Can Helicopters fly inverted? (Merged threads)
Joined: Jun 2005
Posts: 893
Likes: 0
From: Leafy Suburbia - In the High towers
DennisK
I was recommended your display by a fellow collegue in the company I have joined and watched your display this year at Shoreham for the first time and it was poetry in motion.
To be honest I was stunned watching it live, I have seen it on video but to not a patch on the real thing.
Thank you so much, but now I am saddened I may not get a chance to watch you again live
TnT
I was recommended your display by a fellow collegue in the company I have joined and watched your display this year at Shoreham for the first time and it was poetry in motion.
To be honest I was stunned watching it live, I have seen it on video but to not a patch on the real thing.
Thank you so much, but now I am saddened I may not get a chance to watch you again live
TnT
Joined: Feb 2005
Posts: 340
Likes: 1
From: KPHL
Nick, time spent in a recce is never wasted. I'm certain I'll remember that in advance one of these days.
Google search reveals -0.5g to +3.5g and the Apache pilot sitting beside me recalled -1.2g, which was never used. BTW, it wasn't Bud, it was Moosehead.
Matthew.
Google search reveals -0.5g to +3.5g and the Apache pilot sitting beside me recalled -1.2g, which was never used. BTW, it wasn't Bud, it was Moosehead.
Matthew.
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 1,605
Likes: 6
From: UK
Dennis K
I wish you the very best of Success/Luck to get your professional helicopter display up and running!!!
To borrow an american saying "THAT WOULD BE AWESOME"
I wish I could help you out but I don't fly fixed wing and I think there will be about a 100 more qualified people in front of me who are even mader then I am.
Looking forward to your TEAM in 2008.
I would have thought this would be right up RED BULL's street for sponsoring something as excellent as that.
I wish you the very best of Success/Luck to get your professional helicopter display up and running!!!
To borrow an american saying "THAT WOULD BE AWESOME"
I wish I could help you out but I don't fly fixed wing and I think there will be about a 100 more qualified people in front of me who are even mader then I am.
Looking forward to your TEAM in 2008.
I would have thought this would be right up RED BULL's street for sponsoring something as excellent as that.
Joined: Mar 2002
Posts: 458
Likes: 0
From: Kings Caple, Ross-on-Wye.orPiccots End. Hertfordshire
Inverted flying
For Mr Brilliant Stuff
Thanks for the contribution.... and possible 'Red Bull' involvement.
I did approach their publicity guy last year, but instead they went for the Vixen in dashing colours!
For a display team, (if/when I can get it up and running) nothing is set in rock. I'm far from being 'you must have experience nut' as in my view, type handling skills and mental approach are the more important ingredients to safe display flying.
Over the years, the problem I have experienced, is spreading my display routine along the crowd line. At RAF Cosford it took a minute S & L to do it! Hardly interesting.
So a 'duo' synchronised display would change that. Each manoeuvre R/T triggered as usual, 'Reds' cross overs et al, and I suppose smoke and perhaps booby cheer leaders handing out the sponsors publicity.
I believe we do need more 'novelty' items in the display scene. My '1000 tennis balls drop from 1000 feet' into a target dustbin, * at the RAFA Shoreham event a couple of weeks ago, was particularly well received. (and raised £1.530 for my scholarship)
Anyone with the right sponsor 'contacts' out there please e-mail me.
Dennis Kenyon.
* PS We missed the dustbin !!|
**And we had Article 56 in place.
Thanks for the contribution.... and possible 'Red Bull' involvement.
I did approach their publicity guy last year, but instead they went for the Vixen in dashing colours!
For a display team, (if/when I can get it up and running) nothing is set in rock. I'm far from being 'you must have experience nut' as in my view, type handling skills and mental approach are the more important ingredients to safe display flying.
Over the years, the problem I have experienced, is spreading my display routine along the crowd line. At RAF Cosford it took a minute S & L to do it! Hardly interesting.
