I've met them and I'm impressed. Top flight team with some very senior industry experts and execs. I share concersn about power-to-weight, noise and the old issue of pressure seals. Prepared to suspend those concenrs and see what happens. Kit is the plan and they claim to have sales ready to fulfil. HV enhancemment a function of rotor momentum. They claim much easier to fly in absence of torque coupling and videos show pretty impressive rate of climb on pulling torque.

Pegaus IPOd on the London Plus (Ofex) market recently, so fair capital base. Hope they succeed.

Pegasus Heli- Avoid Curve
 

I was looking on the www.pegasusheli.com website and was intrigued by something new or old depending on how you view it! On the video link under "photo gallery" it shows that there is no avoid curve? I was wondering if anyone had any idea why this might be the case? One thought I had was that perhaps there was a tank holding the compressed air like your garage compressor and if you had an engine failure there would be enough air in the tank to let you land. A bit like running tools on your garage compressor for a while before the compressor kicks in and keeps it topped up, but its a bit of a long shot so no cheeky comments! Any ideas or are they being economical with the truth?

sory but no way
 

Hy.
Im sory to crush your drams of EZ flying.
but it seams like re-run of some old tec.
But thouse aircrafts where scrapt in the 60.s
fuel eficiency is ****.probably just made up too.

Reason they are ther for a while is that they
didnt do anything yet.(test flight video . Haaa...)
all you see is an fast lo quality video from 60s?
, **** made web page.
,no prices.photos,who? what? why?....?sitem? who?

milatery would made an sistem already if it works.
gaskets had to be changed every flight .
no way in hell.

you have more chance of making an helicopter
out of your own concept.and make it air wordy
out of your garage

Im planing to build my own for 10 years now.
RotorWay International - Premiere Kit Helicopters
and gave up on it.
for reason :
experimental,home build .... have flight restrictions.
if you can fly it only over desert -Why bother.
easier to by normal one.(eurocopter,bell,...)

good luck

The 'No HV curve' on the website is based on theory only. It has to be demonstrated that there are no combinations of height and speed that are dangerous following an engine failure. Note the word 'demonstrated' if it's going to be certified.
Th Djinn evidently didn't have an HV curve, this one may well also be able to get away with no HV curve due to the weight (and inertia) of the rotor blades.
But it's a bit bold of them to be claiming 'No HV curve' before the thing actually demonstrates it.

Performance numbers are not adding up to anything exceptional, burns more than a 206B and only carries two, also with such a high fuel fraction of the max gross you'd expect it to go quite farther.
Just like Nick Lappos said, it ain't efficient enough to justify the costs.
At least for now.

I wonder for how much longer the bankers are going to remain impressed....its all going to end in tears methinks.

If you look at all the recent flaming wrecks of Very Light Jet companies, they all significantly underestimated the time and cost of certification. One of my colleagues has stated that if you want a VLJ certified, you'd better plan on having close to $1 billion available.
And if it's a new type of aircraft, like a tip jet, plan on lots of issues with any certification authority because it's not the 'normal' technology.
And unfortunately, most of the folks who start these sort of enterprises don't understand the complexity of getting something certified. The folks who work at big companies, who should know, often seriously underestimate the problem.

$1 billion certification costs
 

It would be good to go back in time, and try and explain that to the Wright Brothers.

They'd laugh so hard, they'de take off.

Big Ls

As a very experienced FAA test pilot said many, many years ago - "when you get an aircraft that has a type certificate, you can be assured that you're getting something that is minimum specification".
What that means is that it is at least, but probably not much more than minimum specification.
If you were looking at a non-certified aircraft and knew a lot about structures, systems, flying qualities, reliability, etc. you might be able to get a machine that far exceeded specifications (and many of the really good kit built fixed wing machines are good examples of that), but if you didn't really know a lot, you could end up with something that was well below the minimum necessary for safety (in any one or all of a number of areas) and not know it till it was too late.
One only need look at the accident rate for home-built aircraft to realize the truth about this problem. Balancing that is that most of the real innovation in aviation today is coming from the experimental side, not the established manufacturers. They can't afford a major mistake.

Well who was there to see the PJ
Robert Zummo, CEO of Pegasus Helicopter Group Plc, commented:
"At Pegasus, we have a proven technology that has the potential to transform the consumer helicopter market. For the first time, helicopters are being brought within the price range of the general consumer market – the PH-200PJ’s mechanical simplicity makes it not only inexpensive to purchase and assemble, but also affordable to operate and maintain.”

