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Dennis Fetters Mini 500



 
 
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  #61  
Old June 21st 04, 12:37 AM
Hoppy
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John wrote:
Me thinks he (D.F.)talks to much?


Yup. Vulgar insults and name calling for a while, then he switches to
"diplomatic" mode and tries to pass himself off as being a professional. It's a
facade.

Occasionally, someone posts a reply that leaves him speechless...
http://www.google.com/groups?hl=en&l... le.com&rnum=9

.... and he disappears back under his rock, lurking.

Always comes back though, like those punching-bag clowns that pop back up!

  #62  
Old June 21st 04, 01:29 AM
Dennis Fetters
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Hoppy wrote:
John wrote:

Me thinks he (D.F.)talks to much?



Yup. Vulgar insults and name calling for a while, then he switches to
"diplomatic" mode and tries to pass himself off as being a professional. It's a
facade.



Please show us my vulgar insults you say I made. Please show us where I
have been other than an adult in my writings. As for being a
professional, forget it, I don't need to any longer. I'm just one of you
turds now, only growen up.


Occasionally, someone posts a reply that leaves him speechless...
http://www.google.com/groups?hl=en&l... le.com&rnum=9

... and he disappears back under his rock, lurking.



Nothing to discuss I already spent the time answering his inaccurate
accusations before. Just because someone repeats them later don't make
them true.


Always comes back though, like those punching-bag clowns that pop back up!



So says you. What's worse, calling someone a punching bag clown, or
being someone that enjoys the childish punching of a punching bag
clowns? I don't need to play children's games.

Dennis Fetters

  #64  
Old June 21st 04, 03:58 AM
Dennis Fetters
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Hoppy wrote:
Occasionally, someone posts a reply that leaves him speechless...
http://www.google.com/groups?hl=en&l... le.com&rnum=9

... and he disappears back under his rock, lurking.



Yes, read it again, still stand behind my post he answered. But lets
take a closer look and I'll answer it now that I got some time to do so,
since you opened the topic.



Dennis Fetters wrote in message
...
Ken,

All that you said below is false, and meant in a flaming manner. You
do not conduct yourself here as a person that could have something
valuable to say. You are full of insults and unfounded information,
and just another big mouth.

What did you do for gyros besides fly them around? I took the sport
out of decay and gave it new life and shipped out over 1200 aircraft
world wide, experimented with different and new designs and engines,
and was the first to bring Rotax to the sport as a viable engine
alternative. I made a machine that was convertible from a single plac
to a side by side or tandem two place. I have won more awards at that
time than any other PRA member for my designs and competition,
including the PRA Man and Machine award. In fact they stopped letting
me compete to give the others a chance!

Up until I sold the company, there had never been a single instance of
a crash due to a failed part. The machine flew very well, and hundreds
are still flying today, nearly 20 years later.

Now, what have you done for the sport?

Talk all you want, because you come off sounding more like someone
with a big mouth that need washed out rather then someone that knows
about what he's talking about.

Dennis Fetters


Ken Wrote:
"Finally Fetters, we can cut to the chase. You have never designed
anything. All you did was start with a "borrowed" concept and alter
and modify it during a period when the gyro community at large was
still ignorant as to the fatal design flaws in what you were peddling."


Answer:
This is not true. I have designed the Commander gyroplane series, the
Mini-500, the Voyager-500 and now the Star-Lite RPV helicopter. I did
it, I copied them from no one. They did not exist before I designed and
built them. That is a fact.

I think what ken was trying to say is I have invented nothing. I have
said it before, I have invented nothing that has not been done by
someone before. I did not invent the gyrocopter and I did not invent the
helicopter. In fact, I learned from what others did and applied that to
my own designs.


Ken Wrote:
"This is where I have to jump in and acknowledge your greatest talent,
marketing. I don't deny you this skill. It was great. You were able
to sell hundreds and hundreds of design flawed, dangerous machines."


Answer:
It is stupid to say that my designs were flawed when there has never
been an accident caused by the failure of a component in one of my
designs that was installed and maintained correctly. My designs are
still flying today all around the world. They fly stable. Can they be
made better? Sure, we learn as we go and we apply. If I was to design
another gyroplane I would do if differently. But the old Air Commands
flew fine and still do, or can you just ignore all the times you saw me
and customers flying them at the air shows?


Ken Wrote:
"When the fatality rate of your ill-designed product started getting
people killed left and right, they were banned and grounded in Great
Britain."


Answer:
That is not an accurate statement. The UK distributor was soloing his
customers with only 5 hours of instruction, and the deaths were due to
the inexperienced pilots flying in windy conditions which exceeded their
ability. The UK distributor quit after I told the CAA that 5 hours was
totally inadequate. Then since there was no distributor, and I was
selling Air Command an was no longer the one who needed to replace the
distributor, the CAA grounded the aircraft's due to lack of support.


Ken Wrote:
"You proudly state that no one was killed from a failed
component. That may be 100% correct. The fact is that they were
killed from an aeronautically flawed design that you peddled as safe
and easy to fly, just as the idiots at RAF continue to do today."


