Panther Trainer Autogyro

[Steve Jones 2]

Key to the pop bottle and heat gun method is to get the bottle to shrink as little as possible. Select a bottle only just larger than plug or if bottle bigger fill Behring plug with scraps. If you ask bottle go shrink too much it won’t and will bubble and burn as you apply more heat to try and increase shrinking

good luck Steve

[Richard Harris]

Richard,

Steve is spot on, shrinking too much makes the plastic ripple then it crystallizes, less is better.

 

Good to hear you have them both flying well, funny thing is that BURKY started out of as a bit of an experiment in readiness for a scale subject using the rear of the fuselage as its primary vertical area, a great flier but better suited to calmer weather with those slab sides. Where as the Panther is a different beast as it will fly in almost any conditions. The rudder and roll combination that you are starting to get the hang of is excellent, you will be surprised at just how much it will improve your fixed wing flying. I cant believe I flew for years happy using roll to turn and rudder to do the odd stall turn, knife edge or spin, a powerful control in the right circumstances.

I look forward to hearing how you get on with 2 Panthers in the air at once, thanks for the nice feedback.

 

Rich

Edited By Richard Harris on 20/02/2019 20:56:29

[David P Williams]

I've almost finished building my Panther, just finishing the blades. The instructions from the mag say to drill the mounting holes ON the chordwise CofG line, whereas the instructions for the Atom I built a while back, and those for the Revolver in the latest mag, say to drill the holes 1mm behind the CofG line. Is this correct? Does it make much difference?

Thanks, David

[Richard Franks]

Hi David

I am still fairly new wit AG models and flying but beginning to succeed with both aspects.I have built 5 AG~s but only one Panther.Most AG~S suggest cog line for blades slightly back from the balance line.My panther was 2mm back and flew on its maiden with no trim at all.I think there are 2 important issues(1) The models COG must be spot on.I used the COG shown on the plan using the fitting of brass collars on the mast then getting the balance spot on via a rod through .(ie I did not try the hang angle approach) NO ROTORS attached .If its electric make sure you fit the battery!

(2) when drilling the Rotor mounting holes make sure they are all in exactly the same position..I had my rotors stacked on top of each other ,clamped and then used a pillar drill with the correct size drill.

As a final note I am now skinning my rotor Blades with lightweight glass cloth/resin. It adds very little weight but the increased strength is incredible.(have landed in a tree with no damage to the rotors at all)

I will be interested to hear from others especially ~the master~ Mr Harris should he read this

Regards

Richard Franks

[Richard Harris]

Hi David,

The choice is yours, that said, if you drill the mounting hole on the CG make sure that the blades are fully covered first as they can become 'tail heavy' after covering. For this reason I now drill the mounting holes 1mm behind the CG as a get out of jail card.

Just like our fixed wings a tail heavy blade can become pitch sensitive, this can cause them to go out of track which, in turn causes vibration which isn't good through the head and controls.

Personally, I mark and drill each blade individually purely for the reason as I cant guarantee each will have a matching CG position (wood density variation and my building etc)

Hope this make sense?

Rich

[David P Williams]

Thanks Rich. The blades are covered already, and the chordwise CofGs are all very slightly different, so I will mark and drill them individually.

Thanks for your help,

[Richard Franks]

This is very interesting so will be drilling my mounting holes individually in future .Are there likely to be any Autogyro fly in~s this year? I am based on the Kent coast.

One silly question about flying the Autogyro. I have found height and descent are dictated by power (throttle control).If, like a fixed wing plane, your applied ~down elevator~ to an Autogyro would it descend or just slow up the rotor speed or both?

Waiting for the wind to drop and getting itchy fingers.

Richard Franks

[Big T]

Posted by Richard Franks on 15/04/2019 10:26:09:

This is very interesting so will be drilling my mounting holes individually in future .Are there likely to be any Autogyro fly in~s this year? I am based on the Kent coast.

One silly question about flying the Autogyro. I have found height and descent are dictated by power (throttle control).If, like a fixed wing plane, your applied ~down elevator~ to an Autogyro would it descend or just slow up the rotor speed or both?

Waiting for the wind to drop and getting itchy fingers.

Hi Richard, yes there will be fly ins this year. First one is up in Peterborough around the 4th of May. Location and dates of others usually revolve around the UK meet at Winterton MFC.

This is not a silly question at all. "down elevator" or forward rotor tilt is a control we prefer not use on Delta heads when the model is in the air. We would use it to stop the rotors on the ground. The reason is that it can stop the blades spinning very quickly. With tractor models it will nearly always result in the nose tucking under and once the top of the blade hits the air flow there will be no lift. So in a way you are correct. There would be a sudden descent and the rotor would stop! What you can do for a rapid controlled descent is to pull pack on the rotor and increase the revs. This has the effect of slowing the model forward flight right down and increasing the head speed. Vertical descent is then controlled by the use of both controls.

[John Burrill]

I built the Panther autogyro from plans in the special issue of the magazine published in late 2018. It was an enjoyable build, and I'm happy with the results. However, I have never even seen one fly except in videos, and my attempt at a maiden flight resulted in a quick left roll while on the take-off run. I went back and read the comments on page 5 in this thread, and have an idea now about how to do better. My question relates to c of G as indicated on the plans and "hang angle", and the relationship between them. My Panther hangs at about 15 degrees with the batteries (2 3S 1300mAh in parallel) installed and the blades removed. Suspending it from the C of G shown in the plan near the base of the mast, it hangs tail low. It takes about 5 ounces of weight in the battery compartment to bring it level. Do I need the weight, or should I go with the 15 degree hang angle? BTW I added a very slight right thrust with a washer under the motor mount. Motor is an Eflite Power 32. Any suggestions?