The company plans to demonstrate its prototype single-seat pressure jet helicopter at the EEA AirVenture Show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin between 28 July and 3 August 2008. "
Another link
=> PEGASUS HELICOPTER GROUP PLC: Pegasus Signs LOIs for its PH200PJ Helicopter <=

InvestEgate, Pegasus Helicopter Group PLC - Interim results for the period ended 30 June 2008

Growth Company Investor : Helicopter firm lands on PLUS

AND for information who is docstone

Pegasus FAQ

Convince me please :suspect: :suspect:

Hi Shawn,This may be of interest if you, or others, do not know of it;

"JAR-VLR:- Joint Aviation Authorities - Very Light Rotorcraft
Airworthiness requirements for the certification of very light rotorcraft with maximum certified take-off weights not exceeding 600 kg."

"However, there is a proposed JAR VLR NPA 2, which will raise the limit to 750 kg to be consistent with the proposed lower limit in the ICAO Standard for small aeroplanes in new Part V, A.1.2."

Perhaps times are a changing (in Europe).
This may be the reason for the talk about Robinson stopping production of the R-22. http://www.unicopter.com/NoIdea.gif

Dave

Pegasus announcement for Wales
 

Dave,

Can you summarise what the requirements of JAR VLR (NPA 2) are?

I am also curious what classifies a machine as a kit, and what the certification requirements for a kit are?

If a machine is not certified what restrictions are imposed? Is it allowed to hover 5' AGL for example?

No - i am not planning to become another low rotor inertia statistic, but i would like to understand the constraints... :ok:

---

Ultimately for the Pegasus i would only comment that i'm suprised that several small gearboxes are seen as such difficult things to develope! Surely a chat with say Gleasons (or the Cranfield Gear design course) would be easier than reinventing pressure jet technology? Besides how is the thing going to be yaw controlled, unless the plan is for a NOTAR type steerable nozzle. :confused:

http://www.pegasushelicopters.com/im...00_Slide_3.jpg

Pegasus Signs LOI for Exclusive Distribution Rights of its PHJ200PJ Helicopter in Taiwan

"The letter of intent outlines a four year distribution agreement whereby Walt Guard Technology will distribute 50 assembled PH200PJ helicopters in the first two years and 150 fully certified helicopters in the second and third years to the civilian, industrial and military markets in Taiwan."
Pegasus now has agreements in place to distribute a total of 655 PH200PJ Helicopters (280 kit or assembled and 375 fully certified) over the next four years in China, Brazil, Russia and the Commonwealth of Independent States.
(my highlights)
On above there is no start date for delivery.
Another link but still no helicopter
Nice drawing no helicopter.
Poor video not what is being touted.
Lots of verbal as to what is being promised but still no pre production pictures or video, & they are saying they will show next year at Cardiff ??:{

A part of the Cardiff \ Pembrokeshire release
“Depending on how the funding goes, I would be looking at opening the manufacturing facility in the first quarter of 2010 and, as far as the field demonstrations are concerned, we would be looking at sending a helicopter over to Cardiff some time in July or August this year.

Hi Mart.

This page is out of date. However it does give some of the information on the earlier JAR VLR and some of its link are still working.


This appears to be the September 2003 version

Apparently the latest version must be purchased.

There was mention of "The weight limit is in process of being increased to 750 kg."


Hope that this is of some help.
Dave

Pegasus heli is getting closer http://www.pegasusheli.co.uk/

Without knowing the full story, I'd say it's got enough inertia such that for a loss of thrust, and allowing for the 'standard' reaction times to check down on (or fully lower the collective, given enough height), you'd be able to cushion on in a hovering auto from any height AGL.

eg. low hover - simply freeze collective, wait and cushion at the appropriate time;

medium height - check down on the collective a bit to preserve Nr, then again, wait and cushion on;

high-ish - fully lower collective, fall out of the sky, initial pitch pull when your backside chews a hole in the seat cushion, then use remaining collective to cushion on.

Moved again ?

Pegasus Helicopter Group Ltd.
Product Development Group
Ballymena Business Centre

62 Fenaghy Road
Galgorm Industrial Estate
Galgorm, Ballymena
County Antrim,
Northern Ireland
BT42 1FL
Moved again ?

arm out the window:
The problem with engine failures in the hover is that invariably the real ones take people so much by surprise that there is no time for lowering the collective, even slightly (that's not just my personal experience, but also everyone else I've talked to who has had the same misfortune).
So training people for 'mid' and 'high hover' engine failures with something other than just being able to raise the collective is slightly misleading.
Certainly for certified helicopters, the low hover height for the HV curve is tested only with raising the collective.

This has all the hallmarks of DeLorean, doesn't it?