of a fast tail blurring piro...

Somehow I managed to pull it off! Had to change my shorts afterwards... But I brought her home in one piece!

Glade to hear that it wasn't a bad landing...It's things like this that we need to practice. I had a flame out at the bottom of an outside loop recently causing some significant damage to the bird. Just not good enough yet to auto inverted or auto from about 10' with only about 40% of the blade energy remaining...Stupid me stalled the blades. If I had only practiced auto's more, Or been higher up or if I had only done a proper repair to the fame, (my tank would have not slid out causing the flame out),

[waxman]

Strong Gorilla landing gear? Tell me you weren't trying to auto a 450 heli, they never auto well even settup light, it really would be a brick with the scale fuse, i think you are very lucky.

Just use the 450 to fly don't bother learning to Auto, run of of a timer so you never have to auto. Then once you can fly well get a bigger bird and practice autorotations with that. You will find with a 600/700 heli autos are easier, more like the sim.

[woodbine-rc]

Waxman, yea it did actually look like a brick falling. I elk not try it again.haha

[ErichF]

Contrary to popular belief, the higher you start an auto, the better. 30 feet in a hover with a scale bird is definitely outside "dead man's" height/velocity curve, even for models.

[Prontow]

Hey Rovpilot, did the exact same thing with my 700. I was working on basic nose in for a tank and then decided to buzz down field for a high speed turn and bring it in. Well halfway through the turn, in which I was maybe 25-30 ft up the engine died. I was able to flair up a bit to get it level but my rotor speed slowed too much to really do an auto. I did a controlled plummet to the earth, landed upright and broke landing gear and one blade grip linkage. I got lucky!

[belcom]

Someone showed me an interesting trick in setting up the radio for Autorotations. Maybe everyone already does it, I don't really know. But in DX7 for example there is a Throttle Hold pitch curve you can adjust which takes effect when TH switch is engaged. If you set it to negative 6 degrees pitch (say 25% at low point) it will be exactly negative 6 degrees when you hit the TH and slam the stick all the way down instead of trying to find that middle spot yourself. Which according to Curtis Yongblood is the perfect pitch for retaining the headspeed while it's falling. So essentially it makes it a bit easier to do it even when in panic mode. Just hit TH and collective down and then manage it from there once it gets closer to ground. I don't think this would apply for low to the ground autorotations, because there is really not enough height to play with and there should be enough headspeed to set it down easily.

[SYMAWD]

Originally Posted by belcom

Someone showed me an interesting trick in setting up the radio for Autorotations. Maybe everyone already does it, I don't really know. But in DX7 for example there is a Throttle Hold pitch curve you can adjust which takes effect when TH switch is engaged. If you set it to negative 6 degrees pitch (say 25% at low point) it will be exactly negative 6 degrees when you hit the TH and slam the stick all the way down instead of trying to find that middle spot yourself. Which according to Curtis Yongblood is the perfect pitch for retaining the headspeed while it's falling. So essentially it makes it a bit easier to do it even when in panic mode. Just hit TH and collective down and then manage it from there once it gets closer to ground. I don't think this would apply for low to the ground autorotations, because there is really not enough height to play with and there should be enough headspeed to set it down easily.

That's not a bad idea, but if my heli is about to tip, I engage TH and go low stick (-10 degrees
) and that plants my heli firmly on the ground avoiding a possible tip over. Six degrees may not always be enough in situations like that.

[airpup86C]

Originally Posted by ErichF

Contrary to popular belief, the higher you start an auto, the better. 30 feet in a hover with a scale bird is definitely outside "dead man's" height/velocity curve, even for models.

I don't doubt you in the least. I've been doing autos from 25-30 feet with my .50 size pod and boom Knight and they've been a bit on the dodgy side, with barely enough head speed to flare. But my question is, why is this so? If I hit hold and immediately start descending from 30 feet, why am I out of head speed at the bottom compared to doing the same thing at 80 feet?

Al

[heli-on]

Every heli has a finite amount of inertia in the head which is a function of time. The trick is to keep the HS up by forcing air through the blades on descent. If you have some forward speed, you're going to be able to generate a small amount of HS through the flare.

FWIW, I would never attempt to auto any of my scale setups. I run packs that are typically 50% higher in capacity and weight as the pod & boom setups. Add in the extra weight of the fuse and it's coming down hard. Adding in the extra weight is probably close to the effect you'd get by trying to auto the pod & boom with significantly shorter blades.

