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Heya All,
Ive had a few questions asked on how to perform mid to high altitude auto rotations.
So, Ile write a small but useful guide
What is an Autorotation?
An Autorotation is procedure carried out when the engine/motor on a Helicopter fails thus failing to provide power to the rotor blades, The act of autorotation is to maintain enough head speed to be able to perform a controlled approach, a flare (to reduce speed) and then to land.
There are 5 Main steps to an Autorotation these are as follows:
1.The Entry into Autorotation (Reducing Collective)
2.Entering the Approach (To Maintain a Steady Glide Path)
3.Controlling the Approach (Maintaining the steady glide path)
4.The Flare (Reducing Speed)
5.The Landing (The Act of Getting the Helicopter on its skids safely)
You may be thinking that this is a really hard to accomplish with no power being driven to the blades, but i assure you it’s not as hard as it sounds, and ile cover all the steps required for you to complete your first successful autorotation .
Prerequisites: You Can land in every orientation, Your engine is set up correctly so that it can go from idle to full throttle without any hesitation or sputter. And some wind, around 5mph to 11mph but not more than 11mph
And, Your Helicopter is setup for Auto rotations for which ile go through very briefly, but will get you going just fine
Pitch Range:
The Pitch Range of a helicopter in the state of autorotation is very important, and needs to be set up and checked correctly, as you dont want to be running out of Rotor RPM and cannot do anything about it because your low end pitch is incorrectly set,
My Pitch Range as Follows,
Normal:
-4 0 10
Idle 1 and 2:
-10 0 10
Throttle Hold:
-10 0 12
As you can see, ive got a full 10 Degree Pitch Range, from Low stick to High Stick, And in Throttle Hold ive got more Pitch for which i will explain later
Your pitch may vary depending on what type and size of helicopter you have,
So, For a beginner:
I recommend -6 as the maximum low stick and +12 at the highest stick position,
More Advanced Pilots Will probably Want Full -10 and +12
Pitch Curve’s
As you may know, The pitch curves are a way of telling your helicopter what pitch should be on the blades at what collective stick position, So for example at mid stick i want 0 Pitch which equates to 50% on the Pitch Curve,
Here are my Pitch Curves that i use:
For normal mode (-4 0 10)
30%,40%,50%,75%,100
Idle Up 1,2 (-10,0,10)
0%, 25%,50%,75%,100%
Hold:
0%, 25%,50%,75%,100%
Now, These curves maybe slightly different to yours, depending on how the helicopter is mechanically set up;
Now, I strongly recommend that your Hold curve is the same as your idle up that gives you -10,0,10 pitch range, but with the added exception of having 2 degrees pitch added to the High Stick Position on the curve, also beginners may like to up the low position on the hold curve to have less decent rate, but i advise to have equal curve within the middle of the curve.
The Reason behind me saying this, is because you don’t want to be pitch jumping when you are performing an autorotation, say for example you flying around at full stick, that gives around +7/8 pitch that a beginner may have, and then you hit throttle hold, and your helicopter briefly zooms up into the air, and then plummets down as the head speed is lost, Catch my Drift?
Once this is set, We can move onto the next step,
The Throttle Hold Throttle Curve
This one is real easy it should be set to:
0%,0%,0%,0%,0%
Now, some of you may have a little throttle curve at the first throttle curve on the other modes so that the engine may idle, this is around 5 to 10 % if so, copy the low end percentage across the whole throttle curve so that your engine will idle when the hold switch is flipped,
But if you are using a JR/Spektrum Transmitter (or any other radio) that has its own menu for setting the “Throttle Hold Percentage” then you can set the throttle hold curve to 0 across the whole range, and then set the desired percentage that the engine idles at in this menu for the switch.
TO BE CONTINUED, STAY TUNED
Just thaught i would post what i have to get some feedback, and a little insight,
And if i get good feeback, would it be possible to have this sticked?
