What about a helicycle?

[BigMike]

Anyone have any hands-on experience with this helicopter, or have flown it?

http://www.helicycle.com/


http://www.helicycle.com/DSC05916_small.JPG http://www.helicycle.com/Bruce%20Mezzadri-1st%20Hover_small.JPG

[swsw]

No, not yet.

But it looks great doesn't it ?

Even though it's a kit, it looks good enough to get certified, any opinions about the design from the technical guys here ?

Steve

[TheMonk]

I like everything about this chopper except two:

1. The wide A pilar.
2. Can't take passenger.

Other than those two reasons, everything else seams to be good.

Tha Monk

[johned0]

Wouldn't be any use in the UK. . .

We need doors cos in the winter its too cold and in the summer its always raining. :{ :{

John

[swsw]

Sure you can get full doors for it.

Steve

[murphystl]

I have built a Helicycle ,N727X , and have been flying it for about a month. A Factory rep. comes to your location and assists in checking everything out ,tracking,balancing,etc. Engine is a Solar T-62 turbine. It flys great ,lots of power.About 23 have flown so far. Lots of details on the Eagle R+D website www.helicycle.com

[swsw]

Can you tell us some about about flying the helicycle like...

- How does it compare to the R22 in your opinion ?

- Do the front pillars block too much of your front view when flying ?

- How many hours to build ?

- How much did it cost you to build including instruments and extras ?

- How did it feel to do the first auto in it ?


etc, etc.

Cheers,

Steve

[murphystl]

Steve ; I think it flys better than the R-22. More like a Bell 206. The front pillars do not block that much view and you dont notice it after the first hour. I did not log my build hours but it could be done in 500 to 600 hours if you did not deviate from the plans. Most of us did some customizing , paint ,radios ,etc. I have about $45000 US invested. I have not done a full touchdown auto yet but am told it has plenty of rotor interia. Sorry for the short answers , never learned how to type. John M.

[swsw]

Thanks John,

Great photos of your machine on the helicycle.com site.

Steve

[the wizard of auz]

Waaay heeey. I want one o them.. has anyone in Australia built one or imported one??
Are there any known maintanance issues cropping up yet?.
Anyone managed to die in one yet?
What a great looking little machine. :ok:

[BigMike]

Future mustering machine?

Cant beat the price...

[PPRUNE FAN#1]

Anyone managed to die in one yet?Yeah. The designer.

[Dave_Jackson]

the wizard of auz,
"Anyone managed to die in one yet?" The designer and manufacture, B. J. Schramm, had a fatal accident in his Helicycle about a year ago. To my knowledge, it has not been determined whether the accident was due to the craft, pilot error, or pilot health.

[swsw]

The accident happened while BJ was flying low over a river wearing a helmet camera shooting footage for a promotional video.

The helicycle was recovered and no faults were found with the machine or with BJ's health prior to the accident.

The consensus view is the accident was probably due to pilot error.

Steve

[the wizard of auz]

Bugga!. Are they still being manufactured?. are there any in Australia yet?. how does the factory pre flight inspection and testing get done for out of country machines?.

[TheMonk]

Its a homebuilt, so YOU, the builder, will be doing the maintenance and inspection.

[Thomas coupling]

You lot are chasing a death wish...do you all own Lada's too???:uhoh:

[the wizard of auz]

Gosh Thomas, tell us why we're chasing a death wish?.
Monk. the blurb on the website stated that they wouldn't supply certain parts, that were required to finish and fly the machine, until the factory rep inspects the machine and then they help to trim it up and test fly it.

[TheMonk]

Thanks Wizard. I presume this would be the tail rotor gear box. It is good that they are doing that. It would certainly make me feel better about the company.

Tha Monk

[swsw]

I definately wouldn't compare the Helicycle to a Lada,

Maybe a Toyota Supra,

It seems the design is based on the R22, all aviation grade components, 25 flying, 10 year old design, 1000+ flight hours.

The word on the street is it was designed with certification in mind, but I guess the factory haven't yet got the $2 million plus for this and the manufacturing capability yet.

Who else wants one ?


Steve

[Gaseous]

25 flying, 10 year old design, 1000+ flight hours.

Average 40+ hours per machine!!!

It may be fine but thats not tested enough to strap one to my backside! I'm with TC on this one.

Better than a mini 500 but still unproven.

[Flingwing207]

Better than a mini 500Perhaps one of the best examples of "to damn with faint praise" I've ever seen!

