Short review about the G2 from my point of view very very low timer -> 7 hours (4.3 R22 | 1.0 R44 | 1.7 G2).
26th of August:
Today I had the pleasure to do a 36 min demo flight with the Guimbul Cabri G2 (N370PA) from Precision Aviation.
The G2 is just awesome, so responsive, wide flight limits -> postive and negative G's no problem.
The cockpit is semi glass cockpit and high tech.
Looking into the design, the G2 has all kind of extra safety features (extra latches for the cowling, ropes for the door, Rotor indicator straight from Batt).
The controls are stiff (no friction on the cyclic) but very direct.
The main rotor turns clockwise (opposite of an R22) making the pedal compensation opposite (Need to get familiar with) and due to the fenestron tail (with wing like vertical stabilizer) in straight flight almost no right pedel is needed,
Right cyclics usage differs from an R22 (right cycle needed with landing and take off).
The only downside I can see now is the power of the engine.
In a hover for example you can go over the 100% MLI with pedal usage due to the fenestron.
2nd of September:
Because I want to make a full informed decision in choosing between R22 or G2 (and just because flying a helicopter is awesome), I performed another flight lesson in the G2 at Precision Aviation.
It was a fun and challenging flight (Flying between downpours, turbulence, off airport landing, ground navigation), specially because of the real Oregon weather -> Rain, Wind.
I started off with getting another taste off how to do a pre-flight at the G2 (at this moment still in dry weather but with a lot over overcast, storm clouds building to the east).
The pre-flight took a bit more time than normal due to being it the first flight after maintenance.
Ones David was happy with everything it was for me to do the whole start up sequence.
When were ready for take off, Oregon started showing its real colors by slowly opening the rain gates.
"Last flight with Kris I got a lot of taste in how the G2 works in a hover, pick-up, take-off and landing, today we focused more on attitude flying."
Ones in the air David handed over the controls and attitude flying was on.
He proposed to do an off airport landing, which I off course will not say no too.
Next step was to find a place to land.
After 5 min looking around we found a log-road beeing surrounded with a side slope of cut trees.
After a reconnaissance circle we both were happy with the log-road and escape route.
Because it was a log-road the main obstacles are mud, brown-out, half cut trees standing up, wires and animals.
With a nice 45 degree shallow approach David put the helicopter down with a small brown out in the end.
Unfortunately we had no picknick stuff with us so it was time to resume the flight, after take off he handed over the controls again to me.
The idea was now to head back to the home field for some approaches and hovering, only weather was not agreeing with this.
All around us were columns of downpour + turbulence with one of the columns hanging exactly were the home field was.
When we wanted to check the GPS for diversion to Mcminneville for some hover work, it was found it was INOP (Didn't connect to Sattelites) so we switched over to the old skool ground navigation.
Hovering went so so, David had to recover a few times.
After some tries it was time to head home and what better way to fly over a main river sig zaging to home field.
We continued to the home field which brought up the next challenge flying to another light downpour for a landing.
At the moment we were in the light downpour David suggested to do an auto rotation to the runway, which I off course answered with yeah.
The auto rotation went smoothly and he returned the controls to me for some hovering.
After two times recovering it was time to put the bird back in the cage.
After a debrief it was time to pay the bill right the hours and off to home.
Now it is all on me to make the decision R22 or G2.
At this moment I am really pointing towards getting the PPL in the G2.