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On Jan 19, 9:10 pm, "Steve R." wrote:

Where did you get that from? I'm not sure I agree with it. The
experimental gyros I've looked at may not have a swash plate like a
helicopter does but rather, tilts the rotor hub relative to the plane of
the
rotor disk. The net effect of that is to apply a cyclic pitch action to
the
main blades and they react 90 degrees in the direction of rotation per
gyroscopic precession.

What info source are you looking at?

Steve R.

Hi Steve,

I got my info from an article written by: Don McCoy, via regalpony.ca
and found on asra.org.au

A summary, in his own words: (gyroplanes)

The joystick is moved to the right causing the rotor head axis to tilt
to the right and out of alignment with the rotor axis. The pivoting
motion of the teeter bolt causes the pitch angle of the blades to van.
during the rotation. increasing the lift at the front and reducing it
at the rear. The resulting large torque due to the aerodynamic effects
of the change in pitch is directed to the right and causes the rotor
axis (angular momentum of the rotors) to rotate to the right following
the rotor head axis. As the rotor axis comes back in line with the
tilted rotor head axis, the pitch angle ceases to vary and the lift
from the front and rear rotor blade equalises, the torque vanishes and
the rotors are tilted to the right to initiate the turn.

It's a long article. I'm happy with his explanation as per gyroplanes.
i.e.: a gryoplane uses an unpowered rotor (as you know) and the whole
body of the gyroplane hangs from the gimble head. But on a helicopter,
the rotor is powered and operates like a fan, the helicopter body is
firmly fixed to rotor head.

anyway, what's your opinion of how precession works on a helicopter?


Hi Handel.barz,

Thanks for the quote. Some of what he's saying makes sense to me, some of
it doesn't. I don't understand where this "large torque" caused by the
pilots control input is coming from. The gyros rotor system is in a
perpetual state of autorotation and there is no torque involved, per say.
Moving the control as the author says will indeed cause an increase in the
pitch of one blade while decreasing it on the other. That will increase the
aerodynamic drag of the one blade while decreasing it on the other but
that's not applying a "torque" to the system one way or the other as far as
I can tell. The change in pitch alone will also cause a difference in lift
on opposite sides of the rotor disk and the blades will precess (sp?) and
change the plane of rotation of the rotor disk as a result. In my mind,
it's pretty much the same thing a helicopter does, only the cyclic pitch
change is achieved via a swashplate on the helicopter as apposed to changing
the attitude of the rotor hub itself relative to the rotor mast to do the
same thing.

The one thing you quoted that I'll definitely take exception to it the
sentence that says "the helicopter body is firmly fixed to the rotor head."
That may be true in some cases but definitely not in all of them. The
experimental gyros I've looked at (Air Command, Dominator, Little Wing,
Sport Copter, and others) all have a fixed pitch (no collective capability)
under slung teetering rotor systems. That is a very common rotor design for
a number of helicopters too with the exception that the helicopters have
collective pitch. Some of the helicopters that come to mind that also use
an under slung teetering rotor hub are the Jet Ranger, Huey's, the old Bell
47's, Robinson's, and Rotorway's Exec on the experimental side. Their rotor
hubs look a bit difference but they have similar characteristics and
restrictions while flying. For example, none of them handle sustained low
or negative G loads for very long.

FWIW! :-)
Steve R.