I give the OP credit for attempting to be prepared, but I'm not sure anyone purposely autos a scale setup. Would love to see some vids.

[=\TICxTOC/=]

Originally Posted by airpup86C

I don't doubt you in the least. I've been doing autos from 25-30 feet with my .50 size pod and boom Knight and they've been a bit on the dodgy side, with barely enough head speed to flare. But my question is, why is this so? If I hit hold and immediately start descending from 30 feet, why am I out of head speed at the bottom compared to doing the same thing at 80 feet?

Al

Physics. From 80 feet even with the correct neg pitch and descent orientation the disk may still be gaining energy the whole way down until the flair, so if you start at only 30 feet, it is very difficult to load up the disk enough in time for a full flair and gentle landing. Of course, if the descent is not an emergency and you give some full throttle at mid-stick, hit TH and begin your auto at 30 feet the disk can be "pre-loaded" enough for a safe de-powered landing.

More height translates in this regard to potential energy available to the disk. More height means there can be more air at higher speed passing the blades, creating lower pressure above the disk. The lower the vertical height at which one begins the auto, the less available potential energy there is to load the disk and generate lift to support the weight of the model for a gentle landing.

[airpup86C]

Originally Posted by =\TICxTOC/=

Physics. From 80 feet even with the correct neg pitch and descent orientation the disk may still be gaining energy the whole way down until the flair, so if you start at only 30 feet, it is very difficult to load up the disk enough in time for a full flair and gentle landing. Of course, if the descent is not an emergency and you give some full throttle at mid-stick, hit TH and begin your auto at 30 feet the disk can be "pre-loaded" enough for a safe de-powered landing.

More height translates in this regard to potential energy available to the disk. More height means there can be more air at higher speed passing the blades, creating lower pressure above the disk. The lower the vertical height at which one begins the auto, the less available potential energy there is to load the disk and generate lift to support the weight of the model for a gentle landing.

So in a very high auto, we're spinning up the head faster than the speed the governor would normally be holding in a hover, say, like I was doing Sunday practicing the 25 foot auto. This would make sense to me, but it doesn't cheer me up too much for my prospects of doing a good emergency auto from that height when inverted. I had to do it once last year and broke the landing gear legs on "arrival."

Al

[rovpilot26]

After watching the guys at the field and practicing on the SIM I try and practice high and low altitude autos often... It truly scared the crap out of me! I just mentally had to think of the fact that I knew I was capable of bringing it in, lowered the collective, got it heading in my direction and prayed like hell I had enough headspeed, airspeed, and altitude to bring it down... All the while reminding myself that a crash is when you run out of airspeed, altitude, and ideas all at the same time!

The landing was actually impressive... No broken parts...

The day before was my first technically "real" auto... I was screwing around a little too low to the ground flying backwards and a gust of wind kicked the nose up... Oops, tail strike!

Somehow I managed to land the oversized spinning piro ginsu monster... Total damage... Vert stabilizer, brand new CY 105mm tail blades, and buggered the grips a little bit...

Outcome... I love the new Edge 105mm tail blades!

[ke6d]

Originally Posted by belcom

Someone showed me an interesting trick in setting up the radio for Autorotations. Maybe everyone already does it, I don't really know. But in DX7 for example there is a Throttle Hold pitch curve you can adjust which takes effect when TH switch is engaged. If you set it to negative 6 degrees pitch (say 25% at low point) it will be exactly negative 6 degrees when you hit the TH and slam the stick all the way down instead of trying to find that middle spot yourself. Which according to Curtis Yongblood is the perfect pitch for retaining the headspeed while it's falling. So essentially it makes it a bit easier to do it even when in panic mode. Just hit TH and collective down and then manage it from there once it gets closer to ground. I don't think this would apply for low to the ground autorotations, because there is really not enough height to play with and there should be enough headspeed to set it down easily.

I used to learn autorotation using this method. It turned out to be a very bad habit that was difficult to break (just like slamming collective stick down when you get into trouble when first learning to fly) It took me a long time to finally stop slamming down collective when hitting TH.

You actually want the whole collective pitch curve for auto. Depending on wind condition, lower or raise collective to control the descent/glide rate. With some practice you can put the heli right in front of you even from a 400+ feet height.