Looping a lynx - control inputs?
 

I enjoyed watching the Blue Eagles at Middle Wallop on Saturday.

Curious - can anyone explain the control inputs needed for the back flip from high hover?

Imagine being the first person to try that!

The usual "don't try this at home or in a R22" apply....

Not sure on the inputs required for a lynx....but model helicopters are thus:

Collective up (Lots of power), cyclic back to drop tail, as aircraft starts to rotate past about 90 degrees, drop collective back down and allow the aircraft to flop backwards (Upside down)....again once the aircraft has rotated far enough, bring the power back up to pull the ship round to level(hopefully the right way up)...

Thanks, I've got a check ride coming up soon - that'll impress the examiner ;)

Mmmmm ....

I believe the major control inputs involve the tightening of the sphincter muscles!


:E

The fun starts when you exit the flip facing the wrong way...:} They don't always go to plan.:eek:

Just make sure your harness is secure.......:ok:

Forget the harness....just put a nice shiny trailer hitch ball in the middle of the seat....the "Look Ma! No Hands!" mod!

Before you do the display you check on the ground that you can get absolutely full aft cyclic without any restrictions such as the 5 point harness buckle getting in the way.

For the manoeuvre it is 1000' in the hover (some prefer a gentle climb) ideally into wind, ASE out (the gyros will topple anyway) but with the yaw channels in for stability, a deep breath and then full aft cyclic with some left as well to oppose the pitch roll couple that occurs on the Lynx. Hold it and look up for the horizon (just like looping a FW) and then you start to feed in forward cyclic to compensate for flapback. The extra drag on the TOW booms helps control the speed on exit.

It can be done from 1000' hover and recovered to a 700' hover for a second go but it's a lot of 'G' and rattling.

If you can manage to say 'Howaayyy ya foooka' in a Geordie accent as you initiate the manoeuvre then you get extra style marks:)

When was style ever associated with Geordieland?

Imagine being the first person to try that!

I stand to be corrected on this, but I believe this 'back flip' is credited to an old mate of mine Ray Turner (AAC).
Got to admit it looks BRILL:D from the ground but, apparently, is "quite interesting" from inside!
Just had my 6 monthly and altough I did need to impress my examiner - I didn't try this one!


Does anybody know how to fly this thing?

It feels odd because, unlike a loop where you go up before you go down, with a back flip you just fall out of the sky backwards - almost the most fun you can have with your clothes on:)

I'd like to have been a fly on the wall when the "first time" pilot's CO saw it!

Hmm, praps he was the CO...



And a thought has occurred.

If this is no more than a flip-over then is there any reason why it has to be done backwards? Why not a bunt?

So, you're in the hover at 1000' and sharply push the cyclic forward as far as it will go, and hold it there until the world's the right way up again. Yeah. Right. :eek: :eek: :eek:

Well it works in Bolkov... well half of it :}

YouTube - Raab in Gefahr beim Hubschrauberkunstflug

Rainer Wilke, the pilot of the Red Bull 105, is planning to do that. As he said lately in a TV-Spot, it should be possible, they made calculations together with ECD to approve it....
Im looking forward to see the coming videos :ooh:

skadi

Mighty Gem, instead of sneering please use your evidently mighty intellect to inform us why, "when you're in the hover at 1000' and sharply push the cyclic forward as far as it will go, and hold it there until the world's the right way up again" is so obviously differrent to pulling it back sharply until ditto?

If you can...

Well that display makes Dennis K's look like a stroll in the park !!!!

Hoping the Red Bull Team do this again on Sunday :eek:

I heard it was down to Graham Waddington - not that I would wish to steal anything from Ray, who's done very well for a former 'rag-and-shag' bloke.

Another mate, John Carr, offerred to take me along for a demo during my Lynx course. It was veto'd by the grown-ups, although I'm not sure if they were trying to protect me or prevent me from getting ideas above my station.

Personally, I think it's a very impressive move.

G.W. told me back in May that he was the first person to carry out this maneuver.
He was not shooting the sh1t, but the tale came out as a follow up to the conversation we where having, we had not seen each other since we both served on the same Sqn 20 years before.
john

Yes - just imagine - full forward cyclic, losing height quite quickly; 90 deg nose down, really going down quick now; inverted but still going down very very fast, where did that 1000 feet go? Not to mention the negative 'G' and the fact that both the engines would have been starved of oil and blown up.

I suspect that the Red Bull pilot will do it from a high rate of vertical climb or from climbing backwards flight. Good luck:ok:

Back to the flip, so to speak, I believe it was GW and others who started off doing a version of the manoeuvre to get from the high hover (NI Ops) down to low level quickly, a sort of 'over the shoulder' transition. Then it was a case of well if it will do that, will it do this? and the back flip was born.

During the Eurocopter Tiger visit to Australia in 98 or 99, the pilot flipped the Tiger in a backwards loop from the hover (kind of over the shoulder ) back to the hover from no more than 200ft ht. Very impressive.:ooh::ooh::ooh::ooh:
Then the tiger was crashed near Townsville a week or so later. :sad:

More balls than I've got!

Back flip
 

It was down to Graham Waddington, who was being crewed by Ken Beveridge for the Eagles team of 1987 (although it might have been 86) I believe it started as an over the shoulder sort of thing and gradually became more and more upright until it was going straight over. Bit like being in a washing machine on the spin cycle as it goes around very quickly. Little finesse about it, cyclic 'yanked' back as far as it will go. Exciting though. Hi Diginagain, you well?

AB - have you sussed it yet - high-rate control inputs being applied at low loading in a back flip - whereas if you push cyclic forward from hover...........you do know what a cyclic is?

tongue out of cheek now

Old beefers balls!
 

I am sure you and I have done those sorts of things old beefer??

SFF

Shhh Starflex - don't mention getting Pumas upside down;)

Never had the fortune of a ride in the queen of the skies with OB, would like to have though!!

The 'over the shoulder' technique assuming a good rate of rearwards climb could actually result in little more than 50' height loss - just depended on the combination of aft and lateral cyclic (and rate of application). Technically then of course it was more a 'twist' than a back flip.

Doing something totally unrelated - it was at low level on NVG and had an electrical failure.

Quote.
"...........G.W. told me back in May that he was the first person to carry out this maneuver.
He was not shooting the sh1t, but the tale came out as a follow up to the conversation we where having, we had not seen each other since we both served on the same Sqn 20 years before.
john........"

If he did it before 1982, then he may well have been the first.

Helicopter loop
 

how do you loop a helicopter like the BO-105 redbull? at what air speed do you start pulling? colective settings during each segment?.....

Never mind a Bolkow - they are easy with their rigid heads and only weighing about 1.7tonnes. Have a look at the EC225 (circa 8tonnes) about 20 seconds into this clip

You get a very good instructor to teach you in the aircraft rather than asking on here otherwise you will only try it once :(

As SW said - don't try it on your own.

But, this may help Looping a Lynx - control inputs?

Lesson #3

Highly experienced helicopter aerobatic pilot doesn't get away with it this time



Anyone thinking of doing any of this, give your own head a shake!

Hi Guys
For some reason I had Mick Favinger in the frame for the flip :D

First back flip...
 

Not that it helps the first date discussion, but in 1987 I flew the Lynx in all bar the last few displays of the season as got posted to UNFICYP and wasn't about to say no to that! However we only did the over the shoulder pull at that time, although it did get more pitchy and less roll as we got used to it...