drogue chute opinions please
Hello all,
I'm after some gems of wisdom from those of you who drag lots of stuff around underneath your machines...
I've been carting around drill pipe which has proven to be very unstable in flight. It just won't hang still for long, gets the swing up and the whole flight is spent correcting the swing. Very annoying! (Have tried all the different speeds).
We've played with various lenght strops, but are now dictated by the client to a 4m strop, + chains etc, so, load is around 10m under the helo. I've had some success with fashioning a drogue chute to trail behind the load. But my question is this; what rule of thumb for lenght?
One of my old Heli Principles of Flight books say drougue should equal 3 times the lenght of load to be effective. That would make this a 30 m drogue! My concerns are tail rotor issues. That's alot of stuff trailing behind me (under my t/r ) that I can't see!
Any pearls of wisdom would be appreciated.
MSH