Originally Posted by
Paul Cantrell
That's been my experience with most of these craft.. They are mostly hovered and not flown at altitude. Probably for a good reason, but while hovering probably seems exciting and cool to the uninitiated, I think most of us will agree it gets old rather fast...
I was at a gathering of homebuilt/ultralight helicopters once, and was surprised to learn that all but one had been trucked/trailered to the airport, again, because most of the people had no intention of getting higher than a hover.
I've always been of the opinion that if Bell and Sikorsky et all struggle to produce machines that reliably don't fall out of the sky, what hope does some random guy with a hacksaw and a rivet gun have?
Reminds me of the day probably 25 years ago watching a guy pounding on the rotorhead of a Rotorway Exec with a very large hammer. Seems like the sort of thing that might cause the machine to get even by disintegrating in flight, but here we are 25 years later and that guy is still flying ( a rather cool semi antique turbine that is the envy of all, me included ) so perhaps it is I that doesn't understand the proper way to persuade these machines to fly.
I actually hovered one of these but refused point blank to get out of ground effect. Had a two stroke motor out of a jetski or skidoo as I recall. Horrible thing. I was probably in it for a maximum of 5 minutes and that was more than enough!