Beginners bingles....

[MadMuz]

Ok, so I have been going thru my old VHS tapes and putting them onto DVD and have been looking at some of the crashes that I have taped, thinking about some that I have seen, but not taped..... and also some of the plethra of crashes on youtube.... I am mainly talking about low hour training take off crashes (or taxiing hi speed crashes).What seems to me to be a "common occurance" from what I have seen, is that low hour trainees seem to get off of the ground, panic and imediately cut the throttle often followed by the heavy, frame jarring.... teeth rattling thud onto the ground. I mean, one guy on the vid I took at Erskin park was supposed to be taxiing balancing on the mains.... he would pop off the ground occasionally cut the power and basically dead stick onto the ground with a thump.... no rotor strikes or any obvious damage, but boy you can see the frame and mast flex

[Brian]

Instruction its called Muz, basically a pilot doing ground runs should be under the guidance of a instructor !2. Taxying in your own gyro should only

[birdy]

Biggest problem I"v been see,n in raw pilots is their fixation on the rotor tac or the engine tac or the ASI, or sumthn other than where their go,n.Watchin the instruments means your not lookn down the road/strip, and wen you do actually look, your headn

[MadMuz]

Thanks Chopper, this isn"t about me, it is to get info out of knowlegable folk on here to help gyro beginners, I guess especially gyro beginners who have fixed wing experience, which many tend to fall back on..... alot of the time, falling back on remembered FW training IS the cause of alot of gyros getting rolled in a ball.I totally agree Birdy, my first gyro (EA81 direct drive..23" Gerry"s, Sweetapple prop) had no instruments except an engine tacho, temp gage and an oil pressure light, no prerotator, no rotor tach, no brakes, dip stick for the Gerry seat tank, and had to hand start the motor as well. I did get a hall airspeed indicator once, but it fell off, not to mention I was self taught with no instructor or many other gyros near me. Anything I couldn"t work out for myself, I would ring Terry Boatswain and bug him ;D To do correct airfield procedures I ended up fitting a pito static ASI, but only used it to maintain cruise altitude as I had aproval to fly at 500"-5000" and into uncontrolled airports before ASRA had been able to get the same exemptions. That was when we were only allowed to fly between 300"-500" and not cross roads etc. I know I am probably the opposite to most people in alot of things people call progress, with gyros and even cars of today. I disagree with cars driving themselves, parking themselves, turning thier own lights on and off, push button start/stop.... 15 airbags, rear lane change sensors, ABS...... all in the name of safety..... why not just teach people to drive? With gyros, I personally believe people should learn in an open frame more basic 2 seat machine, learn to fly by feel as you say Birdy, and not have to be shown everything by a gage or something that can fail in flight. I personally think that even someone thinking of buying a pretty half ton bathtub, would be better off actually learning to fly in a really quite basic 2 seat gyro with a qualified instructor, so they can learn to see (or almost sense) if the blades are up to speed after hand starting the rotors, feel if the aproach speed is right, feel what the rotors are doing on the ground run(and in flight instead) of pushing a button until the number comes up on the rotor tach, then gun it. I think if people learned in a basic 2 seat machine, then they could quite safely transition to a turn key euro tank.... If that is what they still think they want.... but do people realise, if someone learns to fly in a 600kg euro limo and get signed off with thier pilots certificate.... they can honestly believe they can now step into a single place more basic machine, or part canopy single place machine that will probably feel absolutely nothing like what they learned in and think they will be able to

[birdy]

food for thought, but only my own opinion, probably seen as wrong in most folks eyesThe people who think your basic logic is rong Muz, are the " me, now" people, and Darwin hasa special place for them.They think the basics is for basic folk.They want the fastest n shineyest, now.

[mad max]

I tell my students now that it"s harder to land a gyro than a 747 and if you master it well you are a hardcoc pilot. (I guess the only one that really knows is Waddles)

[Brian]

I was a FW pilot before gyros so I understand both forms of instruction plus the difernces to aircraft & gyros & there"s no doubt in my mind that keeping any FW ideas & transferring them to gyros is a really bad idea cause the two things are poles apart!!! A FW is the easiest thing to land & takeoff...compared to a gyro. FW pilots tend to look at gyros as sort of beneath them & so tend to think they dont need to know anything too much except for a few basic things & away they go.......really bad dumb idea!!Trouble is that this pride or I will show you attitude doesnt only just hurt/ kill the pilot but other"s who shouldnt have to bear the brunt of someone"s complete lunacy.I know personally of 3 gyro pilots that have wrecked their gyro on there first solo just after getting airborne, pulled nose up too high with the results that they wrecked their pride & joy plus never went on with gyros & thats sad

