Shawn, did you look at that AAIB report I posted on the gyroplane longstab thread over on rotorheads?. Some interesting PIO discussion in there, particularly w.r.t control mechanisation.
A Goldwing I used to own (laminar wing, single seat Rutan Vari-eze derived Canard pusher) was very prone to pitch PIO, generally in the few hundred feet after take-off. Not so much an FCMC issue - the BO+F was almost negligible. The aircraft had strong stick fixed (displacement) apparent LSS, but near-neutral stick free (force) apparent LSS. In passing through rotation to initial climb, flying heads out, it was very hard when I first owned the aeroplane to get the position right and a few cycles of ±½g PIO occurred once or twice until I engaged brain and just clamped the stick somewhere about right. After a while I learned to just put the stick in about the right place immediately after rotation and make any climb speed corrections at a safe height where I could afford to go head in. Possibly the huge pitch change with power along with a mismatched propeller that tended to change RPM significantly even with small airspeed changes tended to exacerbate this.
(N.B. Tester 07, if ETPS or any bored TPs fancy such a beast for cheap amusement, I know of an imaculate example with about 40 hours on the clock for sale about 10 miles from BDN - the owner's just sadly died of non-aviation causes but was trying to sell it for about £4k just before he died anyway and I doubt his family want it. Arguably the odd handling characteristics make it an ideal TPS aeroplane.)
G
Last edited by Genghis the Engineer; 15th Sep 2004 at 15:09.