Gyroplane Training 
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Web by: Rebel Systems Training Days April 7 - 22 2001 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 May 26 - June 2 2001 April 1 - 11 2002 |
Day 12 The forecast for today is not looking very good, with high winds and rain, and for tomorrow as well. Looking out of the window the weather looks usable for the morning at least. I need to crisp up the thin wedge and flair to land, and hold the nose down on takeoff. Everything else is now pretty precise which is the way I like it. Dave was off for the first session to brush up on where he had got to last time. They came down from their session somewhat chilled, so a cup of tea and warm up later we were off. More circuit work, to brush up that last bit, and takeoffs. Interesting flying through snow! Got caught a couple of times on landing with cross wind gusts, and was pleased that the feet are now at a reactionary level. Must learn to use a little more cyclic to counter the drift from a cross wind, but got some nice landings. One or two not so good however. I find that I am still allowing the nose up too much on takeoff but things are certainly improving. Roger started throwing in some "here's the aircraft" on landing completely out of trim and told to sort it out to land. They were working nicely. One landing, I got hit with a strong left cross wind and the nose pulled sharply to the left not far off the ground. I put in a deal of right pedal to straighten it. "Not that one" shouts Roger, which completely threw me as it was now just a reaction, followed quickly by Roger saying that I was right. Phew, I thought I had completely screwed up. I don't think Roger was expecting the amount of rudder I put in to correct things. A nice landing followed... The air was relatively rough, but things still aren't quite there yet. Hopefully a little more and I will have it nicely sorted. I just have the last remnants of microlight takeoffs to overcome and we will be cooking. I'm looking forward to getting onto the single seaters! This is most definitely a slog but I very nearly have it sorted. Second session in the afternoon. More circuit slogs, but now getting good at these. Thin wedge now coming on, with a preponderance to slide to the right at the final flair, but got that sorted. Everything looking good now. Feet are on auto. A slight tendency to leave too much throttle on, but got that sorted. Then tried some engine offs: NONE EVENT!!! Next brief was a precursor to single seat that of wheel balancing, so after a demo I tried some of those. First one was not too bad, in my biased opinion. Roger thought so too. Next one the wind was picking up, and I was amazed to find the amount of drag. The last runs the wheel lifted at about 10 knots ground speed. This run that was more like 2 knots, and the amount of drag was very evident, almost like running into a brick wall. Another gust and we were aloft. Roger said "well what are you going to do now?", so I flew it back into a landing. All that training was just clicking in as it should be... There was some very evil looking weather coming in, the windsock was going nuts, with 50 degree changes in direction and 10 to 20 plus knots indicated, so we called it. 1 hour session that was very productive. Now the real stuff. Dave and myself had now go to this stage and it was time to try out the single seaters for size. We were each given a Benson B8M open frame machine with which to try the throttle, break and steering on the apron with the rotor tethered. It must have looked comical to anybody as we steered around the apron like a couple of dodgem cars. The break on G-BGIO that I was on consists of a bar that presses a piece of plywood onto the front wheel. This is foot operated and can not be done with both feet on the rudder pedal so some degree of foot swapping has to be practiced to use it. I just tootled around, following the apron edge and various lines to get the hang of things. Must say it was good fun! Half an hour doing that, but the hardest thing to get to grips with was as the front wheel bounced up the rudder pedal would skew off. Subsequent loading of the front wheel resulted in the nose bouncing one way or another. I think this will be much easier as the rudder becomes more effective with more air flow over it. What can I say: Today was very productive. I'm pleased as punch!!! |