So a 'duo' synchronised display would change that. Each manoeuvre R/T triggered as usual, 'Reds' cross overs et al, and I suppose smoke and perhaps booby cheer leaders handing out the sponsors publicity.
I believe we do need more 'novelty' items in the display scene. My '1000 tennis balls drop from 1000 feet' into a target dustbin, * at the RAFA Shoreham event a couple of weeks ago, was particularly well received. (and raised £1.530 for my scholarship)
Anyone with the right sponsor 'contacts' out there please e-mail me.
Dennis Kenyon.
* PS We missed the dustbin !!|
**And we had Article 56 in place.
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 4
Likes: 0
From: Niceville, Florida, USA
Ray Lawrence
Originally Posted by ShyTorque
Nick,
Thanks, your answer brings back happy memories of the Gazelle too (which I haven't flown for 10 years or so now); although not being a test pilot I always managed to keep mine in PERFECTLY balanced flight (LOL), apart from the odd roll off the top where the ball sometimes got half a width out
).
Teetering,
Not forgetting Lofty Marshall of course!
.
I understand Ray Lawrence is sadly no longer wth us. What genius that modest man had. I got on very well with him as a student and was privileged that in a quiet moment he once showed me his photo album of his inventions / projects, mostly from the 1960s. They were incredibly good and they all worked as intended. He apparently seldom showed them off as he did not like to blow his own trumpet.
For example:
His man-carrying helicopter powered by a 500cc Triumph motorcycle engine.
A Triplane designed, built and flown by himself in Borneo.
His (large!) radio controlled model helicopter with all the mechanicals and radio gear made by himself. The one-piece flywheel / centrifugal clutch was seen in the 1960s and copied by a German enthusiast who now manufactures them (sadly Ray never patented it, which he should have done).
Model 3-cylinder and a 5-cylinder radial aero engines, all of his own design and manufactured on a lathe.
A 5-inch reflecting telescope; the mirror and lenses made by himself.
A hovercraft. A caravan. A speedboat.
All his own design and made by his own hands. Sadly missed by me, he was a great inspiration at the beginning of my career, not forgetting his clever explanations of things aerodynamic and rotating at CFS(H).
Wherever you are, Ray, thanks and good on yer!
Sorry for getting well off track there, folks
Thanks, your answer brings back happy memories of the Gazelle too (which I haven't flown for 10 years or so now); although not being a test pilot I always managed to keep mine in PERFECTLY balanced flight (LOL), apart from the odd roll off the top where the ball sometimes got half a width out
).Teetering,
Not forgetting Lofty Marshall of course!
.I understand Ray Lawrence is sadly no longer wth us. What genius that modest man had. I got on very well with him as a student and was privileged that in a quiet moment he once showed me his photo album of his inventions / projects, mostly from the 1960s. They were incredibly good and they all worked as intended. He apparently seldom showed them off as he did not like to blow his own trumpet.
For example:
His man-carrying helicopter powered by a 500cc Triumph motorcycle engine.
A Triplane designed, built and flown by himself in Borneo.
His (large!) radio controlled model helicopter with all the mechanicals and radio gear made by himself. The one-piece flywheel / centrifugal clutch was seen in the 1960s and copied by a German enthusiast who now manufactures them (sadly Ray never patented it, which he should have done).
Model 3-cylinder and a 5-cylinder radial aero engines, all of his own design and manufactured on a lathe.
A 5-inch reflecting telescope; the mirror and lenses made by himself.
A hovercraft. A caravan. A speedboat.
All his own design and made by his own hands. Sadly missed by me, he was a great inspiration at the beginning of my career, not forgetting his clever explanations of things aerodynamic and rotating at CFS(H).
Wherever you are, Ray, thanks and good on yer!
Sorry for getting well off track there, folks
ShyTorque,
Sorry that it took more than a year to answer your posting but I just found this forum yesterday.
