Rain and Rotor blades

[Brian]

Coming back to the station today I ran into a reasonably heavy shower of rain and noticed the rotor tacho drop from 315 to 290.Why is this so ??Brian

[Brian]

Where is everybody ????Brian

[MechFx]

must be up flying ?????Art SpinkGyroNews Editor

[asra]

I say it would be bit of drag with rain hiting thembut i have not noticed it myselfgood for getting the bugs offmark

[asra]

[Scott Hogan]

Brian,There would have to be some drag effect of the rain hitting the leading edge of the blades and passing over the surfaces. The maximum form of this drag would be like trying to spin your rotors up under water.It would be impossible. So, maybe flying in heavy rain is like approaching this point?I got caught in some light rain the other day in my RAF but I didn´t notice what the rotor tach was saying at the time. I will take more notice next time and report back with the numbers.There´s bound to be plenty of other ´gyroheads´ caught in the rain I´d reckon.Hoges

[birdy]

Hav'n never had a rotor tac on the ferel i couldn't say bout the rrpm, but i'v spent a few miserable days in rain and never noticed any difference, cept it can get bloody cold. Air dencity will change if you fly into a shower, but it usualy gets thinner with humidity caus'n more rrpm not less, but if its accompanied by a considerable drop in air temp, it COULD bring the rrpm down through thicker air, but i dout it would make much difference, not 25rpm anyway.Only thing i could think of is ice, forming evenly it would upset the performance and not cause much noticable shake.But then theres alota people that say you can't get ice on gyro blades.[ wot alota crap].Ignorance is bliss............but only till you realise you were.You can always get the answer you want, if you ask enough experts.

[asra]

I experienced the same thing once...light shower...stung the skin really bad ..rotor rpm droped about 20 rpm and needed to add pwer to maintain performance..ie height and speed...and after passing thru it went strait back to were it was...i thought it was a drag and lift event...they were 27 ft patroney glass rotors

[Tim]

[Brian]

Once out of the rain, rotor revs went back to normal and I did have to apply power to stay level. I was fortunate that I was able to land when I did as we had a severe thunderstorm that dumped 68 points in around 10 minutes. Rain that heavy would certainly have tested everything !!!!!Bugs certainly effect the lift on glass rotors.Brian

[Scott Hogan]

Hi Brian,I´m guessing rain´s a good thing to run into out your way sometimes. Must be getting green out there now? We´ve had a bit here in Sydney. Might even be in the right place... like the dam, I´m not sure yet. Hope it fills your dams.Hoges

[Brian]

Its looking the best since 1989!!Been a real long time since we had green grass going into summer !!!Not all the dams are full, most of the rain has been real steady which is great as there has been no damage to soil. We could have heavy rain now without causing too much damage as the country is covered in grass.Looks as if this summer could well be pretty wet as the thunderstorms are coming up every few days or so.It was enjoyable to get caught in the rain for a change, great change from dust storms !!Brian