RotorHeads

[trillian]

You would normally fly with slight positive pitch on an auto gyro. The rotors are driven round by the fact that the lift vector of the rotor is angled ahead of the axis of the main shaft.. It's exactly the same as a heli in autorotation, 'real' helis also auto with slight positive pitch.

Not with RC autogyros, they're using a different airfoil from a typical heli blade but the lift to drag ratio is very different from full-scale and changes things a bit, so they tend to run slight negative.

[Grumpy]

Here's a page on auto gyro theory, note positive pitch in illustration.
Autogyro History and Theory

[trillian]

Here's a page on auto gyro theory, note positive pitch in illustration.
Autogyro History and Theory

Again, thats full scale. RC gyros run a bit of negative.

[Grumpy]

Agreed (sorry i missed the 'RC' in your reply).... small scale aerodynamics aren't friendly to lift/drag ratio so it doesnt work in quite the same way. I actually have an RC auto gyro, just one of the cheap hobbyking 'Auti-G' jobs. The pitch it uses depends how you choose to measure pitch on what is a non-symmetrical airfoil. It runs near as i can tell zero pitch relative to the chord line of the airfoil (the chord line is what is conventionally used). This is slightly negative if you measure from the 'flat bottom' part of the airfoil, or slightly positive if you measure from the zero lift line. The Auto-G is quite small and rather crude, I'd be confident that larger scale more advanced RC autogyros would be a little closer to full size in their aerodynamics.

They are a strange thing to fly, kinda like a cross between a plane and a helicopter. Guys who try to fly them like a normal plane struggle.

here's mine from a while back:

[trillian]

You've done really well with that one! A couple guys at one of the clubs I used to fly at spent considerable time and effort with very disappointing results. One was a home built model and the other was some kind of kit. They appeared very difficult to get just right.

Agreed (sorry i missed the 'RC' in your reply).... small scale aerodynamics aren't friendly to lift/drag ratio so it doesnt work in quite the same way. I actually have an RC auto gyro, just one of the cheap hobbyking 'Auti-G' jobs. The pitch it uses depends how you choose to measure pitch on what is a non-symmetrical airfoil. It runs near as i can tell zero pitch relative to the chord line of the airfoil (the chord line is what is conventionally used). This is slightly negative if you measure from the 'flat bottom' part of the airfoil, or slightly positive if you measure from the zero lift line. The Auto-G is quite small and rather crude, I'd be confident that larger scale more advanced RC autogyros would be a little closer to full size in their aerodynamics.

They are a strange thing to fly, kinda like a cross between a plane and a helicopter. Guys who try to fly them like a normal plane struggle.

here's mine from a while back:

[Mike Sanders]

Yes that looked good. I have thought about getting an autogyro but our's is a helicopter only club (plus quads and bicycles) so it wouldn't be allowed.

[Grumpy]

They are quite fun but fundamentally flawed. The problem is that they are controlled with conventional control surfaces and/or by moving the fuselage mass around under the rotor like a hang glider. This doesnt really work very well. I figured the ultimate solution would be to use a heli rotor head with a swash allowing cyclic pitch control. I'm sure this would be a game changer in how controllable they are.

It should actually be pretty easy. I figure a cheap 450 heli airframe could be used and basically just take the motor and main-gear off and botch a tractor prop on the front, and an extended (and canted upward) tail boom with a horizontal and vertical stabiliser. Blades would have to be much bigger than a normal 450 but they spin slow so could be DIY jobs carved from balsa and spruce 'old-school style'.

It's on my 'list of projects to do when i get the enthusiasm'

[RichardV]

Oddly enough I spotted one being taken for a maiden today. I hadn't realised there was no swash and no phase lag. The owner said he was running -7 degrees which seemed like quite a lot. After making it fall over a number of times, it eventually got off the ground and flew around. Looked like a handful though.

[trillian]

Oddly enough I spotted one being taken for a maiden today. I hadn't realised there was no swash and no phase lag. The owner said he was running -7 degrees which seemed like quite a lot. After making it fall over a number of times, it eventually got off the ground and flew around. Looked like a handful though.

My guess is that's too much negative and he's having to run at such a high angle of attack that it's unstable. Looks really nicely built though.

[RichardV]

The bit on AccuRC starts at 31:30. I've never really gotten on with my copy, but no doubt I'll try it again sometime this week, just to see what's new.

[bigpops]

I love me some AccuRC. I bought it at launch, and it sucked so bad. Not because it flew poorly or anything like that, just that it didn't seem to be a finished product.

Fortunately, those days are long gone, and it's now the only sim I fly. It gets all the new models, and it flies better than anything else on the market. It just needs more users to fly online. That's the one thing I miss from Phoenix back in the day.

[RichardV]

I'm trying to get into it, but the graphics and visibility just don't work for me. Even in the pics they release (example below), the heli blends into the background and the visibility isn't as good as other sims.

[bigpops]

I see what you mean from that screenshot. It is very flat, with not much shading on the heli itself. Something a 766 shouldn't suffer from, given all the interesting shapes on it.

Voice your issues with the team. They're very keen on making it the choice in helicopter simulation of choice. Something like lighting and contrast should be relatively straightforward to fix, I would have thought.

I can't say I've noticed it in use personally. I find visibility in all sims to be much easier than real life.

[The Tok'ra]

I love me some AccuRC. I bought it at launch, and it sucked so bad. Not because it flew poorly or anything like that, just that it didn't seem to be a finished product.

Fortunately, those days are long gone, and it's now the only sim I fly. It gets all the new models, and it flies better than anything else on the market. It just needs more users to fly online. That's the one thing I miss from Phoenix back in the day.

I too have had AccuRC since it came out, but I have used it very little since, like you, I found it to be a bit rough around the edges, and I found the Tx interface to be hard to get decent throws with on cyclic. I have an account with Steam, but I've yet to DL the latest version. I think I will now though.

I must be worth another try!!

[RichardV]

I can't say I've noticed it in use personally. I find visibility in all sims to be much easier than real life.

What camera settings do you use? I've tried playing around with the zoom, but in general I find the heli gets too small to follow at halfway across the strip. Even in medium size loops the heli isn't easy to see. Adrian said they were looking at it, but I can't understand why everyone else seems fine.