For the benefit of "this is my unsername"
I did spend about a year helping a friend of mine figure out why his Merlin wouldn't fly properly. Rotor pitch angle seemed to be the problem, after much faffing around machining new head plates, pitch control bars, etc thinking it had been set up incorrectly, we put an inclinometer on the mast.
At the bottom end it was correct, at the top it was angled forward of correct by 5deg and bent sideways 3deg.
Some investigation from previous owner revealed it had fallen off a trailer into a ditch!
An "engineer" (gyro) fixed it, signed it off. The owner operated out of a long Tarmac strip I believe so didn't notice the lack of pitch up control and sold it in good faith.
So having spent a while involved in the principles I'm not quite devoid of knowledge of them. Fixed wing pilot or not.
Question.
The Ken Wallis designs all had relatively short masts compared to later ones.
He could push the rotor round while strapped into the seat.
Looking at the side view of photographs of them they seem more "longitudinal" rather than "vertical" in profile, for want of a better phrase.
How does the high mast affect pitch control?
Would an unloaded rotor have a tendency to accelerate/rotate around the CofG when it has a longer moment arm?
Going fixed wing mode for a minute, the thrust line/lift line are not very far apart.
Gyro mode, there is a considerable vertical distance between thrust line and draggy rotor lift plane.
I may be out of order, all wrong, but if so can someone please explain why?
Being a fixed wing pilot doesn't make me ignorant of the gyro and I object a bit at the "expert" remark. I don't need to fly one for hundreds of hours to understand the principle, so can we drop the "fixed wing pilots know bugger all about them" thing please?