Whacky wheels

[tonydenton]

went for a fly today and was thinking about this post , i wouldn"t even sit in mine and have the engine running with my workshop castors on while on hard ground. images of sideways sliding hovercrafts shatter my happyness.

[tonydenton]

what i had always thought of to aid instruction was a flight simulator for gyros. not a desk game but sit in real life size.

[Russell]

My only advice is to become experienced and proficient as a pilot on conventional designs before you start test flying major mods to airframes and control systems.Just my 10c worth,Adrian Amen to that................our little beasties handle winds etc no probs.............pilots properly "trained" don"t have a problem......simple as.

[asra]

hi turtle here, good idea one of the a/c i learned to fly on in the late sixties was a cross wind u/c auster. you

[NiqueNaque]

Out of curiosity - why doesn"t anyone answer the questions??I spoke with Jack Allen about this prior by some years, he mentioned that they has this system on the spitfires such that the steering broke out and castered with excessive sideways force - was this the aircraft you were refering to Adrian?Tony - thanks, but what would you do?Did you consider the idea of the detents which inhibit castering until a certain side loading is applied - a load that significant it could tip the machine over??Did you consider the refinement suggested by Paul, that only one wheel would caster in one direction to allow it to prevent the overturning moment?Did you consider that brakes may be applied to prevent the machine from going anywhere until you made it do so?Did you consider that you might have some input as the pilot to control the situation that the ship was recoverable, but not lost because it was sliding rather than overturning?Russ - thanks, but what would you do?Bearing in mind the motivation behind this topic was driven by an incident involving an instructor with thousands of hours who was training at the time, I agree that training is a part of the solution, but what if we go beyond that and make the machines a little more forgiving of our "oops" moments such that both we and the machine survive the "oops" just a litlle more gracefully, with our egos, machines and wallets intact, and maybe in some instances, our lives and bodies.Mark - thanks, but what would you do? Bearing in mind that we are not paddling canoes, the power to weight scenarios are completely different - having been white water rafting I do have an appreciation of what you are saying, I would appreciate it if you can apply your thoughts to how to handle such a situation, it could be one day that you land on some slimy surface [cough, cough] and find youself castering despite your fixed mains.... what would you do? We are not driving shopping trolleys here and I doubt you would find many women game enough to jump into a gyro so no point asking there. The intent of the system is that it behaves as a fixed main up to a point, then it casters, not that it casters freely always.Please answer the questions on how you"d handle sliding sideways in a gyro on landing - or at least how would you handle overturning??Thanks Turtle for this - do you have any Auster photos for the gear?I"ve decided that the castering assy per the attached image should be modified because the first design would be able to lock into one of two positions - forward and backwards - not good, it is the one on the left. The one on the right is the solution as it can only fall back into one position, this is aided by the caster offset at is is anyway.[second appraisal - if you set your mains up the same as a motorbike with forward rake on the wheel forks the left design could be used as the wheel would be able to caster past and then lock straight, I"m not sure that it would be as positive as a shopping trolley set up..]Thanks,Nic.

[Russell]

Nic.........i"ll stick with me "training" bit..............but maybe add to that.......2 sets of pedals ???Main set.................rudderToe set..................nose wheel.or.................just 1 set, but steering is "soft linked". Had this system on me tandem trainer, worked a treat.Have tried out a machine where the nose wheel was totally self steering [ unconnected to everything ].......steering the craft was achieved by mains wheels differential braking. Took a little bit to get used to, but i could entertain this system as well.cheers.............forgot...........welcome turtle, keep it coming

[NiqueNaque]

Tony,As an aside:"what i had always thought of to aid instruction was a flight simulator for gyros. not a desk game but sit in real life size. "John Evans [doc] had one of these - all it consisted of was a tow ball on a bracket that bolted to the under keel of your gyro under the VCOG. It fitted into an inverted trailer hitch which was bolted to a steel truck rim, which was in turn picket staked into the ground - it was going nowhere. A platform around the rim was required to simulate ground levelAll you did was sit in your gyro in a stiff breeze with the rotors going and you flew it on the ground. You were able to steer and get your balancing act right - it worked well and I spent a couple of hours on it to get a good feel for how things worked. No need for the level of sophistication you"re talking about although a good stiff breeze generator would have helped... wonder where you"d get one?. An instructor was able to be close by and talk you through anything you wanted.If you want to post on the simulator idea further please make another topic and do it there.Thanks,Nic.