[MadMuz]

Thats right chopper, I look at it like this. I have my car license, my motorbike license, my heavy rigid license, my fork lift ticket, boat & jetski license, PPL, gyro cert.... All different vehicles, some are similar to others, but all have been learned.... and when you go from one to another, one has to forget the training/learned reactions etc to the one one is getting off and focus on the correct procedures of the one

[Rob J]

MadMuz - I"d love to have a copy of the DVD, particularly since I did my training at Erskine Park ( I might even be the featured "throttle chopper" although Alan and Mark and some others in the club did a great job instructing whenever they were in attendance).

[gyroo]

Hi gents,This is one of my favourite topics - the dreaded "rear up" and panicky "throttle chop". I"ve now been an eyewitness to 2 of these incidents, and seen a few on You Tube, and read a lot more accident reports describing the identical situation. From my perspective it often seems to arise because of a failure to adequately offset rotor flapback, or from deliberately but unwisely putting in too much back stick, followed by panic because the gyro is now higher off the ground than the pilot was prepared for and dramatically slowing as well. Many people also seem to unwisely chop the throttle out of panic, against all common sense, while others seem to freeze leaving the throttle where it is but riding the dramatically slowed behind-the-power-curve gyro back down to a hard strut breaking crunch and rollover.I"ve also been within earshot of briefings given by instructors to these students, emphasizing the need to anticipate flapback, to balance on the mains, and to let the gyro fly off itself. Despite this, these "beginner"s bingles" don"t seem to be abating.For my own contribution to this debate, I hold the view that all open-framers should have a vertical aerial or even "T" bar attitude reference at the front of the keel with the top of the T being dead on the horizon from the occupant"s viewpoint when the gyro is sitting level on the ground. If there"s only a vertical aerial or length of fishing rod, then the wool tuft should be tied to the point on the aerial or rod where from the occupant"s viewpoint on the ground, the wool tuft is dead level with the horizon.I remember my own transition from planes to helicopters. It took me quite a few hours to begin to feel comfortable about my attitude references, given that with planes you normally have a nice big instrument panel that gives you a terrific pitch reference during takeoff. With choppers I distinctly remember that for probably 6 to 8 hours I felt "unsettled" about not having a similar visual pitch reference. After a while my concerns evaporated as the proper attitude was slowly imprinted into my subconscious.I reckon that it IMPERATIVE that any newbie has a visual horizon reference like I"ve described above.My theory is that many ASRA instructors are so experienced that they have long forgotten their own initial first-time impressions, and therefore they might not be as emphatic or descriptive as perhaps they should be about what its like for a person going off on their own in the own machine for the first time. In our gyro world it is often the case that people taking off on their own for the first time are also often acting as test pilots because their gyro is usually some sort of rebuild or transfer of registration with possibly new cheek plates and all sorts of other modifications. This seems conceptually wrong to me.Cheers,Mark RMelbourne

[birdy]

For my own contribution to this debate, I hold the view that all open-framers should have a vertical aerial or even "T" bar attitude reference at the front of the keel with the top of the T being dead on the horizon from the occupant"s viewpoint when the gyro is sitting level on the ground.Wen your takn off, your on the horison.Mains balancing is ment to give you pitch coordination practice, without the danger of actualy flyn.You get instant feel of the responce/reaction to even the slightest power/stick inputs, get to feel wen the rotor is up to speed and get comfortable with controls generaly.If you cant balance on the mains, dont fly till you can.

[Brian]

A couple of things,

[aussie_paul]

Instructor should have the student conduct balancing on the mains as part of their training in the 2 place trainer.Aussie Paul

[chook]

Yep that balancing on the mains is vitally important while still on the ground but again you can balance on the mains behind the power curve.That is the subtlety of flying these machines. FEELING the difference is the trick.Regards...Chook

[MadMuz]

MadMuz - I"d love to have a copy of the DVD, particularly since I did my training at Erskine Park ( I might even be the featured "throttle chopper" although Alan and Mark and some others in the club did a great job instructing whenever they were in attendance).Well I"ll be darned, if it isn"t mr J"ce....