Answer:
When I came into the gyroplane business, I increased the number of
gyroplanes being sold at that time from about an average of 5 in the
world per month to about 12.5 being sold in the world per month. In fact
when I owned Air Command, within a year we were selling 98% of all
gyroplanes being sold in the world. Suddenly the worlds gyroplane sales
had more than doubled per month and had a steady growth until I sold the
company years later. Naturally the accident rate was going to clim just
due to increased attrition. Yet we did not have 98% of all the
accidents at that time. As a matter of fact, even though 98 out of 100
gyroplanes being sold and flown were Air Commands, 2 out of 5 accidents
involved other than an Air Command Gyroplanes.


Ken Wrote:
"The fact is, that a high thrust-line gyro without a stab is not safe
and easy to fly. It flies at the outside edge of the envelope where the
slightest mis-maneuver or downdraft, especially during take-off at
full throttle, can easily and regularly does, kill the occupant(s)."


Answer:
That is not true. Anyone that has flown an AIr Command can tell you they
were very stable and flew well. In fact, just remember the Kin Brock
routines performed every year at Oshkosh. He flew on the edge and always
came back. So did I, at air shows all around the world, and I'm still here.

Now, if you take a low time pilot with inadequate training, he can get
into trouble. But that can happen even on one of those ugly center line
thrust gyrothings.


Ken Wrote:
"Accolades from the PRA at the time you were in the gyro business is no
great fete. The PRA at that time, and I am a current member,
consisted mainly of a very small bunch of good old boys, on the edge
of the experimental pool, with no knowledge of basic aeronautics, save
for a select few who were primarily ignored by the majority."


Answer:
Dude, it was the "members" that voted me in for the Man and Machine
award. Did you receive it yet? As for your description of the board, I
have to agree.


Ken Wrote:
"We're still the ******* children of aviation."


Answer:
Agreed.


Ken Wrote:
"As more and more educated people got interested and started flying
gyros, the fatal design flaws
in gyros as yours began to be addressed by people who actually
understood them."


Answer:
I have to agree that people will learn, and yes I did bring a lot of
people to a dying sport that gave it a new beginning, and some of them
have potential to advance the sport. As for flaws? The Air Command flew
great with a trained pilot. They were never meant to be flown by anyone
other then a trained gyroplane pilot. What you call a flaw on a 20 year
old design is merely a characteristic that a pilot was trained to easily
avoid. Like ground looping a taildrager. It's not a flaw, it's a
characteristic you train for.


Ken Wrote:
"For the most part, the PRA is embarrassed that they
ever handed you the awards and wishes they could take them back.
After all, they were clearly merely for marketing, even if the PRA
didn't know it at the time."


Answer:
Sure they are. Tell them to come and ask for it back. Well, I did ****
some of those good old boys off a few times when I told them they didn't
know their head from a coconut.


Ken Wrote:
"You wouldn't even recognize the Air
Command of today. To stop the slaughter, it has been completely
redesigned with a center-line thrust and huge horizontal stabilizer.
That's the only way the name could be continued, to fix the pooorly
designed contraption you were peddling."


Answer:
You're right, I wouldn't. It's one ugly critter now. But the accident
rate went down for one reason and one reason only. After I sold the
company the sales dropped from 150 a year to 5 or 10 a year. We won't
even mention the dollars it made by the change with 1200 potential mods
to be sold.


Ken Wrote:
"Your basic ignorance of gyro design is magnified by the recent comment
that you made, that you have so many hours in gyros and you never
noticed any difference in flying one with a center-line thrust or not."


Answer:
So say you, who ever you are? Ken, denying my experience in gyroplanes
is ridiculous. I think you are just jealous of my accomplishments. Go
out there an accomplish something and then come back here and talk.


Ken Wrote:
"You don't notice the lack of a serious design flaw until you're dead,
as so many of your customers and RAF's customers are. We could take
you in a car, get it going 75 m.p.h. on the freeway, have you take
over the wheel and tool along for a few miles. We would tell you to
coast it to a stop and then inform you that the car had no brakes.
Your obvious comment would then be that you didn't notice any
difference in how it drove with brakes or not. That's the point
Fetters, you don't recognize design-flaws until it is too late, until
something occurs where that flaw now rears its head and kills you.
Your flaws, that you didn't and still don't because of ignorance get,
have killed numerous people, both in your design-flawed gyros and Mini
500s."


Answer:
All talk, worthless talk. You have no idea what I know. For you to even
pretend to is foolish and wishful thinking.


Ken Wrote:
"The problem with you, the same as with LaFleur at RAF, is that neither
of you have any common sense or learning ability, that having been
replaced by giant egos in a futile attempt to compensate. You both
took basic designs and modified them without thinking, to what you
thought the masses wanted and then marketed the hell out of them and
damned be the consequences. At both endeavors, knowledgeable people
tried to warn you and educate you, even within your company, but you
thought that you knew better, when in fact you know diddly about gyro
aeronautics."


