Originally Posted by
cafesolo
Shy: I do not claim to be more than an average pilot, BUT I disagree with you ref Whirlwind 10. I started with 50 hours Sycamore then qualified as Helo pilot after 57 hours Whirlwind; after Sycamore I found it a delight to fly. Granted no trimmers, but if pulled or pushed to a new attitude all that was needed was to quickly move the stick to "no feeling",Disengage stick from spring loading,then back to (approximately) previous position and release Disengage button. I'm almost sure that we referred to the device as cyclic trim. Eventually clocked 690 hours, never a cough from a Gnome, tho I did have a rotor blade shed some skin at the outboard end -- thought I'd just taken flak,so Mayday and precautionary landing: the Westland rep was flown out to me and just bandaged it with insulting tape.
We used to have a Sycamore parked outside 240 OCU that Taff Walker ( Mr Wessex ) had in his logbook. Red Bull still have one flying I think.