boB: I know a little bit about the Butterfly thing. The 4th picture down
on the left of the first website listed is a picture of me in my crack hat
sitting on the Super SkyCycle. I met Larry Neal, the SkyCycle designer a
number of years ago when we were producing the Popular Rotorcraft Magazine.
Larry had just acquired the job of Test Pilot of the Carter Copter, which
BTW, he successfully flew to an airspeed exceeding Mu 1. Larry is a very
ethical guy and a very knowledgeable gyro pilot and designer. I have
watched him demonstrate that landing gear of his by stopping the gyro about
10' in the air and letting it come down on its own from losing blade speed.
He adds throttle and takes off again to repeat the maneuver. I believe that
if Larry gives you a performance spec about his machine, you can take it to
the bank. If I was going to go back to the gyro flying, his ship would be
the first in line for me.
BTW squared, In the process of doing the PRA magazine we met and spent some
time with Comander Ken Wallis who is the UK gyro king. He did all of the
flying for the James Bond movie that had the "Little Nellie" gyro. He
doesn't share the statements that both horizontal stabilizers and center
line thrust are a must. At least in his experience, and I might add mine
(both my wife and I self taught in a Benson back in the late 60s and never
dinged the ship and flew in a variety of conditions). This is not to say
that some ships with an abundance of body work forward of the mast can't
benefit from both things tho. I think that the two seat side-by-side gyros
like the RAF and Sparrohawk would certainly fly different in gusty winds
than the skimpy single seat Benson that I used to fly.
--
Stuart Fields
Experimental Helo magazine
P. O. Box 1585
Inyokern, CA 93527
(760) 377-4478
(760) 408-9747 general and layout cell
(760) 608-1299 technical and advertising cell
www.vkss.com
www.experimentalhelo.com
"boB" wrote in message
...
Has anyone seen, or read about, that Skycycle?
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/gallery.htm
http://javimoya.com/blog/youtube_en.php
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/images/002.jpg
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/images/012.jpg
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/images/001.jpg
http://www.thebutterflyllc.com/sscycle/images/010.jpg
--
boB
copter.six