Answer:
I can't speak for LaFleur, but what you said above has nothing to do
with me. Denying my aircraft flew well is done so in ignorance. The
facts say otherwise. I always took advice anytime I could get it. I used
any good idea someone gave me.


Ken Wrote:
"What have I done besides flying them? I was the first one to bring a
horizontal stabilizer to market to correct this flaw in the RAF."


Answer:
Whoop-de-doo!! Wow, really? So you took someone else's gyroplane they
designed and manufactured and added a horizontal stabilizer that has
been flying on aircraft for 100 years?? You da man! Ken, anyone in a
barn could have done that. Is that your great accomplishment that makes
you all high and mighty?


Ken Wrote:
"I sold a good number and probably saved numerous people from bunting
over and dying.....exactly the opposite of what you and RAF have done."


Answer:
Wait, I know they needed a horizontal stabilizer since day one. I told
them that. All gyroplanes that have a pod or enclosure need one. Only
open air gyroplanes can get away without a horizontal stabilizer. Even
Kin Wallis agrees.


Ken Wrote:
"All that your modifications have done is caused people to die.
Within a year of being introduced to gyros, I was able to learn of
this basic flaw and do something about it. All you have done is get
people killed in your ill-conceived contraptions. As long as you have
been peddling gyros and helis, you still have not learned the very
basic concepts as to what is safe and what is not. All you had to do
was to seek out the information, but you were too lazy and air-headed
to ever do it."


Answer:
There you go again. Assuming what someone you don't know knows or don't
know. I designed, manufactured and sold 1700 aircraft so far, and you
call me lazy? You, someone that has made a few fiberglass horizontal
stabilizers and sold them? Design your own aircraft and sell them, then
try and tell someone what they know and don't know, and how lazy they are.


Ken Wrote:
"From your semi-literate postings, I think that I can safely assume
that you have a difficult time with writing (obvious) using proper
spelling, punctuation and grammar. This almost always relates to
difficulty in reading. People that have a hard time reading are
usually loathe to accept either new or even proven ideas, because
they'd have to read some technical data. Due to your ignorance and
difficulty in writing and reading basic English, I'm sure you'd have a
giant migraine by the 3rd paragraph. So I understand people like you
and LaFleur and why you act the way you do, with callousness,
non-caring and total blame-shifting to your victims. But
understanding you is not sufficient, as you and he won't change your
ignorant ways. People like you need to be constantly exposed to the
daylight and as many as possible warned to keep them safe from your
ignorant fallacies. That is why I spend a good portion of my valuable
time exposing phonies and charlatans like you and Don. It's worth it
if even one life is saved, something that you and he never showed the
slightest concern about."


Answer:
Ken, you talk a lot. And that's about all you have accomplished. You
keep talking, and I'll keep designing and building. After all, you think
you got us all figured out. A guy like you must have a lot of time to
think and imagine. Why don't you spend that time doing something
significant in your life rather then worrying about someone else that
has done the things you wish you could do, and then complaining about them.

Dennis Fetters

  #66  
Old June 21st 04, 04:27 AM
B2431
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Default

Why didn't the Mini 500 have autorotation?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired
  #68  
Old June 21st 04, 04:34 AM
RobertR237
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Posts: n/a
Default


John wrote:
Me thinks he (D.F.)talks to much?


Yup. Vulgar insults and name calling for a while, then he switches to
"diplomatic" mode and tries to pass himself off as being a professional. It's
a
facade.

Occasionally, someone posts a reply that leaves him speechless...

http://www.google.com/groups?hl=en&l...lm=7fffb206.03

02161431.43f7ee42%40posting.google.com&rnum=9

... and he disappears back under his rock, lurking.

Always comes back though, like those punching-bag clowns that pop back up!


As long as he stays OUT OF THE BUSINESS, who cares.


Bob Reed
www.kisbuild.r-a-reed-assoc.com (KIS Builders Site)
KIS Cruiser in progress...Slow but steady progress....

"Ladies and Gentlemen, take my advice,
pull down your pants and Slide on the Ice!"
(M.A.S.H. Sidney Freedman)

  #69  
Old June 21st 04, 05:00 PM
Dennis Fetters
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Posts: n/a
Default

B2431 wrote:

You got me there, but I'm afraid you must do better.

Dennis Fetters



Why? I'm not taking sides here, but you did duck the question I asked a few
days ago. Why did the mini 500 not have autorotation?

Dan, U.S. Air Force, retired



I'm sorry Dan, I didn't duck any question intentionally. If you asked
it, I don't recall you asking me directly or I would have answered.

The Mini-500 has excellent autorotation characteristics. Better than
most helicopters. In fact, we would demonstrate autorotations at the air
shows starting from hundreds of feet high or starting at ten's of feet
high, followed by an unusual slow decent of 45 mph and completing in a
zero slideon landings. In fact, the Mini-500 had such a good combination
of inertia, blade efficiency and low drag drive system that we
demonstrated hovering autorotations from as high as 15 feet at air shows.

Congratulations to Space ship one. The real door to space is open.

Sincerely,

Dennis Fetters

 




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