[kylevp]

Lots of googling, and I've come up with nothing. What about buying a helicycle once I've completed my ppl, to build turbine hours? It would be a lot of flying alone, but it would build what seems to be precious turbine hours? At which point, once I had accumulated enough, it would seem that I could sell it....

Any thoughts on this? a forum search for Helicycle returned nothing.

I'd much prefer at least a 2 seater, so I could take other people with me, or maybe actually do something productive with it.... but worst case I could use it to commute to a full sized town thats about 60 miles from here for work that would pay more than where I'm at now, while I work on hours.....

And then when I wanted to take someone else with me, I could just rent one.

Expensive I'm sure, but when you start to talk about $40k price tags for a new-ish turbine helicopter, that doesn't really compare to the cost of renting or leasing the usual suspects. Or would these "turbine" hours not really count for anything? (I'm in the US)

(I was pointed to this thread by the last one I posted in, and it does seem much more relivent to what I was asking. If I should have continued to post in the other thread, I apologize.)

[pohm1]

Sounds like a great way to remove yourself from the gene pool ;)

[helisteve]

Try www.helicycle.com

[gadgetguru]

... I want one o them.. has anyone in Australia built one or imported one??...


1 flying in Sydney (VH-ZHR) that I know of, 2 others being built in Oz, several in NZ too. All owners very happy with their aircraft.

shoot me a PM with your email & I'll hook you up with some more details.

[kylevp]

thank you for the link helisteye, but honestly thats their web site. They are only going to say good things about it. It would still be classified as "experamental", would that make any difference for the hours? Would an employer look at my log book and say to himself "thats not real helicopter experience" ? or would it be fine as long as I had some hours in whatever they wanted me to fly too?

[swsw]

Flying hours is flying hours.

It could be argued a small heli like the helicycle is more 'difficult' to fly than a big lumbering volvo (Jet Ranger etc)....(not that I've flown a helicycle but its said to be on pare with an R22)

The Helicycle looks damn good(R22 like quality) and if it wasn't for the used Turbine would be flying in the UK too.

Steve

[thekite]

The turbine engine sounds like a hastle to me. I have opted for the Mosquito and expect to have one in QLD later this year.

I also wondered why anyone would opt for a single seater, even though they are greatly cheaper than any two-seater.

The answer of course the sheer pleasure of flying a helicopter. This is the most fun that you can have with you're trousers on!

And, yes, it is good experience for the hours builders as well. There is a parallel with Cessna time versus ultralight Drifter time. The first is boring and teaches very little, the second is an open cockpit tail-dragger teaching more stick and pedal skills than any GA school will admit that you need!
TK

[bbuwalda]

Anybody know of any second hand Helicycle's for sale in NZ.

Or just names of people that may own one in NZ. (I wish to enquire about the CAA rulings and rules with regards to the Helicycle)

[K48]

VH ZHR looks good! See link.. Can anyone enlighten us on the UK cert situation and Turbine time issue..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNuW6Bfx840&mode=related&search=
Plus there looks like there are door hinges to answer the previous posts about doors.
Chris

[floatsarmed]

I foresee this machine appearing on the next instalment of the Darwin Awards. :uhoh::ooh::eek:

Floats... Armed

[Chukkablade]

IIRC the Solar turbine was evaluated in the early '60s as a power unit for a small, one man helicopter, and was found by the mighty US Government to be lacking for the job. I trust their engineering ability and findings.

So, what is done to the turbine to make it suitable this time around? Curious to know, and is the mod done by the factory?

[160thfan]

I have one as well, but with a different turbine than the factory version. The factory actually goes through the turbine and checks the ballance of the wheel and other limits then attaches it to their own desing new gearbox. I installed the turbine before the factory switched from the Rotax to an all turbine fleet.

If you want one there is a long waiting line. It's about 1.5 to 2 years currently.

I also believe it flies better than an R22. It has some shortcomings but is still a great helicopter and is a total blast to fly. I think the A pillars are a shortcoming and the 3 or 4 seperate fuel tanks could be a shortcoming, but in normal operation they are not. Fuel burn limits it to 1 to 1.5 hours depending on fuel tank options.

Could be a mustering machine I suppose. My memeory of the Army test was that the "helicopter" itself was the problem not the Solar turbine. They have proven themselves in thousands & thousands of hours of service before this use. Ask a Chinook mechanic about them as their APU. You will get a good answer.

[mesh1matrix2000]

Wait on a Cabri G2 and be safer.

