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 18 The forecast for today was not so good, with fairly strong winds and rain. Well the morning dawned eminently usable. Turned up at the airfield with an steady 8 knot wind: Great, that'll do! Just me for this session so we'll see how it goes. Brief was for more wheel balancing, increasing power to light main wheels. Again a tentative start with the front wheel rearing a little, but soon got into it and was getting into some nice balances. Well, what a revelation. Increasing power and the balances suddenly became so much easier to control. Stick in the middle of control, small movements, good control: Excellent. Up at about 5500 rpm now and the front wheel was well balanced and stick movements were small and deliberate. I'm beginning to enjoy this. Well an hour came and went, and Roger was happy for me to continue, keeping a very careful watch out for any degradation in my performance. It seems that I was on a roll, and was getting into very solid balances. RPM was now at about 5800 and the mains were getting light.
2 hours up, and time for tea. We do a lot a tea drinking learning to fly! Well I was well chuffed with progress. Roger said that progress was linear throughout, so he was happy for me to continue whilst I was progressing. Fuel was getting low after two hours blasting up and down the runway, hence the call for tea. There was a little airshow on at Kirkbride so Roger and a few others were off to give a demonstration. Here's an air shot of Malli, from the VPM
Thanks to David Owen for the last two pictures. Roger gave a very good display of Hovering above the control tower and "other feats of daring", which to be honest were very simple, (listen to him!...), but impressed the crowd no end. Apparently that was the best demonstration that afternoon! Well the gyro's were swamped when they parked up fielding questions from onlookers. Good PR for gyros' in particular. We had to wait all afternoon, until after 8, when the wind had dropped off to allow us to train. Kevin form Birmingham joined us in the afternoon, and was going to be with me for the week. He has been training for over 7 years!... Anyway he had his own Cricket, so "booted and spurred" we set out once more, onto the endless pavement, called the main runway! First run to me, and back into wheel balancing but up at 5800 rpm. Good balances, that were to be the stock of the next hour really. Kevin hadn't flown for a year, so was a little hesitant to start, but soon back into the "groove". It wasn't long before he was on the short hops, as we constantly passed each other going in different directions on the runway. One doing a run, and the other backtracking to start another. I had crept the rpm to about 5900 by the end of the session and was getting some "air time", albeit a fleeting glimpse. Kevin was now getting some good low level runs, but landing were a bit hard as he was not penetrating into them, rather he was dropping the speed off then dropping onto the runway. Learnt about blade stall on one of the runs back. The rotor speed had decayed a little too much and with my fast taxi speed, the retreating blade was getting very close to stalling. I felt it just as it stalled the end so stick full forward and wacked the prerotator in. Just a bit of a jar on the stick to the left, but recovered. Interestingly, just as I had recovered it, Roger came over the radio to warn me that the rotor speed was dangerously slow and to do something about it: Well it seems I had, phew!... And there's more: Another lesson was the first time I lifted off completely. I misinterpreted the attitude, and thought the nose had come up, so stick slightly forward to compensate. Wrong! What then happened was the front wheel touched, with all the others in the air. This is called barreling and is a very unstable position to be in. Recovery from this is stick back. Mine wasn't... Well I survived that due to the slow ground speed. It's a good job that we gradually go through this stage. A good session again with good progress and a great deal learnt. I am now starting to feel the roll cyclic coming into play with the mains becoming very light. Roger reckons that this is the most important and critical stage of the learning to fly a gyro and has to be done slowly and methodically: I can see why! 3 hours in all today, and progress was very good. A couple a very important lessons learned. |
