SilsoeSid '5 seconds earlier everything was fine', however 5 seconds later it wasn't
Yea, why bother with checks, just take up valuable time don't they
A ground check would not have changed anything , see below.
chopjock How about a throttle "chop" from full RRPM before lifting? If the idle stop screw was set too low, this may have revealed it.
Good points but a manual throttle chop would not have shown any problems
The Helicycle uses a belt drive to the 90* gearbox same as R22 & H269
Helicycle belt tension is carefully set so the belts will slip in an overtorque so as not to exceed transmission limitations.
The Helicycle turbine is also set up to prevent overspeed by shutting the fuel to idle via a different control than a throttle chop.
It was this idle screw that was set too low and caused the flameout.
And the only way to find that out was to have an actual overtorque and overspeed. It would not show up in ground checks.
Got to give the guy credit , he built the helicopter himself and it is one of the smoothest machines in the world vibration wise , plus he had a flameout in the dead mans curve and managed to land it without a scratch and flew it home afterwards.