[Chukkablade]

I believe the duty cycle found on the T62 was exactly the reason why it was deemed fine as an APU, but not as a powerplant. An APU running at two or three fixed rpm settings i.e. Idle/Nill load/Max Load will never see a resonance point between any of those settings for any time at all. Not so if your using that engine as your helicopter powerplant, and thats where trouble occurs. I believe that more than one person has died from putting a Solar T62 into a homebuilt fixed wing, as it's just not designed for the duty cycle of flying through rain etc. Your taking effectively a single design point device, as most APU's are, and asking them to work as a broad band device without, as far as I'm aware, any re-engineering at all.

If I was looking for a turbine for a homebuilt, I'd rather fit an Isotov GTD-350, which is under 300 pounds dry weight and is an excellent, modern design and giving 400 shp. Then you will at least get factory support - if you try as a homebuilder to get factory support from Sundstrand, who now own the rights to the T62, you will get a legal letter telling you to stop what your doing and to never contact them again. They know what your looking to use that engine for, and don't like it at all.

Good luck if thats your thing though. Your IMHO a brave man indeed.

[K48]

Whats a Cabri G2?

[Bravo73]

Welcome to the 'search' function, K48. ;)

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=176159&highlight=cabri


http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?t=296022&highlight=cabri

[K48]

Sorry... :O it was a function of time...;)

[Anthony Supplebottom]

Flying the Helicycle "Turbinator" - YouTube

[Rotorgoat8]

I have a friend that flies one. Nice and stable not to mention fast! He's had it for about 5 years and so far no reliability issues. He even helps with the local county search and rescue. If I was younger and wanted to build cheap turbine time I would most definitely have one. Rotor inertia would give me pause at my age.

[500e]

Gaseous (http://www.pprune.org/members/42435-gaseous) figures appear out
From another site, not my post, & some time ago.
I feel David Lyons accumulation of experimental hours in his Helicycle is nothing but phenomenal! David bought his helicopter with 102 hours on it as a means to acquire 1500 turbine hours to help land an offshore helicopter job. Is he ever going at it! I started a thread " Helicycle nearing 1000 hours", not too many days ago when he had 982 hours. I blinked and he is at 1038 hours as of last night!

[Arnie Madsen]

The Helicyle in the video around post #40 was built by Stan Foster in Illinois and he flies it almost daily . He has built up quite a few hours on it and says it has been trouble free and dependable . He built it himself and the workmanship is meticulous. I think if you google "Helicycle Hatchery" you can find the construction process from start to finish.

[StanFoster]

I am the builder and flyer of the Helicycle in the video of post #40. I never posted here but have over 150 videos on YouTube...It took me 2.5 years to build it, mostly waiting on the shipments of the parts. I started flying in September 1st, 2010. . It is simply a pleasure to fly, smooth, fast, and the easiest machine I have ever had to maintain.
I heard it all while building it..
...you will be working on it more than flying it...Thats definitely been proven wrong to me!....its sensitive to fly......hey, if this fledgling pilot can fly it, anyone can! . ..the Solar T-62 won't be reliable..that turbine is awesome!....


It sucks fuel....
they got that one right.
13 gph.

This machine has been a dream come true. Its always ready to go on a whim, and I have made many cross country flights in it. Every flight was completed back to my home base
Stan

[9Aplus]

It is nice to read you here too, Stan :ok:

Must admit that my positive opinion on Helicycle and home or kit
rotorcraft building was mostly influenced by your recent WEB
shared experience... Good work, bravo :D

[Anthony Supplebottom]

Stan welcome to the forum.

This may be of interest to engineers and those who like Queen -

Building a Helicycle Helicopter - YouTube

[bvgs]

I think the Helicycle looks great as does the CH7, sadly I doubt that we will ever see them in the UK. Seems crazy that we can get microlites and even gyrocopters through the net but not helicopters. Why is that???

[RedhillPhil]

Was it only me who looked at the thread title and was expecting to see a wonderful Heath-Robinson thing like a bicycle with rotary blades?:)

[Old skool Alex]

No you weren't the only one expecting a heath-Robinson lash up ;)

[Savoia]

For Red Hill Phil and Old Skool Alex:

https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-VfO9JwgTlcM/UOaiACC3HvI/AAAAAAAALQ4/DlGoKP4QOko/s550/cycle-copter.jpg

No details sadly :(

[Old skool Alex]

Tried that, doesn't work.