[Richard Harris]

John,

Welcome to the forum, I had an email only a few weeks ago regarding something similar with a second hand Panther a gent had bought. He couldn't get the hang angle yet the model balanced an the plan CG. I asked him to send me a photo and was soon obvious what was going on, the head was round the wrong way.

Now I'm not saying this is what has happened to yours but if the CG is correct then perhaps the centre line of the spindle is in the right place? Its so easy to get it off its correct centre, I have done this many many times. The important thing is the distance between the horizontal CG and the distance back to the rotor spindle centre. The before and after photos from the email are shown below.

Rich

 

 

 

Edited By Richard Harris on 17/04/2019 09:44:05

[John Burrill]

Thank Rich. I do have the head the correct way, The spindle center line is just about above the roll axis control horn, which seems about right. If I understand correctly, I should add enough nose weight so it hangs level from the C of G point, where I have a hole through the mast. That will make the hang angle about 20 degrees.

[Richard Harris]

John,

If it hangs in that position it should be fine

Rich

[Dominique Mongrain]

good day to you i have a question for richard harris i want to construct the autogyro matis it is possible to buy the plan (paper or pdf)version thank you merci dominique mongrain

[email protected]

[Michael Pirie]

Having just recently become a gyronut, I thought I would post a few pics of my Panther Autogyro which, after quite a few false starts, finally took to the air! I seemed to get everything about right, except the roll position which needed a LOT of left trim. Luckily I had increased the trim step before the flight. The power train used is a Turnigy G10-810, 13 x 5 HSF wood and 3s-2600 LiPo. Having thoroughly enjoyed the autogyro experience, I intend building a second one. Do I build the RPG or the Revolver? Recommendations please!

[Bob Bertram]

Very nice Michael, love the colour scheme.

[Denis Watkins]

Posted by Michael Pirie on 21/10/2019 19:07:36:

Tremendous picture Michael

[Richard Harris]

Michael,

That's one nice looking Panther, congratulations

RPG or Revolver ? They both fly well and you can utilise the Panther rotor blades on both. The RPG is bigger than the Revolver and requires making the head yourself (as per the Panther) where as the Revolver uses the Razer unit.

It personal choice but, you could always build both!

Rich

[Michael Pirie]

Thanks Rich! The RPG is favourite at the moment. After watching some videos on Youtube it appears to be more agile and has a good range of speed. Looking forward to it!

[Big T]

Thats a nice Panther. The RPG was first gyro and since then I have built 3 for myself and 3 for friends. Its a great model. My tips for modding the plan are make the top deck removable to aid easy change of battery, I make the nose slightly longer and hollow to allow lead as an easy way to get the weight forward if needed, make the rear boom from square carbon tube, mount the rudder servo under the fuz with either pull pull or a push rod. I also made the stab out of laminated dollar tree or depron. Also one of my flying sites was very bumpy to a ditched the piano wire undercart for one piece of alloy.

[Michael Pirie]

Thanks for that useful info. Must finish my current project first, but hopefully have one ready for spring!

[Richard Harris]

Always good to hear people are still building the Panther, here is Emanuel's Stassar's example which is soon to be featured in Dutch RC magazine 'Drones Un Modelvliegen'.

I think the orange one is his club mates and has yet to fly.

He has also drawn up and 3d printed his add on cylinders, the files for these are available free to anyone who wants them HERE

This was his first flight of the 'Pink Panther' back in January before he added detail, he flies it really well.

Rich

[Richard Harris]

Here is another Panther built by Henry in the UK, looks great.

Rich

[Richard Franks]

Built another Burky but on maiden it just climbed out, half loop and then came down.I have had success with the others but this one appeared to have no cyclic control at all.The only difference was that the blades were glass cloth covered which added about 30g extra for the three blades could it be the fuselage was tilting and not the rotor?.,its repaired now so was thinking of trying it with lighter blades?

Starting the El Bandito today.. will a 30 fourstroke be OK ,just like the sound....

Richard

[Richard Harris]

hi Richard,

It could well be the extra weight in the blades, generally a pitch up is caused by a head plate that is too stiff or to much lift being created from the blades. If you add a touch of shim under each blade this will kill a little lift which in turn should bring the nose down. Plus it will help with RPM making cyclic a bit sharper.

Looking forward to seeing El Bandito in the making, if you get chance please add a few photos?

Rich

[David Oatham]

Hello Richard and all reading this forum.

Being a fixed wing pilot of more years than I care to remember, I am quite new to the world of model autogyros. I'm currently gradually getting the hang (excuse the pun!) of flying my first model, the Atom. I was interested in your reply to Richard Franks' problem where you mention that his head plate may be too stiff. Because I've now broken several head plates on my Atom due to take-off 'incidents' (model always rolling left on lift-off), I've now doubled-up to have 2 layers of gf plate (2 x 0.8mm) on the head plate. presumably this is a bad idea?

Following on, I'm currently building a Panther which is coming on very well, and I am going to power it with an OS 40FS. I was planning to use some paxolin sheet for it's head plate which I think I've seen mention of in this forum. I am now a bit concerned as paxolin doesn't flex very much

I would be grateful of any advice / comments.

Dave