The 1st picture of the Sycamore with the single collective is reversed, the second picture is correct. Other Sycamores had twin collectives but the picture is of a HAR14 or the German equivalent.. The yellow rings are the trim wheels, the small lever is the rotor brake and what looks like a handbrake is one. The red knob is the slow-running cutout.
The throttle cam for the engine wasn’t ideal so as you raised the collective you had to roll on throttle initially but as you lurched into the hover with the old Leonides howling away at about 40 ins MAP you had to roll it off to stop the wooden blades flying off.
The technique in the RH seat was to put you hand on the top of the throttle so that the opening and closing was a natural wrist movement. In the LH seat you put your hand underneath the throttle to get the same action.
No hydraulics. Trim wheels operated force springs for the for & aft and lateral trim. C of G was corrected by a tank of water meth under the cockpit floor that could be pumped backwards and forwards to a tank in the tail boom. The tail boom had a thick leather pad on the starboard side to encourage the blades to bounce off it should the droop stops not engage.
Sit in the left hand seat of a 332 and fly it the cack-handed with HYD AP out and you have a rough idea of what it flew like.
Surprisingly instructers who spent most of their time in the left seat used to prefer to fly it solo from the same seat. The station display pilot used to do the whole show, real vertical torque turns, etc with some poor airman strapped into the right hand seat as ballast.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 12th April 2008 at 02:29.