I enjoyed your summary of a few of the things that Ray Lawrence did during his active RAF days while teaching all of us hotshot rotorheads how rotary-wing aerodynamics really worked.
The only thing I found wrong about your post was that you thought that Ray Lawrence was "no longer with us." I haven't checked in the last month or so but as of the first of this year Ray was still around.
I stay in touch with Denis Herrett who was OC Standards at CFS(H) when I was there from 1973-1976. Denis and Margarethe moved to Australia in the mid-80s and are still thriving there. Denis stays in contact via email and internet phone with several of the old CFS(H) crowd including Ray and Sheila Lawrence, Ron and Jill Cunningham, and Alan and Carol MacGregor. If you wish to contact me via the email address in my profile, I would be more than willing to share any of their email addresses with you.
It was great to see the name Lofty Marshall again. If there was ever a character who showed what a benefit the RAF gained from the Specialist Aircrew scheme, it was Lofty.
I still exchange Christmas cards with Roy Garwood and Charlie Parsons. Roy was the OC CFS(H) when I went through as a student in 1973. Charlie owned a pub in Anglessey for about 20 years but is now back as a flight instructor at Shawbury.
The only guys from that period at Ternhill who I know for certain are no longer with us are my good friends Tim Seabrook, George McCracken, and Eric Shelmerdine.
I also apologize for taking this thread so far afield.
Gazelle2 (Phil Stinson, USAF - Retired)
Joined: Jan 2006
Posts: 8
Likes: 0
From: In the middle of nowhere
Hey Guys....of course a helicopter can fly inverted. Just look at the bell 407 at Virginia Airshow Durban South Africa, 2 years ago. The pilot did a loop as well as a straight roll for the crowd. Needless to say the aircraft was then and still is grounded until about $1000 000 has been spent on getting it airworthy and signed out again..........
Joined: Apr 2004
Posts: 6
Likes: 0
From: U.S.A.
It was also a pathetic roll and a half-arsed loop. I saw the Tiger and an Apache do loops and rolls at an airshow and the success of their loops and rolls were never seriously in doubt. Inverted! Not sustained, but both came to a hover and just rolled inverted for several seconds before pulling through. Impressive.
Joined: Jun 2006
Posts: 51
Likes: 0
From: Wellington, New Zealand
Correction
"RC models have no teetering hinge normally, so the head is rigid (hingeless) except for the blade attach bolt that also serves as a lead lag hinge."
Not quite right. Most RC heli heads have o-rings between the hub and the spindle shaft that holds the blade grips. Using different o-rings allows you to adjust the stiffness. A common mistake is to set the heli up so that it is soft, then trying some hard 3D stunts, only to suffer a boom-strike. There are many other types of hubs out there, but most use the above setup. And some people do even setup rigged heads, but it's not common -- not even for the top 3D pilots.
The main reason RC helis can hover upside-down with no problems is basically down to this: Scales of physics, or whatever you want to call it, means that RC helis are generally very strong and ridged for their size and stress on components is not such a huge problem when the designer is balancing the engineering with the flight envelope. And because of that, it's a simple adjustment to allow some negative pitch, and you can fly upside-down all day long and do no more harm to the mechanics than if you had been flying the more conventional way.
Not quite right. Most RC heli heads have o-rings between the hub and the spindle shaft that holds the blade grips. Using different o-rings allows you to adjust the stiffness. A common mistake is to set the heli up so that it is soft, then trying some hard 3D stunts, only to suffer a boom-strike. There are many other types of hubs out there, but most use the above setup. And some people do even setup rigged heads, but it's not common -- not even for the top 3D pilots.
The main reason RC helis can hover upside-down with no problems is basically down to this: Scales of physics, or whatever you want to call it, means that RC helis are generally very strong and ridged for their size and stress on components is not such a huge problem when the designer is balancing the engineering with the flight envelope. And because of that, it's a simple adjustment to allow some negative pitch, and you can fly upside-down all day long and do no more harm to the mechanics than if you had been flying the more conventional way.
