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Old 8th Aug 2003, 14:13
  #27 (permalink)  
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I believe this is a similar handling quirk to that of the Lynx and is common to many helis with 'rigid' ie high hinge offset rotor heads.

It would take the venerable Nick Lappos or demi-god Shawn Coyle to explain it correctly but in normal flight conditions the rigging, advance angle, pitch horn position et al can be arranged to match the phase lag (not usually 90 degrees with high hinge offset rotors). This means that where you move the cyclic, the rotor will obediently follow.

But when you start to manoeuvre the heli, especially in a tight turn the dynamics of the rotor response produce a pitch-roll coupling because the phase lag is no longer perfectly matched to the rigging - so when you pull back on the cyclic the rotor pitches up but also rolls right forcing you to oppose the motion with left cyclic. Now you are in a right turn with left cyclic applied, meaning your control margins for rolling out have been seriously reduced.

This phenomenon is very noticeable on the Lynx in high AoB turns, quickstops, wingovers and pitching display manoeuvres (back flip, loop etc that are flown AFCS out)
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