[Brian]

You asked a question Nick and asked for an answer to quote" Please answer the questions on how you"d handle sliding sideways in a gyro on landing - or at least how would you handle overturning??Okay Nick, if I have to takeoff with a big X wind this is how I do it. 1 Turn gyro into wind to get rotors to their fastest revs.

[NiqueNaque]

Brian,As ever the gentleman.Thank you for your reply.Everyone else... where is it??Nic.

[asra]

Brian,As ever the gentleman.Thank you for your reply.Everyone else... where is it??Nic.Here it is NICK

[Mark Horan]

Good post Brian,Where I live is right at the base of the gourock range,(part of the Great Divide) in fact, the top of my back paddock is 800 ft higher than the airstrip. What we have here are classic Rotor winds comming off the top of the hills in a westerly blow. On a humid day you can see small clouds forming and rolling like breakers on the beach.Some days, you can take off in calm conditions, come back in a couple of hours to a horizontal wind sock at 35 or 40 knots!. My strip is more or less east west, however, we get some pretty good southerly busters come through, which make something more than a gentle cross wind.What is the best way to land? fly the rotors, watch the string, and land ACROSS the strip INTO THE WIND.The harder the wind blows, the shorter the landing roll. What stops the machine blowing over?

[NiqueNaque]

Saaaaaaamm,They"re not gyrocopters.... how would you handle it, what would you do???How would you handle a cross wind landing / take off - same per Brian? What if your wheels were permitted to caster?Mark - yes, land into the wind across the strip is always a very good idea, that is the advantage of a gyro over most other aircraft, barring helicopters. Rotor management is critical - I agree. You land but you have to taxi back to the hanger, you could just stop and shut down the rotor and taxi slowly back - that would be wise... but just for once stick to the question and give us a sample of how you might handle a slide on your gyro if you were to have an "oops" moment, please - what do you think would happen and how would you handle it, not forgetting that your wheels can caster in a limited way.If it can work on an Auster, can it work on a gyro?Cheers,Nic.

[Mark Horan]

Yeh,An Auster has something that stops it rolling upside down while taxi-ing........They are called wings!By now Nick, it appears to me that you have had a sudden rush of **** to the brain, which I am quite obviously incapable of grasping. (Could be that with me, most of those kind of rushes head south rather than north).My feeling is that, with castering wheels any grip on the surface of the earth would be diminished, making ground control really difficult. However, tonight, I am going to rig up my Garage creeper with a sail, put a fan blade on a whipper snipper, take the whole affair to the largest paved area I can find, wait for some wind and arm my darling wife with a video camera.Im not real sure what will be the true result, but, I reckon it might be worth 10 thousand bucks from the funniest video show.Mark.

[NiqueNaque]

Markus Horribulus..Thou art a deft hand at insults.. here"s a little something I thought of in honour of your potential experiment:The only siht going to my brain is beerThough there is nothing in that I might fearbut I"ll be watching with dreadWhen you fall on your headwhen you fly your mechanical trolley without steer!!Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, Please, pleez, puleeze, answer the question - give regard to the parameters given.. or can"t you follow the script? I don"t liek to be reduced to this but sometimes you just have to butcher through to be understood:It is not a fully freely castering trolley - get that up ya!There are detents to stop it castering unneccesarily - get that up ya!The detents will try to force the steering back to straight - they only release when the sideways force is enough to make the gyro tip over - get that up ya!It could be arranged so that only one main casters when the steering needs to break - get that up ya!Now, Maaaaaaaaaark... how would you handle a mains slide on a cross wind landing??Cheers,Nic.

[Russell]

Breath in, breath out, breath in, breath out...........you 2 got it...........spread the love :-*