Tom Wright 2 Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 My old Piper Cub with wing damage had been neglected due to the fact that much larger Cubs now inhabit my hanger ,so following an evenings work making a wing mount plate mast and adding set of 450 rotors saw the model ready for a try the following day . The first flight saw the model climbing away nice and straight with just a click or two required for roll and pitch trim with the coupled rudder giving a nice flat turn into the cross wind leg .She held directional stability well on finals and touched down smoothly despite the narrow track undercarriage ....more later. Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cyclicscooby Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Fair play Tom... You make it sound really easy..! Looks suprisingly good for a Heinz 57.. Puv Chrisie.. xx Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 22, 2014 Author Share Posted May 22, 2014 Hi Chrisie Thanks for the post , TBQH it was easy and it flies so well that I have now recovered the blades to match the Cub Yellow and have started on a mast mount faring to tidy things up,and might even re do the fin to improve the looks . Just in case you get around to having a dabble with rotary wings all the tricky bits you need to convert a fixed wing are available from AJ Blades and Malcolm at Coolwind Models . The simple mast mount plate is held on by a front peg and two T/E bolts, so conversion back to fixed wing can be done at the field . I know you like a challenge so why not have a go . Tom. Edited By Tom Wright 2 on 22/05/2014 21:42:55 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Jones Posted May 22, 2014 Share Posted May 22, 2014 Tom , I like that . I am up for a challenge what about this . I have repaired the fuzz already . incidentally this is another model i was given as the owner tried several times but could not get it to fly , So how would one go about it ? Cheers Steve , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 22, 2014 Author Share Posted May 22, 2014 Hi Steve It looks similar to something DB did some time ago. Do you intend to ditch the wing and convert to a single rotor? if so its a matter of firstly predicting the AUW ,.This can then be used to establish blade size and rotor loading. It looks to be close to panther size or is it smaller? Tom. Edited By Tom Wright 2 on 22/05/2014 22:46:47 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Jones Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Hi tom , I intend to go for a single rotor . I will find more about its size later , Cheers Steve , Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 After covering the blades to match the rest ,today I found a better looking prop and spinner combo , finished off the mast and made a start on the mast base faring . As a finishing touch I might also add some to the U/C legs. Incidentally this model has single axis head with pitch controlled by elevator so to optimise the mast angle the mast has a pivot bolt at the base and a through bolt fish plate slot above to facilitate adjustment between three and six degrees. The mast ,head ,and rotors are as per a standard CFL , but with a cosmetic addition to stream line the roll servo . Will get a photo of the tided up version tomorrow. Tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Richard Harris Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Tom, Your getting the taste for it again! nice work as always. Steve, Tom is correct, what you have is a David Boddington designed 'Gyrace', there are two types of blades shown on the plan. The first is a 4 bladed rotor made with 1/8" sheet hard balsa overlapped in the centre to give incidence as per his earlier DB sport Gyro. With the second version having 3 lifting blades as per what you have, these have an alloy blade holder which is twisted to give the profiled blades a tad of negative incidence. Not really a true autogyro but alot of fun! A single rotor conversion would be a pretty easy, as you can see from the photo it is pretty similar in size to the Panther. If you copy the panther mast and shoe horn it to fit the Gyrace I am sure it would work. And here is a video of my friend Joe Waldo with his Gyrace conversion being flown back in 2008 at the US's gyro meet in Morris Illinois. He has several including an enlarged version, clever chap who helped me a lot when I first started out with these contraptions! Sorry for the crash on the thread Tom. Rich Edited By Richard Harris on 23/05/2014 19:39:41 Edited By Richard Harris on 23/05/2014 19:40:31 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Nice one Rich , I prefer the "Gyrace" as a wingless single rotor , Steve could have the conversion done ready for Winterton . Flew the Cub again this evening and was quite surprised at how it coped in the blowy conditions , I am now contemplating converting a 72" 182 . Tom Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Jones Posted May 23, 2014 Share Posted May 23, 2014 Thank you Richard , For the reply , And the info and especially the Video . As i do not have the plan nor do i wish to buy the plan for the Gyrace, as i would much prefer a true Auto gyro . And so now i know of a mast and blades i can copy / use . and also the video shows how the landing gear needs to be set-up so that my prop is at 90 degrees to the ground when sat on the ground . And i presume that the angle of my blades should match that of the panther ? . Cheers Steve , Ps i few my AutoG again the other week so i am officially the 1st person to successfully fly a auto gyro at are field and it was witness by our club secretary and other club members . Although i only managed a couple of circuits before the battery started to lose power and so landed . I am thinking of strapping a 2200Mah battery between the under carriage to give me more air time . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tom Wright 2 Posted May 23, 2014 Author Share Posted May 23, 2014 Steve Did you check how much was left in the battery? If the motor is under propped then it could be hard to maintain height as the battery gets down to about 60% remaining . Tom. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stephen Jones Posted May 24, 2014 Share Posted May 24, 2014 Hi Tom , Yes i did i think it was down to 3.7 per cell . Steve . Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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