This is all my own work, so please bare with me in delay of adding to the guide
Regards
Callum
Ive had a few questions asked on how to perform mid to high altitude auto rotations.
So, Ile write a small but useful guide
What is an Autorotation?
An Autorotation is procedure carried out when the engine/motor on a Helicopter fails thus failing to provide power to the rotor blades, The act of autorotation is to maintain enough head speed to be able to perform a controlled approach, a flare (to reduce speed) and then to land.
There are 5 Main steps to an Autorotation these are as follows:
1.The Entry into Autorotation (Reducing Collective)
2.Entering the Approach (To Maintain a Steady Glide Path)
3.Controlling the Approach (Maintaining the steady glide path)
4.The Flare (Reducing Speed)
5.The Landing (The Act of Getting the Helicopter on its skids safely)
You may be thinking that this is a really hard to accomplish with no power being driven to the blades, but i assure you it’s not as hard as it sounds, and ile cover all the steps required for you to complete your first successful autorotation .
Prerequisites: You Can land in every orientation, Your engine is set up correctly so that it can go from idle to full throttle without any hesitation or sputter. And some wind, around 5mph to 11mph but not more than 11mph
And, Your Helicopter is setup for Auto rotations for which ile go through very briefly, but will get you going just fine
Pitch Range:
The Pitch Range of a helicopter in the state of autorotation is very important, and needs to be set up and checked correctly, as you dont want to be running out of Rotor RPM and cannot do anything about it because your low end pitch is incorrectly set,
My Pitch Range as Follows,
Normal:
-4 0 10
Idle 1 and 2:
-10 0 10
Throttle Hold:
-10 0 12
As you can see, ive got a full 10 Degree Pitch Range, from Low stick to High Stick, And in Throttle Hold ive got more Pitch for which i will explain later
Your pitch may vary depending on what type and size of helicopter you have,
So, For a beginner:
I recommend -6 as the maximum low stick and +12 at the highest stick position,
More Advanced Pilots Will probably Want Full -10 and +12
Pitch Curve’s
As you may know, The pitch curves are a way of telling your helicopter what pitch should be on the blades at what collective stick position, So for example at mid stick i want 0 Pitch which equates to 50% on the Pitch Curve,
Here are my Pitch Curves that i use:
For normal mode (-4 0 10)
30%,40%,50%,75%,100
Idle Up 1,2 (-10,0,10)
0%, 25%,50%,75%,100%
Hold:
0%, 25%,50%,75%,100%
Now, These curves maybe slightly different to yours, depending on how the helicopter is mechanically set up;
Now, I strongly recommend that your Hold curve is the same as your idle up that gives you -10,0,10 pitch range, but with the added exception of having 2 degrees pitch added to the High Stick Position on the curve, also beginners may like to up the low position on the hold curve to have less decent rate, but i advise to have equal curve within the middle of the curve.
The Reason behind me saying this, is because you don’t want to be pitch jumping when you are performing an autorotation, say for example you flying around at full stick, that gives around +7/8 pitch that a beginner may have, and then you hit throttle hold, and your helicopter briefly zooms up into the air, and then plummets down as the head speed is lost, Catch my Drift?
Once this is set, We can move onto the next step,
The Throttle Hold Throttle Curve
This one is real easy it should be set to:
0%,0%,0%,0%,0%
Now, some of you may have a little throttle curve at the first throttle curve on the other modes so that the engine may idle, this is around 5 to 10 % if so, copy the low end percentage across the whole throttle curve so that your engine will idle when the hold switch is flipped,
But if you are using a JR/Spektrum Transmitter (or any other radio) that has its own menu for setting the “Throttle Hold Percentage” then you can set the throttle hold curve to 0 across the whole range, and then set the desired percentage that the engine idles at in this menu for the switch.
TO BE CONTINUED, STAY TUNED
Just thaught i would post what i have to get some feedback, and a little insight,
And if i get good feeback, would it be possible to have this sticked?
This is all my own work, so please bare with me in delay of adding to the guide
Regards
Callum
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